Shared at 2003 New York Falun Dafa Conference
(Clearwisdom.net) In May of last year, practitioners from the metropolitan New York area jointly sued two Chinese newspapers, The China Press and Singtao Daily, for libel and slander against Falun Gong, as well as for becoming the overseas hit men of the Jiang Regime. Although this case is still being reviewed, our righteous action has already effectively threatened the evil. They no longer dare to casually use newspapers to slander Falun Gong. This would spare tens of thousands of overseas Chinese from being continuously poisoned by the Jiang Regime. During the course of this case, on the subject of how to stop the media from fabricating lies, how to suffocate the evil and truly achieve the goal of defending the Fa and saving sentient beings, practitioners from the metropolitan New York area have been in a battle with the Jiang Regime; it is a battle between good and evil. It has been a difficult undertaking, with many obstacles. But through a year of tempering, practitioners have gained deeper understanding of how to clarify the truth utilizing human approach to defend the Fa. And our realm of thought has also improved.
Below are some of the experiences we had during the course of suing The China Press and Singtao Daily.
1. The Human Laws are for us to use, when we harmonize the Fa, our roads become wide naturally
Since July 20, 1999, The China Press collaborated closely with the Chinese official mouthpiece, and launched round after round of slanderous media campaigns attacking and demonizing Falun Gong in New York. According to incomplete statistics, from July 20 of 1999 to July 2002, China Press published more than 320 articles that viciously attacked and slandered Falun Gong, seriously damaging the image of Dafa and causing significant impact on the Chinese community in New York. Practitioners called them and sent faxes asking for a dialogue. We were hoping the person in charge would stop publishing those untruthful articles. Our requests were all denied. We then started considering taking legal actions against them.
However, at that time practitioners had different views about the "lawsuit" approach. One of the opinions was that "lawsuits" were extreme measures used by ordinary people. Those reporters are also people to be saved. Once we sue them, we'd be basically pushing them to the other side. This would not be conducive to reaching the goal of "saving sentient beings." Another view was: the US Constitution protects freedom of expression and freedom of press. [Courts] have typically been very tolerant with media. We will not succeed. If we lose, we will bring negative impact on Dafa.
Because we didn't have a coherent understanding on this, plus we were not able to find a legal counsel who was willing to work on this case, not much progress was made on that front. In September 2001, the September 11 tragedy happened. The Singtao Daily published articles and photos accusing us of being a terrorist organization. The China Press capitalized on this and demonized us again. In November, the Jiang regime fabricated another so-called murder case, accusing Falun Gong practitioners of killing people. The China Press attacked and bombarded us with daily articles. As a result, some Chinese living in New York who had not had a chance to get to know us developed hatred toward Dafa. It became clear that we had to take immediate action to suppress the evil and expose the Jiang Regime's evil plot.
As to whether or not we should sue The China Press or Singtao Daily, practitioners from New York and New Jersey had some heated discussions. Through discussions, we realized that laws are measures that the human societies rely on in order to regulate human behavior and maintain basic order. Particularly in Western societies where the legal systems are relatively complete, laws command quite a good deal of authority and power. Yet at the same time, it is non-violent. This has become a commonly accepted way of resolving disputes in the US. This approach will also help us expose the evil and clarify the truth, and therefore suppress the evil. We can use this to clarify the truth to US judiciary circles and expose Jiang's persecution against us. If we can bring the evil to justice through this lawsuit, we then can effectively suppress and even eradicate the evil at this human layer. As a matter of fact, this is an embodiment of our harmonizing Dafa in the ordinary human society, creating a way that the future human race can use as a reference. "Because in the Fa-rectification every stage is a trial, a test, being left for different situations in different future periods of history, this is a magnificent Fa being left for the history of the cosmos." "This Great Fa of the cosmos is to leave for sentient beings at different levels in different periods of history a reference for when problems occur in different periods at different levels, and is to leave for beings ways of handling all kinds of situations that occur at different times in history." ("Teaching the Fa at the 2001 Canada Fa Conference")
Although the lawsuit will involve the individuals, including reporters and persons in charge, still this is done to save them. Our goal is not to punish them but having them stop commit sins against Dafa so they don't fall to the point of being unsavable. So, fundamentally, we'd still be saving them.
