Falun Gong: A Positive Update

We finally have a reason to smile for our gnostic friends in the East. According to an article by the Epoch Times Chinese citizens are standing up against the brutal religious oppression of the peaceful gnostics who call themselves the Falun Gong. I'd written a bit about them in the past but at that point it looked pretty grim.

My prayers go out to them and all those who are sheltering and supporting them in this dangerous time.

Chinese Lawyers Support Falun Gong in 'Brave 300' Case

By Rona Rui,  Epoch Times Staff

5/28/12

Chinese lawyers and the public are increasingly more willing to oppose cases of Falun Gong practitioners being persecuted by authorities, after an incident in Hebei Province where 300 villagers signed their names on a public petition calling for the release of a detained fellow villager.

Wang Xiaodong, a teacher in Zhouguantun village near Butou city, Hebei province, was arrested in late February by plainclothes police after they discovered in his home compact discs with information about Falun Gong and its persecution. They also took 20,000 yuan (US$3,200) from him. His elderly mother and 7-year-old son were left to fend for themselves.

Following the arrest, 300 villagers signed their names and put their fingerprints on a petition for Wang’s release. But shortly thereafter the villagers were ordered to retract their statements and became the objects of repression by authorities, reportedly on direct orders from the powerful Political and Legislative Affairs Committee.

Guangdong lawyer Tang Jingling told The Epoch Times on the telephone that the incident is “a fight between good and evil. Using political or legal terms, it’s about the establishment of freedom and democracy,” he said.

People must stand up and raise a united righteous voice against the regime, Tang said.

Shaming Officials

According to Tang and other lawyers, the Chinese public is increasingly more willing to stand up against human rights abuses, particularly those targeting the Falun Gong mediation practice, also known as Falun Dafa, whose adherents espouse the values of truthfulness, compassion, and tolerance. Falun Gong practitioners have been persecuted in China since July 1999.

A Beijing lawyer, who wished not to be named, told The Epoch Times on Friday that he would be willing to accept Wang’s case if it were presented to him.

He said, aside from the villagers publicly standing up for him, Wang Xiaodong’s case is not unique. Numerous Falun Gong practitioners have been illegally sentenced, with the prosecution and judges designing charges that have previously never existed, or have questionable legal standing; in other cases evidence is apparently fabricated by police. Most of the time the legal system is bypassed, with practitioners instead directly sent to brainwashing centers or labor camps.

The lawyer added that there have been positive developments in Wang’s case because the villagers’ petition has shed unfavorable light on local Chinese Communist Party (CCP) officials. He also knows of reports stating that the upper echelons of the CCP, including Politburo members, have questioned the reasoning behind the political campaign against Falun Gong.

Meanwhile, the lawyer said the Supreme People’s Procuratorate, the highest legal office in China, has handed the case back to the local Butou police bureau because of lack of evidence.

Liu Yan, a local government official, verified in a phone call on Saturday that the case had indeed been sent back to the police bureau for lack of evidence.

For Wang and his family, this could be a favorable development, the Beijing lawyer said, because his family can then request that he be released on bail. The lawyer added that there is a good likelihood that Wang might be released because it is an opportunity for officials with the police station to save face in light of public scrutiny.

Wang could also be cleared of all charges, but this is a more difficult feat to accomplish, the lawyer said.

The Epoch Times called the government in Butou, and local officials said they would consider the villagers’ petition.

But according to a number of local people The Epoch Times talked to, the government has been harassing villagers who signed the petition.

When Chongqing’s former top cop, Wang Lijun, fled for his life to the U.S. Consulate in Chengdu on Feb. 6, he set in motion a political storm that has not subsided. The battle behind the scenes turns on what stance officials take toward the persecution of Falun Gong. The faction with bloody hands—the officials promoted by former CCP head Jiang Zemin in order to carry out the persecution—is seeking to avoid accountability for their crimes and to continue the campaign. Other officials are refusing any longer to participate in the persecution. Events present a clear choice to the officials and citizens of China, as well as people around the world: either support or oppose the persecution of Falun Gong. History will record the choice each person makes.

