(Clearwisdom.net) In February 1999, the Hunan Workers' Newspaper published an article, which claimed that Liu Ming, a 72-year-old female retiree from Lingfeng County, Hekou Township, read Zhuan Falun and then died within 3 days of being admitted to hospital because of an asthma attack.

After the local Falun Gong practitioners read this report, they went to every hospital and local neighbourhood center in Hekou Township to find out who this person was but could locate no such person. There was no case of a person dying from asthma in hospital either. In order to verify their findings, a Falun Gong practitioner asked someone they knew in the county police department to search the computer records of all people living in the county. There was no female called Liu Ming in the entire county. When Falun Gong practitioners contacted the Hunan Workers' Newspaper to find out who forwarded the article, they were told that the writer used the alias "qigong" and the article came from the Communist Party Division of Lingfeng County People's Hospital. The contact number was 5824270. After checking, it was confirmed that this was the number of a phone at the county hospital.

Two Lingfeng Falun Gong practitioners visited the People's Hospital and met with the head of the hospital, secretary of the Party Division, and the office deputy. They knew nothing about the article that was sent to the newspaper, but they confirmed that the report had been written by the office head, Jin Zezhao. The head of the hospital asked someone to look for Jin, but he could not be found. Because the Falun Gong practitioners had to go to work, they left the hospital. In the afternoon, they called the hospital and were able to talk to Jin Zezhao. He denied writing the article, and so the practitioners did not contact him again.

However, after July 1999, due to his desire for fame and gain, Jin Zezhao not only did not feel ashamed of his lies, but was proud of what he had done, and co-operated with the police by writing other articles and speaking on television. He published long articles in the Hunan Worker's Newspaper claiming that Falun Gong practitioners attacked the county People's Hospital and "threatened" him, causing him "severe mental harm." At the same time, he openly admitted that he wrote the fabricated article and claimed that the person in the article named "Liu Ming" was actually an alias for retired teacher Jiang Baonai who had died from asthma in the People's Hospital. He tried to make the fabricated news a reality and continued to deceive kindhearted readers and the people.

Lies can fool people for a while but not for a lifetime. Jin Zezhao not only became infamous for fabricating stories about Falun Gong, he also reported to the police whenever he found sites where practitioners printed truth clarification materials. In October 1999, due to such reporting, a number of practitioners were arrested and taken to the county police station for printing truth clarification materials. One printing store was fined a few thousand yuan. [500 yuan is the average monthly income for an urban worker in China.]

5/19/04