At the same time, we all tried to look inside for our faults. Quite a few practitioners discovered fear and attachment to self. Although they had said that they were afraid of bringing negative impact to Dafa if things were not done right since they were not familiar with US laws, actually they found they had attachments to fame and self interest. There was even the attachment of fearing their social connections being harmed. We went over Master's scripture together "Fa-rectification Period Dafa Disciples". Master said: "A Dafa disciple who fails to achieve the effect of safeguarding and upholding Dafa has no way of reaching Consummation, because your cultivation is different from that of the past and the future. Therein lies the magnificence of a Dafa disciple." During those days, all of us had in us the feeling of "The Dafa disciples ascend to the heights of the heavens, In control of Heaven and Earth, rectifying the human realm." ("The Foretelling") We said to each other: no matter how difficult this is going to be, we are doing it for sure! When we encounter difficulties, we give each other encouragement and support.
After we confirmed the feasibility of doing this case from the perspective of the Fa, very quickly a law office accepted our case. On May 17, 2002, over seventy of us, including Friends of Falun Gong officially filed a lawsuit with the Supreme Court of the State of New York against The China Press and Singtao Daily for defamation against Falun Gong. We requested that the court issue a Prior Restraining Order, forbidding the two papers from carrying more articles or reports detrimental to Falun Gong. After the news was out, it had a huge effect in the Chinese community. Various Chinese papers covered the news in their headlines. Friends were excited for us, praising us for having a lot of courage. Many Chinese people commented that it looked like Falun Gong had been truly wronged; otherwise they would not have gone to the Court. The evil was very upset, yet it could do nothing about it. A few Western media were also concerned about this case, and started to cover the development. We exposed the evil and clarified the truth on a large scale effectively.
2. Take the Fa as Master; deny the old forces' arrangements with Righteous Thoughts and Actions
We were hoping to suffocate the evil with legal means. Evil also uses laws to do what it wants. In addition, the evil old forces also take every opportunity to find our gaps and try to do damage. During the entire litigation process, with each step taken, we encountered many difficulties ranging from lawyers, to evidence, resources as well as other complicated interim developments. Every problem presented the challenge of whether the case could go forward. Facing ongoing and complicated difficulties, our experience was: don't be dragged down passively by those specific issues. Instead we should closely study the Fa, find out the problems that exist in our minds and in our work from within the Fa principles, get rid of attachments and develop righteous thoughts. Whenever we managed to genuinely deal with everything with righteous thoughts, we would find those difficulties would just disappear on their own, and problems could be solved readily.
We first analyzed the two trump cards that the defendants had in their hands: the first one is press freedom guaranteed by the Constitution
First, what we had in front of us was the conflict between provisions set out by the First Amendment of the US Constitution, namely freedom of belief vs freedom of press. This is in fact a meticulous arrangement by the old forces. We all know the United Stats is a leader in protecting human rights and freedom of belief in the world. There was the movement to abolish slavery, and there were heroes such as Martin Luther King. People have a very strong sense of democracy and respect for religious freedom. The First Amendment clearly stipulated that nobody should violate anyone else's freedom of belief. In addition, laws on libel were enacted. The US is also a nation built on religious belief. It is very rare to see someone in today's America openly attacking other people's belief.
But, in order for things to go the way they wanted, the old forces also made detailed arrangements on this. Not only did they let the Constitution have laws to protect press freedom, they also allowed it to reach an extreme. The media has been allowed to express opinions anyway they wanted. In the seventies, there was a very famous case: the US Department of Defense sued The New York Times for leaking state secrets. In the end, the court acquitted the newspaper, citing press freedom. This case has since become a landmark case for media's press freedom. Lawyers normally don't want to touch cases in this category.
On defamation, the definition is even more specific. Before the court can accept the case, the plaintiff must prove that the defendant's words are intentional, contrary to the truth and have already resulted in damage. Not only this, the laws specify that if a group exceeding a specific number of members is defamed, those members cannot sue for defamation.