Our Internet Freedoms

Do we have true freedom to speech on the 'net? For most of the free-world the answer would be yes. As long as we are not hurting or threatening others directly we can use our minds and keyboards to collaborate ideas and share our daily thoughts. For the Chinese, Vietnamese, Koreans, Russians, and others this freedom we take for granted simply does not exists. Government censorship holds information hostage. For gnostics this is not acceptable.

The gnostic path is such that in order for the greatest amount of learning and gnosis to occur we must have the greatest amount of freedom. Censorship is not freedom. When government conspiracies and embarrassments cannot be aired on public information highways for discussion then tyranny will prevail.

Yesterday Google became even more disenchanted with Chinese censorship laws than they have been in the past year. Hackers, most likely the government funded variety, tip-toed their way into multiple accounts and have created a security nightmare. Here is the story. Make note of the text in red which mentions Falun Gong and Tibetan independence.

Google may quit China over cyber-attacks

Firm vows to stop censoring search results after Gmail accounts are hacked

msnbc.com news services, 01/13/2010

SAN FRANCISCO - Google Inc. will stop censoring its search results in China and may pull out of the country completely after discovering that computer hackers had tricked human-rights activists into exposing their e-mail accounts to outsiders.

Google said on Tuesday that it had detected "highly sophisticated" cyber-attacks in mid-December on the Gmail accounts of Chinese human-rights activists, and that at least 20 other large companies from a wide range of businesses have also been similarly targeted.

The change of heart announced Tuesday heralds a major shift for the Internet's search leader, which has repeatedly said it will obey Chinese laws requiring some politically and socially sensitive issues to be blocked from search results available in other countries. The acquiescence had outraged free-speech advocates and even some shareholders, who argued Google's cooperation with China violated the company's "don't be evil" motto.

The criticism had started to sway Google co-founder Sergey Brin, who openly expressed his misgivings about the company's presence in China.

But the tipping point didn't come until Google recently uncovered hacking attacks launched from within China. The apparent goals: breaking into the computers of at least 20 major U.S. companies and gathering personal information about dozens of human rights activists trying to shine a light on China's alleged abuses.

'Very serious concerns'
Google spokesman Matt Furman declined to say whether the company suspects the Chinese government may have had a hand in the attacks.

Secretary of State Hillary Rodham Clinton said the Google allegations "raise very serious concerns and questions" and the U.S. is seeking an explanation from the Chinese government.

Google officials also plan to talk to the Chinese government to determine if there is a way the company can still provide unfiltered search results in the country. If an agreement can't be worked out, Google is prepared to leave China four years after creating a search engine bearing China's Web suffix, ".cn" to put itself in a better position to profit from the world's most populous country.

"The decision to review our business operations in China has been incredibly hard, and we know that it will have potentially far-reaching consequences," David Drummond, Google's top lawyer, wrote in a Tuesday blog posting.

A spokesman for the Chinese consulate in San Francisco had no immediate comment.

China has more than 350 million Web surfers and annual search revenue topping $1 billion, but its Internet market has been a thorny one, with companies having to adhere to strict self-censorship rules dictated by Beijing.

Anyone disobeying those rules, which prohibit sites on sensitive issues like Tibetan independence or the outlawed Falun Gong spiritual movement, can have their site blocked or closed.

"Google's move is related to censorship and not a business decision at all," said a high-level industry executive close to Google's former China chief, Lee Kai Fu, speaking on condition of anonymity because of the subject's extreme sensitivity.

"Google has been agonizing for a very long over this decision. Since last year, Google was talking about making a gesture to show the Chinese government it will no longer tolerate strict censorship over its operations," the source told Reuters.

Abandoning China wouldn't put a big dent in Google's earnings, although it could crimp the company's growth as the country's Internet usage continues to rise.

