Nowadays, many people who kindly give their advice to Falun Dafa practitioners always say: we know that you are good people, but the government has judged Falun Gong as an evil cult, so you should stop practicing it. Is this indeed the fact? No. So far, the People's Republic of China (PRC) does not have any definitive determination on the nature of Falun Gong.
Chinese President Jiang Zemin gave a lecture abroad on October 25,1999 and declared that Falun Gong is an evil cult. Immediately afterwards, People's Daily published an article entitled "Falun Gong is an evil cult" by a special critic. Then the major media in China immediately followed and gave distorted reports on Falun Gong.
As is widely known, the Constitution of the PRC is the fundamental law of the state. It is clearly stated in its preamble that: "This Constitution affirms the achievements of the struggles of the Chinese people of all ethnicity and defines the basic system and basic tasks of the state in legal forms; it is the fundamental law of the state and has supreme legal authority." Both the 80th and 81st statements in the Constitution clearly define the privileges of the president of the state.
The Chinese Constitution Article 80 states: "The President of the People's Republic of China, in pursuance of decisions of the National People's Congress and its Standing Committee, promulgates statutes; appoints and removes the Premier, Vice-Premiers, State Councilors, Ministers in charge of Ministries or Commissions, and the Auditor-General and the Secretary General of the State Council; confers state medals and titles of honor; issues orders of special pardons; proclaims martial law; proclaims a state of war; and issues mobilization orders." The Chinese Constitution Article 81 states, "The President of the People's Republic of China receives foreign diplomatic representatives on behalf of the People's Republic of China and, in pursuance of decisions of the Standing Committee of the National People's Congress, appoints and recalls plenipotentiary representatives abroad, and ratifies and abrogates treaties and important agreements concluded with foreign states."
These are the only two privileges that the Constitution endows to the President. Obviously, the Constitution does not give the president the privilege to determine the nature of any school of Qi Gong exercise. Thus, the speech of President Jiang exceeds the limits of authority given by the Constitution. The Chinese Constitution Article 5 states, "No organization or individual may enjoy the privilege of being above the Constitution and the law." Therefore, the speech of President Jiang Zemin violated the Constitution. As to the articles written by the special critic of the People's Daily, not only are its viewpoints and arguments far away from the facts, but its standpoint also violates the principle of "upholding truth and correcting errors" that the Chinese Communists advocate. In terms of validity, it cannot represent the central authorities of the Communist Party, nor can it represent the law.
People also say: didn't the Standing Committee of the National People's Congress, the Supreme People's Court and the Supreme People's Procuratorate make some related decisions about Falun Gong in October, 1999. Indeed, the 9th Standing Committee of the National People's Congress at its twelfth meeting enacted, "The decisions of the Standing Committee of the National People's Congress on banning organization of evil religions, preventing and punishing the activities of evil religions". The Judiciary Standing Committee of the Supreme People's Court at its 1079th meeting on October 9, 1999 and the 9th Procuratorial Standing Committee of the Supreme People's Procuratorate at its 47th meeting on October 8, 1999 passed the bill of "The Explication of the Supreme People's Court and the Supreme People's Procuratorate on how to specifically apply the law to several problems regarding handling organizations and cases of using evil organizations to commit crimes". However, the decisions of the Standing Committee of the National People's Congress and the explications of the Supreme People's Court and the Supreme People's Procuratorate do not touch specifically upon Falun Gong. These measures and regulations are for real evil religions and have nothing to do with Falun Gong.
In fact, ever since the introduction of Falun Gong in 1992, the Standing Committee of the National People's Congress - the supreme authority of the PRC, and the explications of the Supreme People's Court and the Supreme People's Procuratorate do not pass any bill regarding Falun Gong. Therefore, all the decisions and measures made by the individual leader of the state and governmental departments on Falun Gong should be corrected according to the law because they are against the Constitution.
The media cannot represent the law, nor can an individual represent the government. In the article "The speech of Jiang Zemin in the 4th caucus of the Disciplinary Standing Committee of the Central Authorities", published in People's Daily on April 2, President Jiang constantly emphasized defending the dignity of the law and stated that every one must follow the law to serve his duty, no matter who you are and what high-ranking position you hold. Being the highest leader of the state, President Jiang should set a good example with his own conduct and be a model for following the law. The way that President Jiang drew a conclusion about Falun Gong is against the law and exceeds the privileges given by the Constitution, and this conduct hurts the hearts of hundreds of millions of people. As Falun Gong practitioners, we must conduct ourselves to be good people under all circumstances, we do not commit bad deeds, and we are not against the government. It is very easy to arrest and beat people, but it will be rather terrible to lose the trust of the citizenry. The Chinese Communists always advocate the principle "Follow the law if there is one, correct the mistake if there is one". We sincerely hope to see that President Jiang will correct his mistakes for the sake of the interests of the state and the people and return Falun Gong with a clean reputation.
April 25, 2000
(Translated on Apr. 30, 2000)