So, at the beginning, the legal counsels we called on all shook their heads, saying our case was impossible. Some practitioners who had some legal knowledge also had many doubts and were hesitating about going forward with it. All these were designed to make us withdraw so the evil's plan for overseas could continue smoothly. That is how the old forces set the rules: you have your freedom of belief, and I have my freedom of expression. Both are protected by the Constitution. Want to use laws to suppress us? No way! In fact, from beginning to now, from the state court to the federal court, they've been using this to intimidate us, making us feel there is no hope of winning the case, and that we should give it up. For us, we went through a process of understanding this arrangement made by the old forces.
That's why when the case was first heard in June of last year, due to lack of understanding of Falun Gong and the persecution against Falun Gong, the judge treated it as an ordinary dispute between a group and the media. The judge believed that if The China Press and Singtao Daily were ordered not to publish articles slandering Falun Gong as requested by Falun Gong practitioners, there would be a conflict with the provisions set out in the First Amendment concerning press freedom. The judge asked our lawyer how he should deliver his verdict so the First Amendment would not be violated. In addition, he had a long list of questions for our lawyer to answer. He even said: the more slanderous articles they publish, the more harm they will do to you, and the higher the monetary compensation there will be in the future. Wouldn't everything be evened out? The judge gave us one month to prepare evidence, and would consider our application for a restraining order then.
The second trump card of the defendant was to involve big names. They contracted a top-notch lawyer to represent them. The lawyer the defendants hired defended The New York Times when the paper was sued by the US Department of Defense. He was said to be extremely well versed in the Constitution.
At the initial hearing, our lawyer was not mentally prepared that the defendants would go out of their way to hire a top-notch lawyer to defend them. Facing the challenge, our lawyer started to feel a bit uneasy. They said that the chance of winning was very slim, yet the cost could be huge. We could sense that they wanted us to withdraw.
Facing these unexpected challenges, practitioners were feeling very anxious. We had time constraint, and it was a difficult case. The vast majority of practitioners know little about the American laws. How could we help the lawyer answer those questions? In particular, how could we convince the judge that a guilty verdict would not violate the First Amendment? Having so many thorny questions to answer, we decided to study the Fa and not to rush to get the answers.
Master said in Touring North America to Teach the Fa: "This overwhelming persecution of Dafa, of Dafa students, and of the world's people that has happened since July 20th of 1999 is unprecedented." "But this persecution isn't limited to just China. This persecution is actually worldwide--the slander has poisoned people's minds the world over. Meanwhile, the lies and propaganda that have blanketed the earth have put enormous pressure on Dafa disciples. And more seriously, such lies and slander have poisoned people's minds all over the world." Master's words helped us recognize the true nature of things. Actually, suing the two Chinese papers that published articles slandering Falun Gong is significantly different from a regular defamation lawsuit. This is the evil forces utilizing overseas media to poison the minds of overseas Chinese, inciting hatred toward Falun Gong. This way, not only could they prevent people from obtaining the Fa, they could also achieve the goal of persecuting Dafa practitioners overseas. So our lawsuit against these two Chinese papers is no ordinary civil dispute between us and the media; we are actually stopping a plot in which a foreign government is trying to blatantly trample on and interfere with American Chinese's freedom of belief through media over which they've gained control. It is also unprecedented in American history that a foreign government commits libel against a group of local people through the media it controls. There is no precedence. They actually exploited the imperfection of the American laws and the tolerance of the American people. Protected by the freedom of expression and press freedom, they tried to damage the values that American society has been striving to uphold. If we asked the court to find a balance between freedom of belief and press freedom, we would then fall into the traps set up by the old forces.
Then, what should we do? Master said, anything we do should focus on clarifying the truth to the world's people. The focal point of our lawsuit should be clarifying the truth and exposing the evil.
