(Minghui.org) On April 25, 1999, more than ten thousand Falun Gong practitioners, based on their Chinese constitutional rights, held a peaceful appeal in Beijing. They requested the authorities to “release Falun gong practitioners arrested in Tianjin city, to allow normal publication of Falun Gong books, and to give practitioners a legal and non-hostile cultivation environment”. This peaceful and rational appeal was defamed by dictator Jiang Zemin as “besieging the Zhongnanhai Central Government” and “having political motivation”. This later became an excuse for the persecution of Falun Gong.
During the 13 year anniversary of the April 25 appeal, Mr. Li, who is a professor in political science and former high level official of China, talked about his view regarding the CCP's politicizing the April 25 appeal.
First impression of the April 25 appeal
Speaking about his first impression, Mr. Li said: “Actually when the April 25 appeal happened, I did not pay much attention to it, since I did not know much about Falun Gong. However, after July 20, 1999, the CCP started a large scale persecution of Falun Gong. They arrested Falun Gong practitioners, and highlighted the April 25 appeal. Because of my work, I attended some meetings on the policy towards Falun Gong. A secret document was distributed during these meetings that gave us the impression that more than ten thousand Falun Gong practitioners had besieged the Zhongnanhai central government, and they had political motivations.”
Did he indeed feel that Falun Gong practitioners had political motivation? Mr. Li said: “Either from my professional view, or from decades of personal experience in communist China, I know clearly that the CCP can always find excuses if they want to frame someone. “Political motivation” is just a tool of the CCP. They can use it to attack anyone at any time. When they persecuted intellectuals, they criticized intellectuals for not caring about politics, not focusing on politics, not being led by politics and only caring for their profession. In the face of a peaceful cultivation group with no political pursuit, they claimed this legal action of defending basic human rights as “having political motivation”, and attacked this group. No one knows in communist China, whether it is correct to have political motivation or not.”
What Falun Gong practitioners care about is the issue of cultivation
The change of this political situation made Mr. Li interested in the April 25 appeal. He tried every means to collect information in order to figure out what exactly happened. “After I figured out what happened, I realized that Jiang Zemin and his gang first attacked Falun Gong, then Falun Gong practitioners went to appeal to defend their rights. There was no political motivation at all. Besides that, the three requests by Falun Gong practitioners had no political motivation either. The three requests were: 1. The Tianjin police should release the Falun Gong practitioners who had been taken into custody. 2. Falun Gong practitioners should be accorded a non-hostile environment in which to practice. 3. The printing of Falun Gong books should be permitted. It was obvious that the practitioners only cared about cultivation, just wanted a cultivation environment without interference, and that they were not interested in the so-called “politics” by the CCP at all.”
“Political Motivation” is a carefully designed excuse
Then why did Jiang's gang insisted on politicizing the April 25 appeal? Mr. Li said: “To clarify this, we first need to know why Jiang Zemin insisted on persecuting Falun Gong, and the approach he used to persecute Falun Gong. Summarizing all the facts, we can tell that there were two reasons: first is that there were so many people practicing Falun Gong. With Jiang Zemin's narrow mind, he believed that too many people were joining the practice and that this would compete with the CCP getting supporters. Thus he was in a panic. Second was Jiang Zemin's personal jealousy towards Mr. Li Hongzhi. Mr. Li had obviously won the respect of a large number of practitioners. But after Jiang Zemin seized power, he had no other achievements in the past ten years. Plus he liked to show off, and there were lots of jokes and scandals against him inside China and abroad. While Jiang was eager to build up his reputation and political achievements, Falun Gong became a target for his revenge. From these motivations, we can tell that Falun Gong, as a cultivation group, did not do anything wrong. The April 25 appeal was not a reason for the persecution either.”
Mr. Li said: “Throughout the persecution of Falun Gong, I think there were three phases. In the beginning, they mobilized all the national resources, including all media, and lots of manpower, as well as money, to defame Falun Gong. They banned Falun Gong, arrested practitioners on a large scale, forced them to denounce Falun Gong, and tortured those who refused to give it up. Actually before the April 25 appeal, the official media had already started to defame Falun Gong. In 1999, the central propaganda department had already banned the public publication and circulation of Falun Gong books. In 1997, Luo Gan ordered the police department to investigate Falun Gong, but they did not find any problems. During the second phase, the CCP further defamed Falun Gong. Originally the CCP claimed they would eliminate Falun Gong in three months, but since the persecution did not gain support from the general public, not only did Falun Gong survive, but most Chinese people disliked the persecution very much. It was difficult to carry it out, so Jiang's gang directed the Tiananmen immolation case to frame Falun Gong. At that time, it deceived many kind people, but people gradually got to know the truth. While they were shocked by the facts, they also abandoned the CCP in their hearts. The third phase was that after Jiang's gang realized that the persecution had failed, they changed their strategy and turned to a low profile approach. However, the extent of the evil persecution was even worse. They even harvested live organs from Falun Gong practitioners, which is heinous. “
“We can tell from these facts that Jiang's gang carefully designed the persecution policy. They also created excuses according to their own needs, to reach their purpose. Thus they politicized the April 25 appeal. It was not that Falun Gong practitioners really had political motivation, but Jiang's gang had political motivation. They made an excuse for the persecution.”
The Lies will not last
Mr. Li said that through the April 25 appeal, he, who was not familiar with Falun Gong before, gained a new understanding of this practice. “In the past decades, the CCP always lied. Actually the lies could only make things worse. Because the lies were usually not logical. They were full of flaws and could easily be seen through. And the lies could only last for a short period of time. Even if people were temporarily fooled, once the truth was revealed, the credibility of the liars would be totally gone. The injustice of the CCP towards Falun Gong was clarified one by one by Falun Gong practitioners and other people of justice. So Falun Gong has become more and more popular, and now it has spread to more than one hundred countries. Falun Gong, from an ordinary human level, can improve physical health and morality. From a higher level, it can let a life elevate, which is longed for by everyone.”
