(Clearwisdom.net)
(Continued)
Part 1: http://www.clearwisdom.net/emh/articles/2005/4/23/59971.html
Provoking Hatred Among Chinese People Living Outside China
In order to sustain the persecution of Falun Gong in China initiated by Jiang Zemin, the Chinese embassies and consulates around the world have an important task. This is to spread lies amongst overseas Chinese and provoke hatred against Falun Gong to create the intentionally fabricated phenomenon of overseas Chinese being hostile to Falun Gong. The officials who deliberately engineer and foster this hatred then take the "news" of it back to China as "evidence" justifying the persecution to the people in China. To do this, these corrupt officials have been using mass propaganda methods carried out via the websites of Chinese embassies and consulates, photo exhibitions, Chinese-language films shown free to the public, various student activities, local Chinese Communist Party (CCP) events and via the long reach of China's state-controlled media, whose uncensored propaganda is rebroadcast locally on cable TV and radio around the world.
1. Using Student Activities and Chinese Communist Party (CCP) Events to Smear Falun Gong
In order to suppress Falun Gong, Chinese embassies and consulates are using all sorts of events where Chinese people gather in groups, or are even organizing such activities themselves, to intentionally and systematically spread lies among Chinese expatriate communities in order to plant seeds of hatred. There are many such events, both public and private, held in consulates and at various other locations.
In his inaugural speech for the Chinese New Year's Gala in Connecticut in January 2001, Li Zhaoxing, then the Chinese ambassador to the U.S., attacked Falun Gong right in front an audience of 400 both Chinese and Western guests, including the local mayor, with total disregard for the celebratory nature of the event.
In February 2001, the Chinese Consul General in New York, along with two other diplomats, deliberately met with Chinese Communities in New York for the express purpose of maligning Falun Gong and spreading lies to the local community. After that, he also went to Harvard University and defiled Falun Gong with fabricated stories while addressing Chinese students there. At a meeting with Chinese residents of Boston, yet again he smeared Falun Gong, doing his utmost to provoke hatred in these people against it. Again in July 2002, he met with community leaders and representatives of Chinese students groups and continued slandering Falun Gong.
In 2001, Consul Wang of the Chinese Consulate in San Francisco, while he was on campus to extend passport visas for Chinese students, asked the chairman of the Chinese Student Union to sign a petition and organize related anti-Falun Gong activities. The Student Union Chairman replied, however, that he held a different view of the issues than those contained in the Consul's letter about Falun Gong. Some of the students who were there extending their passports also stated explicitly that they did not agree with the persecution.
At the end of 2001, Wang Xueliang, a student from China was invited to attend a dinner and New Year's Film Presentation organized by the Chinese Consulate. He attended. only to find that the three hundred students and seniors had been invited only to hear Chinese Communist Party (CCP) indoctrination and condemnation of Falun Gong. There was a great deal of anti-Falun Gong material on display, and the CCP official in charge said in his opening remarks that the purpose of the function was anti-Falun Gong; the film presentation itself was just a ruse to entice people to come.
In order to deceive people inside of China, the Chinese embassies and consulates often force organizations under their control to have seminars condemning Falun Gong in the name of patriotism.
In another example, in May 2001, a Chinese embassy in Canada called on community leaders in eastern Canada to condemn Falun Gong. The People's Daily newspaper in China immediately used the resulting words of condemnation from the overseas Chinese in their publication within China. All of the state-controlled media in China carried this news report. One of the senior men in that report was actually in support of Falun Gong practitioners; he had lent his office to them for use as a practice site despite great pressure not to do so. After the meeting, he told the practitioners that he had not spoken against their practice at the meeting, thus exposing the lies; but people inside China did not receive that information.
2. Using the Media to Attack Falun Gong
As well as directly organizing activities, Chinese embassies and consulates also pressure and manipulate overseas Chinese media to get them to slander and attack Falun Gong.
China Press, a newspaper circulating in the United States, carried over three hundred negative articles attacking Falun Gong during the thirty-one-month period from July 20, 1999, when Jiang first gave orders to suppress Falun Gong, until May 2002. That works out to an average of one article every three days. During this period, they did not print a single article reporting anything at all about Falun Gong in a positive way. As well as reprinting many articles of the state-controlled media in China, China Press also carried many editorials with views agreeing with the opinions of CCP officials .