When we developed this righteous thought, we recognized that those questions the judge raised were just things that the old forces were trying to use to confuse us. They wanted to frighten us away. We decided not to attend to the judge's questions. Instead, we drafted a report exposing the Jiang regime through its overseas manipulation of local media to blatantly interfere with and persecute overseas Falun Gong practitioners. In this report, we used a great deal of facts, particularly the fact that China Press's systematic and intentional cooperation with the Jiang Regime to be their mouthpiece in the persecution of Falun Gong overseas over the last three years. We selected 48 articles out of their over 300 pieces. This fact indicates that China Press is not entitled to the protection of the provisions on freedom of expression under the First Amendment. The next issue was how we should convey our message through our lawyer to the court. As we were discussing and analyzing the case with our lawyer at that time, we found it was hard for him to fight the case according to our requirement. At the same time, we also realized that this lawyer had probably completed his historical mission. With joint efforts of many practitioners, very quickly we found a new lawyer. He is our current counsel, Mr. Israel. Mr. Israel was sympathetic to Falun Gong, and quite willing to adopt our point of view. With our full cooperation, it didn't take long for him to draft a revised complaint in which he clearly indicated that these two papers were the mouthpieces of the Chinese Communist regime, and that the Chinese overseas organs were directing the persecution of overseas Falun Gong practitioners from behind the scene. The amended complaint charged the defendants with depriving Falun Gong practitioners of their basic human rights through conspiracy. We listed 48 defamatory articles. This in itself made it hard for the defendants to deny that it was a pre-meditated, vicious persecution. This new complaint was like an article sharply condemning the Jiang regime. When the counsel for the defendants received our amended complaint, he didn't know what to do. He asked that the case be transferred to the Federal court. That just gave us a bigger stage. Our lawsuit caught the attention of some major news media, including the "National Law Journal", "The New York Times" and "Voice of America".
Evil can never suppress the righteous. In a timely manner, we developed righteous thoughts and changed lawyers. Very quickly, we went from being passive to proactive. When our new lawyer heard the name of the defense counsel, he was very excited and said he loved to fight against "authorities." He has no fear. We have also been sending forth righteous thoughts to eliminate the evil behind their defense lawyer. It was very effective. In the next few documents they presented, they seemed unbelievably mediocre.
In February of this year, the defendants asked for a motion to deny our case in the Federal court. China Press's legal counsel tried to persuade the judge that since China Press is not an American government agency, the charge of depriving Falun Gong practitioners of their human rights is not valid. Our lawyer pointed out that China Press actually was the mouthpiece of the Chinese government in the United States, and this can be proved by articles published on the Chinese Embassy's website written by the defendants. In addition, their actions have already severely damaged metropolitan New York Area's practitioners' rights and freedom. In the beginning, the judge was leaning towards the defense and felt that fit the customary practice of the US laws. On that day, close to 100 practitioners were present, sending forth righteous thoughts to eliminate evil in other dimensions. During the hearing, the defense lawyer's voice was so low that people could hardly hear him. The defense was weak. In the end, the judge agreed to study our statement further and make a decision later.
Some practitioners were not satisfied with the result. They blamed us for not having very strong righteous thoughts, which resulted in the judge not handing out a guilty verdict right on the spot.
We had a teleconference discussing how we should look at this court hearing. Some practitioners reminded everyone that our case is unprecedented. Our disadvantage with today's laws and Constitution of the US was purposefully arranged by the old forces to prevent us from rectifying the Fa. So they tried to make us want to drop the case every time. The numerous precedents they cited were mere cover-ups. The most fundamental goal was to make us stop the lawsuit. Looking back on the road we traveled over the last year, together with the influence and real effect we achieved in the community, we are winners already. Not only do the defendants dare not slander us again, other newspapers were also restricted, and wouldn't casually carry negative articles against us. In court, close to one hundred people sat there quietly and peacefully. The energy was so strong that it created a righteous field. Quite a few people said to us: "As long as you are courageous enough to keep fighting the case, you are a winner!" From a different perspective, any Fa-rectification task we undertake today has everything to do with our individual cultivation. Our thoughts about this case will affect the development and result of the case. This requires us to continuously rectify our state of mind and strengthen our righteous thoughts.