Google, based in Mountain View, said its Chinese operations account for an "immaterial" amount of its roughly $22 billion in annual revenue. J.P. Morgan analyst Imran Khan had been expecting Google's China revenue to total about $600 million this year.

Although Google's search engine is the most popular worldwide, it's a distant second in China, where the homegrown Baidu.com processes more than 60 percent of all requests.

Free-speech and human rights groups are hoping Google's about-face will spur more companies to take a similar stand.

"Google has taken a bold and difficult step for Internet freedom in support of fundamental human rights," said Leslie Harris, president of the Center for Democracy & Technology, a civil-liberties group in Washington. "No company should be forced to operate under government threat to its core values or to the rights and safety of its users."

It's "an incredibly significant move," said Danny O'Brien, international outreach coordinator at the Electronic Frontier Foundation, an Internet rights group in San Francisco. "This changes the game because the question won't be 'How can we work in China?' but 'How can we create services that Chinese people can use, from outside of China?'"

Many Web sites based outside China, including Google's YouTube video site, are regularly blocked by the country's government.

Intellectual property
Google's new stance on China was triggered by what it described as a sophisticated computer attack orchestrated from within the country. Rep. Anna Eshoo, D-Calif., praised Google for disclosing chicanery that "raises serious national security concerns."

Without providing details, Google said it and at least 20 other major companies from the Internet, financial services, technology, media and chemical industries were targeted. The heist lifted some of Google's intellectual property but didn't get any information about the users of its services, the company said. Google has passed along what it knows so far to U.S. authorities and other affected companies.

It does not appear that any U.S. government agencies or Web sites were affected by the attack, according to two U.S. administration officials. The officials spoke on condition of anonymity because they were not authorized to speak publicly about the issue.

The assault on Google appeared primarily aimed at breaking into the company's e-mail service, Gmail, in an attempt to pry into the accounts of human right activists protesting the Chinese government's policies.

Only two e-mail accounts were infiltrated in these attacks, Google said, and the intruders were only able to see subject lines and the dates that the individual accounts were created. None of the content written within the body of the e-mails leaked out, Google said.

As part of its investigation into that incident, Google stumbled onto another scam that was more successful. Google said dozens of activists fighting the Chinese government's policies fell prey to ruses commonly known as "phishing" or malware. The victims live in the United States, Europe and China, Google said.

Phishing involves malicious e-mails urging the recipients to open an attachment or visit a link that they're conned into believing comes from a friend or legitimate company. Clicking on a phishing link of installs malware — malicious software — on to computers.

Once it's installed on a computer, malware can be used as a surveillance tool that can obtain passwords and unlock e-mail accounts.

Google's unfettered search results won't necessarily ensure more information will be made available to the average person in China because the government could still use its own filtering tools, said Clothilde Le Coz, Washington director for Reporters Without Borders, a media watchdog group.

"The Chinese government is one of the most efficient in terms of censoring the Web," she said. The blocking technology has proven so effective that it's become known as the "Great Firewall of China."

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Here is a link: (http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/7783640.stm) to exactly what China thinks of internet forums and news articles. According to some people these 'spin doctors' are less noticeable now, however they do still lurk.

Falun Gong

Falun Gong is a spiritual sect begun in mainland China. Gnostics. And they are being tortured, murdered, and even harvested for organs.

Wiki says:

"Falun Gong (alternatively Falun Dafa) is a system of beliefs and practices founded in China by Li Hongzhi in 1992. The practice emerged at the end of China's "qigong boom" as a form of qigong practice. Falun Gong differs from competing qigong schools through its absence of daily rituals of worship, its self-consciousness about outside critics,^[1] its greater emphasis on morality and the purported theological nature of its teachings.^[2][3] There is on-going debate about Falun Gong's classification as a religion, a new religious movement (NRM), or a "cult", term used by the Chinese government to describe the movement.^[4] Its teachings are derived^[5] from qigong, Buddhist and Daoist concepts.^[6][7][8]

