(Clearwisdom.net) Ten years ago on April 11, 1999, He Zuoxiu, a brother-in-law of Luo Gan, the then secretary of the Chinese Communist Party (CCP) Committee of Political and Legislative Affairs, published an article, entitled "I am against youngsters practicing Falun Gong" in the Journal of the Tianjin Institute of Education. He Slandered Falun Gong and claimed Falun Gong would cause mental disorder and would lead to the destruction of the country. This led to the peaceful appeal of many Falun Gong practitioners on April 25, which was later misrepresented and twisted into a propaganda tool, accusing Falun Gon of laying siege to Zhongnanhai, the CCP regime's central government compound.

Many people still believe the lies and mistakenly believe: "If Falun Gong did not besiege Zhongnanhai, the CCP would not have launched the persecution." They believe that the persecution resulted from this.

In fact, long before April 1999, the CCP had been planning the suppression of Falun Gong, and were busy creating propaganda to pave the way for the later crackdown. It was the CCP who started to suppress Falun Gong first, and it led to the April 25 appeal.

Premeditated Suppression of Falun Gong

Around 1991, the CCP was alerted by the popularity of Qigong in the country and they formed a special team to monitor Qigong organizations. It consisted of nine people, who were highly ranked officials from various CCP branches, including sports, science, health, safety, propaganda, treasury, public security and police. Since Falun Gong attracted many people due to its effectiveness, the police paid attention to the group as early as 1994. They even sent some "spies" to the Falun Gong groups but they did not find anything to be alerted about.

At the end of 1994, Mr. Li Hongzhi, the founder of Falun Gong, stopped giving public lectures in China, yet the number of practitioners was growing fast, passed by word of mouth. In 1996, the estimated number of Falun Gong practitioners was more than 10 million, and among them there were many CCP officials, especially retired officials. This made the CCP nervous and Jiang Zemin, out of jealousy, made Falun Gong his imaginary enemy. Just as it did in all past CCP political movements, the Publicity Department prepared to launch a massive propaganda campaign, this time criticizing Falun Gong.

"Guangming Daily" Incident in 1996

In 1996, Xu Guangchun, the Deputy Minister of the Central Propaganda Department, called the chief editors of ten major official newspapers. Xu ordered "Guangming Daily" to publish articles defaming Falun Gong and the rest of them to quote the articles. Later, the News Publishing Division of the Propaganda Department sent out an internal note to ban all Falun Gong books because they "advocated superstition." The Falun Gong books Zhuan Falun and "Falun Gong" were among best sellers at the time. This signaled a change in the policy of "not interfering, promoting, or attacking qigong and supernormal abilities."

After "Guangming Daily" published an article defaming Falun Gong, the authorities received hundreds of thousands of letters from readers, telling them how good Falun Gong is. The suppression on Falun Gong did not go further.

Ministry of Public Security Internally Convicted Falun Gong As "Cult" Without Evidence in 1997

After the Central Propaganda Department's efforts had failed, in the beginning of 1997, Luo Gan ordered the Ministry of Public Security to conduct a national investigation, in an attempt to find "evidence" that Falun Gong is a cult. However, reports from the public security bureaus nationwide found no problems. In July 1998, the First Bureau of the Ministry issued notice 555, "Notice About the Investigation of Falun Gong". In the Notice, it named Falun Gong as a "cult" and proposed to "get a hold of insider information of Falun Gong activities and conduct further investigation if any evidence can be found." As the result of the investigation, no evidence of a crime could be found nationwide.

Although the Ministry of the Public Security convicted Falun Gong first, but they did not find any evidence. Thus they had no excuse for a large scale suppression. However, Luo's investigation triggered incidents in several areas, including local police dispersing Falun Gong practitioners from their group practice sites, breaking into practitioners' houses, and confiscating their private property in provinces including Xinjiang, Heilongjiang, Hebei, and Fujian.

Beijing TV Station Incident in 1998

In May 1998, He Zuoxiu, who used to work in the CCP's Central Propaganda Department, publicly slandered Falun Gong on Beijing TV Station's program "Beijing Express". Some practitioners went to the TV station to tell them the truth. Beijing TV Station then made a correction. A vice mayor of Beijing ordered He Zuoxiu to stop making false accusations on Beijing media. This was one of the reasons for He to go to Tianjin where he later published the article defaming Falun Gong.

Health Investigation in 1998

Because the police harassed Falun Gong practitioners in various areas, more and more practitioners wrote letters to the authorities to clarify the truth. During the second half of 1998, some retired members of the National People's Congress, lead by Qiao Shi, based on large amounts of letters and some investigations, they concluded that "Falun Gong will only benefit but not harm the country and its people", and at the end of 1998 they sent in a report to the Political Bureau of the Central Committee, which was led by Jiang Zemin at that time.

The then Premier Zhu Rongji was very happy to see the report and he gave an instruction saying not to bother Falun Gong practitioners. Jiang Zemin read the report and said the report was too mysterious for him to understand, and he gave the report to Luo Gan. Luo understood what Jiang wanted. Practitioners later learned that Premier Zhu's instruction was withheld by Luo. Luo dared to do so since he had Jiang Zemin backing him.

