The Grave Consequences of Persecuting Falun Gong

(Minghui.org) In order for any society to run smoothly, there must be law and order to ensure justice. After the Cultural Revolution (1966 – 1976) wreaked havoc on Chinese culture and society, then Chinese Communist Party (CCP) leaders brought up the idea of ruling the country by law in the 1980s in an attempt to win back people’s trust in the government. 

After the bloodshed at Tiananmen Square in 1989, Jiang Zemin rose to the top position in the CCP as a result of his giving orders to suppress the protesting students. He appointed members of his clique to key positions in the administration and used corruption to strengthen and expand his power. Rule by law had become an afterthought for Jiang and the CCP.

Ordering the Persecution of Falun Gong

After it was introduced to the public in 1992, Falun Gong, an ancient spiritual discipline with the tenets of Truthfulness, Compassion, Forbearance, quickly gained popularity throughout China. Many high-ranking government and military officials and their family members, even including Jiang’s own wife, Wang Yeping, were practicing Falun Gong. 

As Falun Gong attracted more and more people, Jiang became jealous and feared losing control of power. He singlehandedly launched a nationwide persecution of Falun Gong in July 1999 and vowed to eradicate the practice in three months, despite opposition from the other six members of the standing committee of the Politburo.

Three months after the start of the persecution, Falun Gong remained a popular practice, prompting Jiang to escalate the persecution in October 1999. In an interview with Le Figaro, a highly circulated newspaper in France, Jiang referred to Falun Gong as a cult. The next day the CCP mouthpiece People’s Daily repeated Jiang’s words in its columns. More propaganda pieces, including the Tiananmen Self-immolation hoax, followed on state media as a way to justify and intensify the persecution.

Political Incentives for More Brutal Persecution

Jiang linked officials’ political performance and promotion to their participation in the persecution in order to incentivize them to actively implement his eradication policy against Falun Gong. If a certain region had more practitioners going to Beijing to appeal for Falun Gong, the top official in that region would be removed from office. 

Back then, most of the practitioners appealing in Beijing came from Shandong Province. Jiang said to Wu Guanzheng, the then Party chief of Shandong Province, that if there were more practitioners from Shandong appealing in Beijing, he would remove Wu from his post. But if Wu did well in implementing the persecution, he would promote Wu to be a member of the standing committee of the Politburo at the 16th Party Congress to be held in 2002. 

On April 20, 2000, The Wall Street Journal reported the torture death of Ms. Chen Zixiu, a Falun Gong practitioner in Weifang City, Shandong Province at the hands of local government officials. “Two days of torture had left her legs bruised and her short black hair matted with pus and blood,” reported the article.

In fact, Ms. Chen wasn’t the first practitioner who had died due to the persecution. On August 16, 1999, Ms. Chen Ying, a 17-year-old high school freshman from Jiamusi City, Heilongjiang Province, was beaten on a train, while on her way to Beijing to appeal for Falun Gong. She was forced to escape by jumping out of the train. She died in the hospital that night.

Following in Wu’s footstep, Bo Xilai, the then governor of Liaoning Province and mayor of Chongqing, and Zhou Yongkang, the former head of the central Political and Legal Affairs Committee, also closely participated in the persecution in exchange for political advancement.

When Zhou was the Party secretary of Sichuan Province between 2000 and December 2002, he once gave the order to the police, “You can let a murderer or arsonist go, but you must arrest the Falun Gong practitioners!” At least 43 practitioners were persecuted to death during Zhou’s tenure in Sichuan. 

The Failing Legal System

The procuratorates and courts in China are the last avenue for ordinary citizens to seek justice, but both of these were undermined during the persecution of Falun Gong. Francis Bacon, English philosopher and statesman, once said that an unfair judgment could be 10 times worse than a crime. Crime is a violation of law like polluting water, while an unfair judgment is undermining the law itself – similar to destroying the water source. 

Lyu Botao, president of the Guangdong Province High Court, said during a meeting on September 2, 1999 to the presidents of intermediate courts in the province that they wouldn’t accept any civil complaints filed by Falun Gong practitioners, no matter how their basic rights were infringed upon. 

Even practitioners who worked as judges or prosecutors themselves weren’t spared persecution. 

Mr. Hu Qingyun, an appeals court judge in southern Jiangxi Province, was sentenced to seven years on January 10, 2001. He died on March 22, 2001 after his leukemia that had disappeared after taking up Falun Gong relapsed in custody. 

Mr. Feng Zhijun, a prosecutor for the Zhoukou City Procuratorate in Henan Province, was sentenced to four years on January 12, 2010 for talking to people about Falun Gong. 

When practitioners are jailed, they are subjected to appalling torture, from sleep deprivation to starvation, from savage beatings to electric shocks, from being forced to sit on a small stool to being hung by the wrists for hours or days. 

The arbitrary indictment and sentencing of Falun Gong practitioners eventually led to the collapse of the legal system in China. The Chinese media reported that back in 2005, several officials in the Fuyang Intermediate Court of Anhui Province were investigated for taking bribes and engaging in gambling and prostitution. The officials included deputy president Zhu Ya, executive presiding judge Wang Chunyou, and two economic presiding judges Chen Heping and Dong Bingxu. 

Other provinces also have similar problems. A 2004 report from the Hubei Province Procuratorate showed that 40% of dereliction crimes committed by judges in the province were joint crimes co-committed by several judges. 

The Entire Country Falls Victims to the CCP

A community secretary in Zhen’an County, Shaanxi Province said to locals who went to his office to appeal in June 2018, “The Chinese Communist Party is the biggest gangland in China. You have to listen to it whether you want to or not.”

From the “woman in chains” (who was kidnapped and sold to a man in Xuzhou City, Jiangsu Province and used as a sex slave) to the missing college students (who were suspected of having become victims of organ harvesting) across the country in recent months, more and more Chinese people are falling victim to the CCP and have nowhere to seek justice. 

When Jiang vowed to eradicate Falun Gong and Truthfulness, Compassion, Forbearance from China, he inevitably destroyed the morality and conscience of the Chinese society. Although Jiang is now dead, the CCP is continuing the persecution. When the time comes to hold Jiang and the CCP responsible for their crimes against Falun Gong practitioners and other innocent citizens, those who follow the regime in the persecution will face consequences too. The perpetrators are advised to stop their participation in the persecution in order to ensure a better future.