Minneapolis Star Tribune, MN: Misleading story hurt Falun Gong

August 12, 2005

Reading the Star Tribune's Jan. 22 article "Falun Gong Followers Renounce Group," we local Falun Gong practitioners were shocked to see how the Chinese Communist Party (CCP) was using the Associated Press to deceive the American people.

The Star Tribune did not write that article -- but by publishing it, not only was the persecution of Falun Gong unintentionally imported into the United States and the CCP's lies spread, but the newspaper's credibility was damaged since the article was laced with party propaganda rather than the truth.

The Tiananmen self-immolation mentioned in the article was staged by the Chinese Communist Party to incite hatred for and to defame Falun Gong.

The Tiananmen self-immolation happened more than four years ago and already has been affirmed a hoax.

The International Education Development at the United Nations noted, "We have obtained a video of that incident that in our view proves that this event was staged by the [Chinese] government."

Even when the incident first occurred, U.S. media, including the Washington Post and Boston Globe, wrote articles questioning the credibility of the self-immolation.

Footage recorded from Xinhua News Agency, the largest government-controlled media in China, contained many suspicious points.

For example, the police just happened to be patrolling Tiananmen Square with dozens of firefighting equipment that day; Wang Jindong, one of the immolators, went up in flames yet his hair was not burnt; and the plastic Sprite bottle holding gasoline was not damaged, either.

In addition, Wang's meditation position, basic hand position and the slogans he shouted were different from what Falun Gong teaches.

So why was Falun Gong persecuted in the first place? Introduced in 1992 by Master Li Hongzhi, Falun Gong teaches five sets of slow-moving exercises and requires practitioners to follow the principles of truthfulness, compassion and tolerance.

Falun Gong never harmed any individual or organization; in fact, before the persecution, Chinese media frequently praised Falun Gong for the health benefits and high morality that it brought to citizens.

Since China has socialized health care, the Chinese health minister praised Falun Gong, saying that since 100 million people were practicing Falun Gong, the country was saving around 100 billion yuan a year.

Falun Gong is persecuted because the Chinese Communist Party is obsessed with controlling the people's minds. Falun Gong teaches people to be truthful, compassionate and tolerant; after learning those principles, one becomes committed to an honest and kind lifestyle. However, the party is constantly engaged in struggle, deceit and corruption, so naturally it is very insecure and afraid of the opposite.

The three recent defectors from the Chinese Communist Party hold documents that further expose the persecution of Falun Gong. One of those three, Hao Fengjun, holds documents that confirm the CCP staged the self-immolation.

The defectors also revealed that many spies are employed by the CCP to work in overseas countries such as the United States, not only to spy on Falun Gong practitioners, but also to spy on and leak information about the country's economy, military and people who are against human rights abuses in China.

Unlike other spies, these CCP spies' job is not only to obtain information, but also carry out persecution overseas.

Local cases of the Chinese Communist Party expanding its persecution of Falun Gong include harassment of a University of Minnesota student and threatening phone calls to a Minnesota resident.

When one female U of M student ran for the Friendship Association of Chinese Students and Scholars (FACSS), the Chinese consulate sent out hate mail to sabotage her election and create hatred for Falun Gong.

Another Falun Gong practitioner received phone calls threatening his life if he continued to practice.

Despite the CCP's attempts to persecute overseas, our representatives and senators have been continuously supportive of Falun Gong; we thank them.

In its last attempts to continue and expand the persecution of Falun Gong, the Chinese Communist Party used harassment, threats and abused Americans' trust in their media to spread vile and obsolete lies.

The American people, as citizens of the free world, will stand up and protect freedoms of speech, information and belief. Together, we will not allow the CCP to feed its lies to our newspapers, universities or hometown.

Grace Wu, Plymouth, is a college student at the University of Wisconsin-Madison.

http://www.startribune.com/stories/1519/5555713.html