The truth is, our lawsuit is a big exposure of the Jiang Regime's persecution of Falun Gong through the manipulation of Chinese media, and being exposed is the worst fear of Jiang's gang. So far, the judge has not made any decision. We still have time. If we do not have enough confidence in ourselves and blame each other, we will fall squarely into the trap set by the old forces. We should not be deceived by the phenomenon that the court hearing produced no result. We should keep sending forth righteous thoughts and continue to eliminate evil elements in other dimensions. As a result, we continued to send forth righteous thoughts. A few days later, our lawyer told us that the defense lawyer took an unusual approach--he wrote the judge a letter. Responding to the letter gave us an opportunity to make reference to a recent judgment on a case that would be favorable to us. Our lawyer had hesitated about writing to the judge regarding that case, fearing this would provoke negative feelings in the judge. He didn't expect the defense lawyer would help him this way.
Again, we no longer felt confused. Amidst a complicated situation, we were no longer confused and hesitant. We deeply felt the power of Dafa and Master's compassion. At the same time, we also deeply felt that as long as we maintained righteous thoughts when walking our path, there was no hardship that we could not overcome. As Teacher said in Touring North America to Teach the Fa : "When you conduct yourselves righteously Master can do anything for you." In "Also in a Few Words," Teacher said, "Indestructible righteous faith in the cosmos's Truth forms benevolent Dafa disciples' rock-solid, Diamond-Like Bodies, it frightens all evil, and the light of Truth it emanates makes the unrighteous elements in all beings' thoughts disintegrate. However strong the righteous thoughts are, that's how great the power is."
3. Dafa disciples are the leading characters in Fa-rectification
At the very beginning, due to lack of experience and our over-emphasis on the role of laws, we thought it would be fine to follow the lawyer as much as possible. So we were quite passive. Once problems started to arise, we became nervous.
We found our direction again in Master's lecture. Master told us: "You're cultivators, and all changes come from your cultivation and the Fa-rectification; everything that you yourselves validate and enlighten to, and everything that you'll receive, all this comes from what you have done on your path. Absolutely don't think about any favors the old forces might do for us, or about how the ordinary society might help us. You are the ones saving the ordinary people's society, and you are the ones saving sentient beings!" ("Teaching the Fa at the 2002 Fa Conference in Philadelphia, U.S.A.")
Then, how do we play the leading role in this lawsuit? Because of the legal restrictions, we could not do it ourselves, and had to go through legal representatives.
We came to the realization that in order to fight this case well, we, practitioners in metropolitan New York should have righteous thoughts about this matter. The first thing we did was to encourage all practitioners to become concerned about this case. Regardless of whether their names were listed as plaintiffs, we treated all of them as plaintiffs. We reported the development to them promptly; we encouraged practitioners to write reports comparing their lives before and after they started cultivation, including the reasons why they practiced Falun Gong, the changes they experienced as well as why they wanted to join the lawsuit. This way, in our area, a very strong and righteous field was formed. Second, we closely followed the main theme of clarifying the facts. We told the lawyer the main purpose for this lawsuit was to expose the persecution of Jiang against us. Initially, the lawyer feared that if we talked too much about Falun Gong being persecuted, the court would feel we were trying to incite emotions and would have negative feelings towards us. The lawyer didn't want to go into too much detail. But, when we decided this is what we needed to do, when our righteous thoughts were very strong, we found the lawyer was thinking and going along with our requirement. This is how our amended complaint came about--it turned out be an article condemning Jiang. Another point is: besides having certain practitioners maintain regular contact with the lawyer and timely share with the rest any developments, other practitioners would frequently become involved in the meetings with the lawyer to discuss the case. From beginning to the end, we have maintained a righteous and powerful energy field with the lawyer. Later, we found when our righteous thoughts were strong, our lawyer would understand our views on his own. At times we didn't even need much communication.
Another important aspect was how to break through the various boundaries set by the ordinary people's laws and regulations so our clarification of the facts would not be impeded. When everyday people sue others, they normally think about how to put up a good fight under the existing legal provisions. Our lawyer is a quite creative person, but it was up to us as Dafa cultivators to break through the boundaries set out by the everyday people's laws and regulations, and step out of human notions.