Increasing Suppression: Tianjin Incident in 1999

The investigation results and conclusion in 1998 were clear and in support of Falun Gong. But, nevertheless, the suppression of Falun Gong did not stop, instead it was increased. The CCP had fixed Falun Gong as their "enemy," without any evidence.

After the failure of defaming Falun Gong on the Beijing TV Station, He Zuoxiu, with the support of Luo Gan, wrote an article titled, "I Do Not Recommend Young People to Practice Qigong" in the Youth Overview magazine published by the Tianjin Institute of Education. The article lied, and defamed Falun Gong, and went so far as claiming that Falun Gong would lead to the destruction of the country.

From April 18 to 24, some practitioners went to the Tianjin Institute of Education and related offices and talked to the editors and officials. They told their true experiences how they benefited from Falun Gong. On April 23 and 24, the Tianjin riot police beat and injured some practitioners and arrested 45 of them. When other practitioners asked that these people be released, Tianjin officials said they could not release them without an order from Beijing. The Tianjin police suggested that practitioners go to Beijing to appeal. Some overseas media reported Luo Gan was the one who directed it.

Peaceful Appeal On April 25, 1999

On April 25, 1999, 10,000 practitioners went to Beijing to appeal for Falun Gong. The entire process was peaceful and rational. Nothing could be called "siege" or "attack," these words were used by the CCP media. The then Premier Zhu Rongji ordered to release arrested practitioners in Tianjin, and hearing this, all practitioners left Beijing immediately. Before they left, they picked up all their garbage from the ground, including the cigarette butts which policemen had thrown on the ground.

We should point out: (1) No one enjoys appealing, and no one would go for appeal without a reason. The practitioners' appeal was the result of the CCP's suppression of Falun Gong. (2) Why did the Tianjin police tell practitioners to go to Beijing? Looking back, it was a trap. Someone wanted things to get out of hand, so there would be an "excuse" for the crackdown. (3) Luo Gan knew in advance that practitioners would go to Beijing to appeal. (4) Some practitioners heard from their relatives and friends before they went to Beijing that a large number of police was near Zhongnanhai and they were prepared to arrest a lot of people. And the person behind this was the then CCP's General Secretary and chairman of the Central Military Commission, Jiang Zemin.

The arrested practitioners in Tianjin were released. But the issue of prohibiting the publishing of books and allowing practitioners to practice in public remained unsolved. Yet the handling of the incident was praised by the international media: "Chinese government is open to accept citizen's suggestions." "Chinese citizen's quality has been lifted." But Jiang, out of extreme jealousy, was so angry that he lost his reason and sense.

On April 25, when Luo Gan and related people were reporting the incident to Jiang, he could not wait to wave his hands and shout: "Eliminate it! Eliminate it! Absolutely eliminate it!" Other people present were shocked by his reaction.

In the same night, an urgent meeting of the Political Bureau Standing Committee was called. Jiang Zemin shouted at Zhu Rongji and said what Zhu did would lead to the destruction of the party and country. That same night, Jiang wrote a letter as the General Secretary of the CCP to the Political Bureau Committee. In the letter, Jiang made the accusation that there was a "master hand" behind the incident and ordered his personal letter to be treated as an official document and to be sent to others. (Top secret, Central Office [1999] No. 14, Notice on distribution of "A letter from Comrade Jiang Zemin to the Political Bureau Standing Committee and other related leaders")

The Logic of "the Lamb Eating the Wolf"

Despite the fact that high officials of the CCP knew Falun Gong very well and knew that "Falun Gong will only benefit but not harm the country and its people", Jiang Zemin and the CCP decided to crackdown on Falun Gong. It was due to their dictatorship nature and their wish to control, including controlling people's minds. They felt Falun Gong took people away from them. If all people believe in Truth-Compassion-Forbearance, then no one would follow the CCP to lie, do evil, and fight. The number of Falun Gong practitioners exceeded the number of CCP members, and Jiang could not bear this. Meanwhile, he also wanted to establish more power within the CCP.

Jiang Zemin used no reason and decided to crackdown Falun Gong. The April 25 appeal was not the reason for the crackdown, since at that time the government handled the peaceful appeal well. But Jiang ignored the opposite opinions from most of the high officials and overturned what Premier Zhu Rongji had done. He decided to use the power of the country and the CCP to crackdown on Falun Gong. Other officials were afraid of him and remained quiet on the issue.

The CCP reversed causal relationships, slandered Falun Gong's peaceful appeal as "laying siege to Zhongnanhai" and used it as an "excuse" to start the persecution on Falun Gong practitioners. The "excuse" they used was like saying "the lamb is eating the wolf". The process was against China's constitution. It is a disaster for human rights. More than a billion people have been persecuted.

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Ten years have passed since the April 25 peaceful appeal. The CCP's persecution still continues. But justice is in people's hearts. Despite the brutal persecution, practitioners have won respect from the world's people. With the spreading of the Nine Commentaries on the Communist Party, more and more people have seen the true evil nature of the CCP, and more and more people have awakened from the lies and have quit the CCP and its affiliated organizations. More and more people see hope coming from Falun Gong.

April 25, 2009