In November 2001, the Montreal Chinese language newspaper Les Presses Chinoises carried a full page of articles attacking Falun Gong. Canadian Falun Gong practitioners filed a lawsuit against the newspaper for this action that was ultimately heard in the Quebec Supreme Court. At the trial last December, the court issued an order forbidding the newspaper from carrying any such articles smearing Falun Gong in the future.
On December 16, 2001, Talentvision, a Canadian Chinese TV station, aired a report from China's Central Television Network (CCTV) about a murder case (the so called "Bloody Murder in the Capital" case) with a bogus Falun Gong connection. On August 16, 2002, the Canadian Broadcasting Standards Committee issued a verdict, stating that the station had violated the Professional Ethics Standards stipulated by the Canadian Broadcasting Association, its related Rules on Reporting Violence guidelines, and four regulations of the Ethics of News standards set by the Editor's Association for Broadcasting and Television. According to that committee's arbitration team, there was no reliable evidence whatsoever linking the murder with Falun Gong. It was judged to be an attack on Falun Gong, and they required the television station to air their verdict during prime time programming hours.
The slander from the Chinese consulates has been met with legal action from practitioners. On February 3, 2004, the Supreme Court of Ontario ruled against Pan Xinchun, the Chinese Vice-Consul in Toronto, for writing a letter to the editor of a Canadian newspaper that libeled Canadian Falun Gong practitioner Joel Chipkar. Pan was fined $1,000 Canadian and ordered to pay court costs of $10,000 Canadian. When Pan refused to pay, the court issued orders to the Bank of China to freeze his accounts. The CCP attempted to pressure the Canadian government through diplomatic channels, but to no avail. In the end, Pan ignored the court order and fled Canada.
3. The Heinous Consequences of Inciting Hatred
Due to the poison spread by Chinese embassies and consulates, and the discord caused by their malevolent manipulation, there have been several cases of Falun Gong practitioners being physically attacked around the world that have received a great deal of attention.
On October 22, 2000, a San Francisco man deliberately collided with a practitioner using the full force of his body. This same attacker was later spotted both in the Chinese Consulate in San Francisco and attending anti-Falun Gong meetings.
On September 7, 2001, five practitioners were peacefully appealing outside the Chinese Consulate in Chicago, asking that the Chinese government put an end to the persecution. They were attacked by Zheng Jiming and Wong Yujun, both members of a local Chinese organization with close ties to the Chinese consulate. The Criminal Law Court of Cook County found both perpetrators guilty of beating the practitioners and sentenced them to time in jail.
On June 23, 2003, in New York City's Chinatown, Guanjun Liang and Hua Junxiong led a group of people that surrounded and beat practitioners. The Chinese Consulate even made a statement supporting these violent beatings the following day. The case is currently under investigation by Manhattan District Attorney's office.
4. Harassing Schools, Businesses and Media Organizations
In order to stop the truth of Falun Gong from spreading overseas, CCP diplomats have brought pressure to bear on schools, businesses and media organizations.
Many universities around the world have students who freely practice Falun Gong. Many of the universities have Falun Gong clubs and even websites introducing Falun Gong to any students interested in finding out further information about it.
According to a report in the Pasadena Star-News in April 2000, the Falun Gong club at Caltech ran a workshop introducing Falun Gong. Two days before the scheduled workshop, the school administration office received phone calls from the Chinese Consulate in Los Angeles requesting that they cancel the workshop. They refused.
After the persecution began, officials from the Chinese Consulate pressured Caltech to shut down the website of the Falun Gong Club there. They threatened that if this were not done, they would cut off Internet connections between Caltech and China. Caltech officials, after carefully examining the content of the website, refused to shut it down. The CCP then proceeded to block access to the website of Caltech from Internet users in China from the beginning of summer vacation until the late fall of 2000, causing great difficulties for the Chinese students who attended the school. Finally, when Caltech officials continued their refusal to consider this request, the CCP lifted the Internet blockade.
Falun Gong practitioners participate in many activities within their local communities. Their demonstrations of Falun Gong exercises, traditional Chinese folk dances, and waist-drum performances, are very popular and have received many awards. Chinese Consulates fear the truth about Falun Gong being spread, so they try their best to pressure the organizers of these activities to exclude the Falun Gong groups.
Every year when Falun Gong practitioners apply to participate in the Chinese New Year Parade in cities like Sydney, Washington D.C., New York, San Francisco and Los Angeles, local Chinese Consulates interfere. This year, practitioners in Sydney were, for the very first time, permitted to hold Falun Dafa banners and walk in the Chinese New Year Parade. Four hundred practitioners in New York participated in the Chinese New Year Parade in that city's Chinatown, demonstrating for all to see the beauty of Falun Dafa.