There is a statute of limitation on defamation. Articles published more than a year ago cannot be sued. So, our first lawyer only cited 9 articles. After the initial hearing, we decided to break through this limitation. We searched for all the articles published by the defendants since July 20, 1999. We found more than 300 of them. Every article slandered Falun Gong, and was extremely evil. We were shocked. We insisted on going over the time limit and cited some articles published at the key time periods as evidence. We cited 48 articles. It has been proven that our approach was wise. Using quantity and continuity in time showed how it echoed the Chinese official newspaper. This effectively suppressed the evil. Our feeling is that while we respect and cooperate with the lawyer on the specific provisions and technical front, we should at the same time provide direction as to how we should best clarify the truth.
4. Regard the Fa as the most important; fully display the mighty power of Dafa disciples as a whole
Compared to other projects of Fa-rectification, the lawsuit is unique for often running into deadlines. Sometimes, we had to mobilize a lot of manpower and financial resources within a very short period of time. This is not something that could be accomplished by just one or two practitioners. Therefore, the cooperation among practitioners was of particular importance. Although all the plaintiffs in this case were New York practitioners--only a few dozen--the reality is that every practitioner regarded himself as a plaintiff by proactively participating in the discussion of the case and other activities. Many practitioners from out of state also gave us support.
Since the first hearing in June of last year, practitioners in New York have encountered many problems and difficulties. Once practitioners in New Jersey learned about it, quite a few of them joined the legal team. When collecting, compiling and translating the evidence against the defendants, practitioners in Boston helped us do research in the library day and night. They worked with practitioners in New York and New Jersey. It only took a matter of few weeks to finish collecting, compiling and translating over one hundred articles, which proved to be powerful evidence.
At the end of last year, our lawyer held a few seminars introducing Falun Gong in his office. Two doctor-practitioners from New Jersey explained to the audience Dafa principles and features from a medical perspective. A practitioner in Texas learned about this and she flew to New York and validated the Fa using her newest study results. Their speeches allowed the audience to gain further understanding of Falun Gong.
The litigation needed money. Everyone did his best. We raised thousands of dollars to pay for the legal fees. A practitioner is very cost conscious, but when he heard that we needed to file a lawsuit, without hesitation, he gave us his hard-earned money right away--ten thousand dollars in one shot. Another practitioner who works as a nanny learned that we needed money to do the lawsuit, and she took out 300 dollars. The big hearts displayed by practitioners when defending the Fa often moved the coordinators to tears.
Master said in "Teaching the Fa at the 2002 Fa Conference in Boston": "A Dafa disciple should put the Fa first in everything he does--whenever you evaluate something you have to consider the Fa first. ... If all of you can do this, there won't be any of that stubborn arguing in your validating the Fa; if you really have a solid foundation like this and are able to calm yourselves, consider others, and examine yourselves when anything happens, I think you'll be able to handle a lot of things well." Our legal team was comprised of about a dozen practitioners from New York and New Jersey. You can say that there are many different types of talents. Everyone is good at coming up with ideas. But during the course of litigation, we took Master's words to heart. We regarded the Fa as the most important. We respect each other, trust each other and cooperate well with each other. When there are problems, everyone presents his views fully. But once a decision is reached, everyone tries his best to accomplish it. Every meeting started on time and ended on time. We have never had people arguing endlessly over something, even when we faced some major issues. For example, when we were considering changing the lawyer, we had very extensive analyses. But once we decided on what to do, we immediately carried it out. Practitioners also trust each other. For example, after we hired a new lawyer who expressed that he only wanted to communicate with representatives and didn't want to have everyone contact him, we picked 2 practitioners for that purpose. Those practitioners who were picked to do the work did it carefully and responsibly. When something was not done perfectly, other practitioners would look inside instead of pointing fingers at them. For example, in the recent court hearing, some practitioners believed that had the lawyer explained what Falun Gong was a little clearer, the result might have been better. In between the lines, there was a sense of dissatisfaction toward the practitioners who were responsible for communicating with the lawyer for not doing the preparation work adequately. But after studying the Fa, they discovered that they had actually slacked off. They thought it would be enough for a few practitioners to work with the lawyer to prepare for the court hearing. They didn't actively participate in the effort. The problem was actually with themselves. So we decided to do better on this in the future.
