The spiritual movement called Falun Gong (also referred to as Falun Dafa) has become very popular in China encompassing many of the meditation, health and philosophical tenets of Buddhism and other ancient Eastern religions. After its public introduction in 1992, Falun Gong spread peacefully throughout China until 1999, at which point the Communist government began to see it as a threat to its supreme authority and began persecuting its practitioners. In a short amount of time, it became the most popular form of qigong in China. Various government surveys and media reports placed the number of people practicing between 70 and 100 million by 1998. Thousands of people could be seen practicing Falun Gong exercises outdoors in parks in China’s large cities as well as cities around the world, including the U.S. Before the persecution started, Falun Gong had become an integral part of Chinese society. By the time the Chinese Communist Party (CCP) turned against Falun Gong in 1999, there were 100 million Falun Gong practitioners. The CCP’s persecution of Falun Gong is a comprehensive nation-wide effort that encompasses many different forms of cruelty and
inhumanity. Torture, murder, brainwashing, imprisonment, rape, forced labor, propaganda, slander, robbery, and economic deprivation form the foundation of the campaign. The harvesting of organs from living Falun Gong practitioners for transplant sale has taken the persecution to a whole new level. TALKERS magazine is in communication with the New York City-based Falun Dafa Information Center which reports the following message to our readers: The fact that the CCP is enacting these crimes in the world today creates a series of questions. If China is willing to do this to a harmless and innocent group of its own citizens, what wouldn’t it do to the rest of the world if it felt that it had the power and incentive to do so? Would it violate the human rights of other nation’s citizens, invade a neighboring country, or try something worse? Do we each have a responsibility to stand up for innocent victims who are being tortured and slaughtered by their own government? If your neighbor was not bothering you but they were slaughtering their family members what would your responsibility be? Given the truth of this situation, what is your responsibility? TALKERS encourages the talk media community to make contact with Levi Browde, executive director of the Falun Dafa Information Center to arrange interviews with him and other experts to raise consciousness among Americans to this dire human rights threat as well as other detailed insights into tenuous U.S.-China relations. He can be reached via email at levib@faluninfo.net.
Above: Falun Gong practitioner arrested at Tiananmen Square