In the Chinese Business Expo in Los Angeles in early December 2000, some practitioners had rented a booth, paid the down payment, and gone through all the required procedures. On November 4, however, their contact person received several calls in succession from the organizers saying that several departments of the Chinese Consulate had called them and threatened to withdraw dozens of booths rented by Chinese businesses if the Falun Gong practitioners were allowed to be there; this put the organizer in a difficult dilemma.
When applying for a booth in the Chinese New Year celebration activities in Melbourne, Australia, in 2001, Falun Gong practitioners were told that, "There are no more booths left." When they decided to personally visit the organizers to apply in 2002, the person in charge told then directly: "If I give you the booth, we will not get the contract again next year."
The Borders Bookstore in Pasadena City in southern California was pressured not to sell Falun Gong books in the summer of 2000. An "influential" CCP official heard an interview by a local radio station with a Falun Gong practitioner. He subsequently pressured the Borders Bookstore to remove the books from their shelves. The bookstore still sells Falun Gong books, but now only through special orders.
The bookstore of Joint Publishing Company in Montreal Park City in southern California had always been the North America distributor of Falun Gong books, audio and video materials before July 1999. After that, however, the bookstore's head office in Hong Kong was put under pressure by the CCP and instructed not to sell Falun Gong books any longer.
The black hand of the Chinese consulate even reached out as far as Manteca, a small city of 60,000 people in northern California. In their local film festival this past November, they were to show a movie called Sandstorm. The movie is about a police officer's reflection of his own actions as he persecuted Falun Gong practitioners. Two diplomats from the Chinese Consulate in San Francisco went to see Ms. Abeldt, the administrator of Manteca's Tourist Bureau and asked her to cancel the screening of the movie. She refused to be intimidated, and told them that she would show the movie no matter what happened.
The CCP's dirty hands have also reached into global media operations, pressuring Chinese media sources all around the world not to carry either positive articles about Falun Gong or advertisements placed by them.
The Chinese Consul General in Melbourne, Australia, hosted a dinner party for people in charge of the Chinese newspaper there as well as other media representatives in October 2000. During the three-hour dinner, he repeatedly warned them not to carry pro-Falun Gong articles. Some newspapers revealed that the Chinese Consulate issued the command that if they intended to carry any articles about Falun Gong, they should first be faxed to the Chinese Consulate to obtain prior approval and that if the consulate said they couldn't print it that was the final word.
On March 6, 2001, the then Chinese General Consul in San Francisco wrote a letter, signing it with his official title of General Consul, to a famous Chinese newspaper requesting that they refuse any advertising for Falun Gong events.
5. The Threat, Harassment, and Persecution of Falun Gong Practitioners
Chinese embassies and consulates have been carrying out systematic harassment of Falun Gong practitioners, even going so far as using their extensive network of special agents all over the world. Many practitioners' telephones have been bugged, many have received harassing phone calls containing threats to violently injure or even kill them; their families in China are also hounded and put under pressure.
Many Chinese embassies and consulates have either refused to extend Falun Gong practitioners' passports, or have withheld their passports altogether.
Practitioner Liu Wei is a Ph.D. student and President of the Chinese Student Association at the Manchester Institute of Science and Technology in Britain. Before going to overseas, he had received provincial awards for his research work at home in China. While studying in Manchester, as well as chairing the Chinese Student Association, he was a member of the Chinese Student Union of Britain. In April 2002, his passport extension was refused by the Chinese Consulate in Manchester for "refusing to stop practicing Falun Gong."
Another Ph.D. student in the same school, Xie Weiguo, received one of that institution's major scholarships for his excellent research and study there, and graduated from Tsinghua University with a Master's degree. The first year he was studying in Manchester as Ph.D. student, he made an important breakthrough in his research project. The technique he developed is leading his field throughout Europe. His passport extension was also refused in 2004.
The following people also could not get their passports extended for the same reason: Yang Lifang, a former senior engineer of the Chinese Science Academy, who is now in Switzerland; Li Qing, post-doctor at Stanford University; Yang Lixin, post-doctor of Engineering in Belgium, former vice chairman of Chinese Student Association in Belgium; and Ye Ke, Ph.D. student at the University Southern California, a former chairman of Chinese Students and Scholars Association.
There are at least 100 practitioners in 19 countries who have had their passports either withheld by the Chinese consulates or had their passport extensions refused because they practiced Falun Gong.
(To be continued)
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Category: Perspectives