During the litigation process, we've proactively brought our own strength into play, and complemented each other. According to the development of the case, we held group study, discussions and experience sharing. We learn from each other, and improve as a whole. Over the last year or so, we've improved in general and become more mature.
5. Spread the Fa to different communities, let more people know about the persecution and validate the Fa comprehensively
In the recent two years of lecturing, Master has been telling us the importance of clarifying the truth. Our litigation process in itself is clarifying the truth to different groups, particularly people in the judiciary department. Those people will have a chance to build a predestined relationship with Dafa, and a chance to position themselves.
Once the news about New York Falun Gong practitioners suing the Chinese papers for defamation got out, it caught the attention of people from all walks of life, with legal professionals being the first group. The defendants spent a huge amount of money to hire a top lawyer, but they actually advertised for us because of his fame. We are innocent, and we want to let the whole world know that we are being harmed. The more people know about it, the better. We held press conference in front of the court. Lawyers passing by came over and chatted with us. They said they were all very concerned about our case. Some lawyers called us and wanted to look at our complaint. Another group was the press, including local and national journalists. We had never expected to talk to some of them, but they came to us. While collecting evidence, we were able to approach people in our community, and thus we clarified the truth to people of other walks of life and helped them to learn about Falun Dafa.
Our lawyer became our first target audience for the truth. On this front, our legal team did a great deal of work. We are very clear that although laws are ordinary people's approach, using laws to defend Dafa and suffocate the evil is beyond ordinary. So without the power from the Fa, it would be impossible to win. When we clarified the truth to the lawyer, besides telling him about our persecution, we took more time to explain to him what Falun Dafa is in detail, let him gradually experience the greatness of Dafa, and allow him to slowly recognize that he is not only defending the rights and interest of our group, but more importantly, he is protecting the best thing in the whole world. Only this way can Fa's power being manifested throughout the process.
In addition, we also often did it in a way acceptable to ordinary people, for instance over meals, sharing feelings in a very pleasant and light atmosphere. We shortened the distance between us. In our view, these are people who have a strong predestined relationship with Dafa. They are in fact doing the Fa-rectification matters together with us. So, our lawyer also experienced some interference. For instance, every time at a critical moment of our case, he got sick. Under such circumstances, we would, on the one hand, send forth righteous thoughts to eliminate the evil forces, shared with him that we treat such phenomenon as interference, and it could be removed by sending forth righteous thoughts, and that he could give it a try; on the other hand, we also referred practitioners who are traditional Chinese doctors to help him. Because we treated them as friends, they felt we were sincere and genuine. Through this kind of communication, we built trust. They learned that Falun Gong practitioners are indeed good people, and started to feel upset about the Chinese government's persecution. They realized that our litigation is a battle between the good and the evil, and is no longer a straightforward civil case. They wanted to help us from the bottom of their hearts. Our former attorney read about our case in the newspaper, and wrote an encouraging letter to us. And our lawyer started to learn to practice the exercises; his family members even held a Falun Gong introductory seminar in their house. Our attorney said to us a couple of times that he felt very lucky to be involved in our lawsuit against Jiang's regime.
Last December, our attorney offered to hold a Dafa photo exhibit in his gallery for a month, and at the same time, we held seminars and press conferences. His wife is in the media industry. She was also involved in organizing and holding the press conference. The New York Times did a favorable report on us. Reporters from "Voice of America" and all other Chinese papers attended our press conference. Our lawyer sponsored all these events. While we are very happy about his support, we feel even more deeply about the great realm described by Master--" Falun Dafa is good; Gradually entering the human realm" that "it's also because your kindness and mercy in the ordinary human society and your righteous, Dafa disciples' performance have both been affirmed by the people of the world and been affirmed by Gods. These are what make the environment we have today possible." ("Teaching the Fa at the Washington, D.C. International Fa Conference")
Our case is still in the beginning. There are a lot of uncertainties ahead of us. But having Master and the Fa, we have nothing to fear. We will continue to do what we've been doing, and keep up with our righteous thoughts and actions. The final victory belongs to us, for sure.
