South Korea's United News Agency Publishes Apology and Correction for its Previous Distorted Report Which Defamed Falun Gong

(Clearwisdom.net) Recently, the South Korea United News Agency sincerely published a corrective article to apologize to Falun Gong practitioners for their falsified report months ago, which distorted facts and defamed Falun Gong. They apologized for any spiritual damage and harmful effects of the report that may have caused people to misunderstand Falun Dafa.

In the United News Agency's report on July 3, 2003 entitled: "Chain Murders of Chinese Beggars," there was some content that said: "Falun Gong practitioners killed beggars with rat poison." After the report was published, the South Korea Falun Dafa Association and practitioners around the country asked them to correct their misleading report, but they refused to do so.

The United News Agency supplies news to major newspapers, so the Central Daily, the Capital Township News, Metro, i-MBC TV, and many others in South Korea all reported the same false story.

After these news media listened to the appeals from Dafa practitioners, however, they all made corrective reports, but The United News Agency did not take any action. In this situation, Falun Gong practitioners appealed to the Justice Department for a fair judgment, and sued the United News Agency on September 9, 2003 in the Seoul local Court.

Fully willing to resolve the issue more peacefully, we patiently kept in touch with the United News Agency after the submission of the lawsuit. Finally, the United News Agency admitted that they made a biased report that distorted facts, and published an apology to Falun Dafa practitioners. The apology was also translated into English for distribution.

The South Korea Falun Dafa Association and Falun Gong practitioners accepted the apology and withdrew their lawsuit. Though the apology was late in coming, we applaud the United News Agency for accepting our appeals and promising to report news based on truth and facts only. We hope to have a good relationship with the United News Agency based on mutual trust and facts so news about Falun Dafa can be reported correctly.

11-26-2003

Appendix: The contents relevant to Falun Gong in the corrective report of the United News Agency

The United News Agency's report on July 3, 2003 entitled: "Chain Murders of Chinese Beggars, " contained: "Among the dead beggars in Wenzhou City, Zhejiang Province, 16 of them were killed by a Falun Gong practitioner named Chen Zhaofu with rat poison." This information is cited from a report supplied by China.

The South Korea Falun Dafa Association asked us to verify the validity of this news. Through investigation, we learned that Falun Dafa is a mind and body cultivation method based on the universal principle of Truthfulness-Compassion-Tolerance. A practitioner of Falun Dafa is not allowed to kill a beggar. Even very small lives are not permitted to be randomly taken according to the principles of Falun Dafa. In the book Zhuan Falun, which is the central book of Falun Dafa, as well as other Falun Dafa materials, such words like 'killing beggars is helpful to cultivation' could not be found.

However, on July 3, 2003, our agency cited the report made by the Chinese Public Security authority without any verification. We admit that this report did not reflect the view of Falun Gong practitioners, and that it was an unfair, un-objective report. We make this correction now. In the future, this agency will report news about Falun Gong based on facts only. We deeply apologize for any damage this report has caused to Falun Dafa and Falun Gong practitioners, and for misleading people to misunderstand Falun Dafa.

(The South Korea United News Agency, Seoul) (The End)

Original article available at:

http://www.yonhapnews.net/news/20031126/040302000020031126143514K0.html