In April 1999, over ten thousand Falun Gong practitioners gathered at Communist Party of ChinaZhongnanhai, in a silent protest following an incident in Tianjin.^[9][10][11] Two months later the Chinese government banned the practice through a crackdown and began a large propaganda campaign.^[12][5][13] Since 1999, Falun Gong practitioners in China have been reportedly subject to torture,^[14] illegal imprisonment,^[15] beatings, forced labor, organ harvesting, and psychiatric abuses.^[16][17] Falun Gong has responded with their own media campaign, and have emerged as a notable voice of dissent against the Communist Party of China, by founding organizations such as the Epoch Times, NTDTV and the Shen Yun Performing Arts to publicize their cause.^[18] headquarters,

The number of Falun Gong practitioners is unknown, and the group has no organized membership system. In 1998, the Chinese government published a figure of 70 million practitioners in China.^[19] Falun Gong asserts over 100 million practitioners of Falun Dafa in "114 countries and regions around the world".^[20]

Falun Gong was introduced to the public by Li Hongzhi(李洪志) in Changchun, China, in 1992. Its teachings cover spiritual, religious, mystical and metaphysical topics. Falun Gong is an introductory book that discusses qigong, which introduces the principles and provides illustrations and explanations of the exercises involved in Falun Gong practice.

The main body of teachings is articulated in the core book Zhuan Falun (轉法輪),^[21] published in late 1994. According to the texts, Falun Gong (or Falun Dafa) is a "complete system of mind-body cultivation practice" (修煉).^[22] 'Truthfulness' (眞), 'Compassion' (善), and 'Forbearance' (忍) are regarded as the fundamental characteristics of the cosmos—an omnipresent nature that permeates and encompasses everything. In the process of cultivation, the practitioner is supposed to assimilate himself or herself to these qualities by letting go of "attachments and notions," thus returning to the "original, true self." In Zhuan Falun, Li Hongzhi said that "As a practitioner, if you assimilate yourself to this characteristic, you are one that has attained the Tao."

Falun Gong draws on Oriental mysticism and traditional Chinese medicine, criticizes self-imposed limits of modern science, and views traditional Chinese science as an entirely different, yet equally valid knowledge system, according to Yuezhi Zhao, professor in the University of California. Concomitantly, it borrows the language of modern science in representing its cosmic laws. Zhao says: "Falun gong is not conceptualized as a religious faith; on the contrary, its practitioners, which include doctorate holders from prestigious American universities, see it as 'a new form of science.'"^[23]

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The Ban

On 20 July 1999, the Chinese government declared the Research Society of Falun Dafa and the Falun Gong organization under its control to be illegal for having been "engaged in illegal activities, advocating superstition and spreading fallacies, hoodwinking people, inciting and creating disturbances, and jeopardizing social stability."^[47] Xinhua further declared that Falun Gong was a highly organised political group "opposed to the Communist Party of China and the central government, [that] preaches idealism, theism and feudal superstition."^[48] Xinhua also affirmed that "the so-called 'truth, kindness and forbearance' principle preached by Li has nothing in common with the socialist ethical and cultural progress we are striving to achieve."^[49] In response, Li Hongzhi declared that Falun Gong did not have any particular organization, nor any political objectives.^[50]

The Chinese authorities branded Falun Gong, along with some other practices, movements or organizations xiejiao (Chinese: 邪教),^[51] it used the English word "cult" or "evil cult", and introduced a barrage of media material criticizing Falun Gong.^[48][52] A nationwide crackdown ensued with the exception of the special administrative regions of Hong Kong and Macau. In October 1999, four months after the ban, legislation was created to outlaw "heterodox religions" and applied to Falun Gong retroactively.^[15] Leung remarked that the effort was driven by large-scale propaganda through television, newspapers, radio and internet.^[15] According to Johnson, the campaign against Falun Gong extended to many aspects of society, including the media apparatus, police force, military, education system, and workplaces.^[13] An extra-constitutional body, the "6-10 Office" was created, charged with monitoring and taking action against various religious groups.^[53] Human Rights Watch (2002) noted that families and workplaces were urged to cooperate with the government's position on Falun Gong, while practitioners themselves were subject to severe coercive measures to have them recant.^[54]

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"Severe coercive measures to have them recant"... hmm... Doesn't that sound like TORTURE to you?

