There are different levels of human rights. The first level is the most fundamental and rudimentary right that is innate to a person, and a person in society should and must have: the right to live. To live, one needs to eat and dress; exercise, learn and communicate; one should have freedom of thinking; certain rights to property, work, education, equality, the right to safeguard property rights and interests, and the right to be free from infringement.
The second level is in order to live a secure, free, happy, significant and valuable life: one must have the freedom of belief, the right to pursue truth, compassion, high moral values, and lofty ideals and realms. One must have the right to protect oneself from gratuitous attack, slandering and persecution.
The above two levels are inborn natural rights of human beings. They are also important components of the "the human rights endowed by heaven" claimed in the Western world.
The third level is that broad masses of people constitute countries in different forms, and every modern country draws up their constitution and laws to stipulate the rights and freedoms enjoyed by its citizens, which include rights in politics, economy, society, culture, education, individuality, belief, etc.
The fourth level is the human rights stipulated in the United Nations and international organizations' Universal Declaration of Human Rights, which was consulted, studied, drafted, approved, promised, and signed by participating countries, to conscientiously guarantee its enforcement and protection.
The rights defended by Falun Gong practitioners are the most rudimentary, fundamental and important human rights of the above four levels. Someone from the Chinese Embassy said that the crackdown of Falun Gong has nothing to do with human rights. This indicates that they lack basic common sense about human rights.
The Chinese government said that requests from Falun Gong practitioners for freedom of exercise and belief, and reports on injustice and truth are "an involvement in politics." With the internationally acknowledged human rights concepts, it is very easy to see that the Chinese government deliberately misrepresented and changed the concept. It is as if they are out to condemn someone, then they can always concoct a charge.
Some people think that the 10,000 practitioners' gathering at Zhongnanhai [the Chinese central government compound] was an involvement in politics. This is a misleading notion that does not conform to the actual situation. Falun Gong practitioners went there to report the illegal infringement of practitioners? personal safety by the police, and to clarify the slandering of Falun Gong by a few people with ulterior motives. The practitioners only requested that the government allow a legal environment for practicing Falun Gong, and Tianjin police release the innocent arrested practitioners. They did not even mention the word "freedom of belief". There was no political guiding principles, slogan or request, not to mention any involvement in politics. What is true is that the few who deliberately wanted to use politics to discredit Falun Gong and Falun Gong practitioners unbelievably depicted this as a political incident. Nonetheless, no matter how oil and water are stirred, oil remains oil and water remains water. Once the stirring ends, sooner or later, people can tell the water from the oil.
Yuan Ming
August 22, 2000
