AFP: Falun Gong circumvent Beijing crackdown with phones, faxes, Internet

Thursday, 11-Jul-2002 3:30AM
Story from AFP / Peter Harmsen

BEIJING, July 11 (AFP) - [...] Falun gong movement is using phones, faxes and the Internet to get its message directly to people in China, it said Thursday.

Practitioners have made mostly random calls to Chinese phone numbers, trying to spread information about Chinese persecution of the movement, a Falungong spokeswoman said.

"Some call up and talk directly to people in China, others use pre-recorded messages," said Hong Kong-based Sophie Xiao. "They call from various places, such as Canada and Hong Kong."

Falungong, banned in China for the past three years, but still legal in Hong Kong, has recently stepped up its campaign for the hearts and minds of the world's most populous country, amid growing signs of jitters in Beijing.

The group is using increasingly sophisticated [methods to clarify the truth about the situation it faces in China].

Earlier this week, China roundly condemned Falungong for interrupting the satellite signals of government-run television stations, warning that new actions of this kind would be severely punished.

While interruption of television channels have been reported since early this year, [practitioners] started using telephone messages long before that, the group said.

"Individuals have been doing it for quite a while, maybe for the past year, or year and a half," said Xiao, who has herself been sending faxes into China containing information about the movement.

Some have also tried to get in touch with Chinese through Internet chatrooms, she said.

"Practitioners are using every way to take their messages into the country, " she said.

Chinese foreign ministry spokesman Liu Jianchao said Thursday that he had "heard of" instances of Falungong members using media other than television to contact Chinese people, but provided no details.

[...]

The [interception] of satellite television signals in particular has demonstrated advanced technical knowledge, and visibly angered Beijing.

On Monday, authorities hastily arranged a press conference to lambast the tactic, saying TV broadcasts in large areas of China had been briefly replaced with Falungong [program] on a number of occasions last month.

http://www.ptd.net/webnews/wed/af/Qchina-sect.RoUx_ClB.html