(Minghui.org) I was shocked when I read the Minghui article, “Former CCP Leader Jiang Zemin Ordered the Execution of Five Army Officers Who Were Falun Gong Practitioners.” I realized that in addition to the persecution stories reported by Minghui every day, there are most likely more that have been covered up by the Chinese Communist Party (CCP).
This is hard to imagine because practitioners simply want to become better people by following Falun Gong’s principles of Truthfulness-Compassion-Forbearance. Nevertheless, former CCP leader Jiang Zemin started a nationwide persecution of Falun Gong in July 1999–a campaign that continues today.
In the article mentioned above, “Everyone who participated had to sign a non-disclosure agreement, prohibiting them from talking about what happened.”
I wondered: if these five military officers committed wrongdoings and deserved execution, why would the CCP keep it so secret? Or, perhaps these officers were indeed innocent, and that is why the incident was covered up.
To understand this, I searched previous reports on Minghui.org and found that secrecy is a common practice of the CCP in its persecution of Falun Gong. Whether by Jiang Zemin or other high officials, most orders were given verbally. Policies were occasionally issued, but they were kept confidential. Below are some examples.
The first is a leaked document titled “Opinions on Severely Cracking Down on the Illegal and Criminal Activities of the Falun Gong Heretical Organization by Law.” It was issued on November 30, 2000, by five agencies including the Supreme People’s Court, the Supreme People’s Procuratorate, the Ministry of Public Security, the Ministry of State Security, and the Ministry of Justice.
Classified as Top Secret, this document demanded officials impose criminal charges on Falun Gong practitioners in the name of “inciting subversion of state power” or “defaming Party and state leaders.” Chen Jiangang, a lawyer who defended Falun Gong practitioners, said the document had no legal characteristics or validity.
“It is another top secret document, which shows that the five departments are engaged in illegal and criminal activities that cannot be seen,” he explained.
In 2016, the General Office of the CCP’s Central Committee issued a confidential document acknowledging mistreatment Falun Gong practitioners had received for their belief. They included deprivation of promotions at work and discrimination that prevented their children from joining the military or receiving an education.
The document did mention relaxing such pressure for practitioners, but they would need to give up their faith and “renounce Falun Gong” first.
These secret documents emboldened officials to mistreat practitioners recklessly. When Wang Shanquan, Party Secretary of Golmud City in Qinghai Province, demanded in July 2023 that practitioner Kang Jinying stop practicing Falun Gong, Kang said the Chinese Constitution provides for the freedom of belief. Wang replied, “I have documents from the Political and Legal Affairs Committee (PLAC). They are confidential, and you are not allowed to see them.” One is left to wonder how ordinary citizens can follow supposed laws that they have no access to.
Wang also went to the workplace of Kang’s son and threatened officials there. “Falun Gong practitioners are class enemies,” he reminded them. “Class enemies” was a term often used during the Cultural Revolution. He also told the son that the entire family were restricted from traveling; If they did so, he would call police to arrest them.
Wang Mingyu, the Party secretary of Chaoyang City in Liaoning Province, issued a policy in September 2013 ordering about a thousand police officers to intensify the persecution of Falun Gong. In the policy, he required officials to just “beat and mistreat practitioners without talking about it or telling anyone.” When practitioner Yan Xuguang pointed out that this was wrong and sued Jiang for persecuting Falun Gong, he was arrested in 2015 and died in Shenyang First Prison in October 2024 at age 66.
In another example of police following secret orders, after a practitioner was arrested in 2002 for her belief in Falun Gong, her daughter went to the police department requesting to seek her mother’s release. But an officer beat her up. When the daughter asked for the legal basis of the persecution, another officer showed a confidential document from the provincial police department which stated, “Whoever distributed over 30 flyers could be sent to a labor camp; whoever participated in group practice that contains three or more people could be sent to a labor camp.”
In April 2023 Minghui received a manual issued by the Shanghai 610 Office on how to “transform” Falun Gong practitioners (force them to renounce their faith, often through torture). Published sometime between 2000 and 2010 and labeled confidential, the manual seems to target all practitioners in the region based on a description printed on the manual: “everyone will have a copy.”
The instructions were very detailed and included a “Transformation Plan,” “Progress Record,” “Quarterly Update,” “Annual Review,” “Follow-up Plan After Release,” “Follow-up Record After Release,” and so on. This shows the CCP not only has a thorough plan for brainwashing sessions but continues to monitor and control practitioners after they are released.
In addition to receiving top-down directives, local officials provide updates to higher authorities on a regular basis. A document received by Minghui came from the No. 26 Bureau in the Ministry of Public Security, a unit dedicated to the persecution of Falun Gong. Also labeled confidential, this document was submitted by the No. 1 Reconnaissance Team in Tianjin City in January 2005.
This document analyzed articles published on Minghui.org in 2004 that were related to the city of Tianjin. It also examined all the persecution cases in those articles and analyzed how the information was collected by practitioners.
On the surface, the CCP recently promoted transparency and governing the country according to the law. In reality, it continues to suppress Falun Gong practitioners through secret orders. This shows that the CCP knows the persecution of faith is wrong, but it continues to commit these human rights abuses and tries to cover them up.