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Due to its ban in mainland China, Falun Gong practitioners have taken to their cause internationally, especially in Australia, Canada, the United States, New Zealand, and Britain. Since the ban in China, Falun Gong has alleged that its practitioners in China were subject to torture.^{[citation needed]} Falun Gong related cases comprise 66% of all reported torture cases in China, according to the Special Rapporteur on torture,^[63] and at least half of the labour camp population.^[64] Amnesty International urged the government to "take seriously its commitment to prevent torture and take action immediately."^[65][66] The United Nations asked the Chinese government to respond to the various allegations by Falun Gong and human rights groups.^[14] Falun Gong practitioners in the United States routinely file cases in U.S. federal courts against Chinese leaders once they step upon foreign soil. According to International Advocates for Justice, Falun Gong has filed the largest number of human rights lawsuits in the 21st century and the charges are among the most severe international crimes defined by international criminal laws.^[67][68]

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So Amnesty International is involved. GREAT! Not that they've been able to do much of anything about the torture going on except spread the word about it and be appalled by it. Be outraged all you want. But what are you doing about it?

The Epoch Times is an international and multi-lingual publication by the Falun Gong. This is what they are doing about the abuse:

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The paper has been in publication since May 2000.

The newspaper was founded by practitioners of the Falun Gong spiritual discipline, after the government of the People's Republic of China banned the movement in 1999.^[1][2] Its stated focus is coverage of China and human rights issues, but much of its content is general-interest.^[3][4][5] Its editorial stance is heavily critical of the Chinese Communist Party (CCP) and sympathetic to dissidents. The Chinese government blocks those in mainland China from accessing the Epoch Times website.^[6]

Headquartered in New York City, the newspaper has local bureau and a network of local reporters throughout the world. It is sold and also distributed free-of-charge in roughly 30 countries worldwide, and maintains editions in English, Chinese, nine other languages in print, and 17 on the web.

On the paper's integrity:

"- the journal's credibility as media professionals has been damaged by Wang Wenyi,^[18] who used her Epoch Times journalist pass to gain access to a White House lawn press briefing where she hurled insults at Chinese President Hu Jintao.^[44] President George W. Bush apologized to the Chinese for the incident.^[45] In turn, The Epoch Times apologized to the U.S. President,^[46] whilst denying any direct ties to, or funding from, Falun Gong.<sup>[18]

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So let me get this straight. You've got a pissed off Chinese woman who voices her opinion and all of a sudden the credibility of her newspaper is on the line??! Yes, the publication is anti-communist. Yes, they are fighting for the right to survive. And if the Epoch Times hadn't denied ties to, or funding from, Falun Gong there would have been an international incident. They've had to ... shall we say... retract/redact/backslide on their original theme of being a publication completely about the Falun Gong spiritual sect. They've had to slip in some other types of stories with their original rants. It's too dangerous to do otherwise. Even though they're still being hunted down and killed. Because of course Falun Gong is outlawed in China. The US would be seen as harboring criminals from China. Do you see the delicate dance in motion here?</sup>

• ^{Falun Gong: We know we're being hunted.}
• ^{Amnesty International: We know you're being hunted, tortured, killed, and your basic human rights are being ignored and even outlawed. Even if you had pictures it wouldn't do any good.}
  
• ^{China: DIE all you religious people! Communism will prevail!}
• ^{The US: We know what's going on but we can't do shit about it because we need the products China makes for us. We'd go bankrupt otherwise.}

Last I checked yoga and qigong never taught violence; it teaches passive resistance. So the only thing China's pissed about is that Falun Gong's followers don't want to be under the communist regime any longer.

Here is a link to the Epoch Time's official website: http://www.theepochtimes.com/ You can select your language at the very top of the page.