(Minghui.org) The recent article “Falun Gong Has Always Been Legal in China” cited several documents issued by China's communist regime that label some particular religious groups as cults to show that there has never been any legal basis for the persecution of Falun Gong. Why? Because Falun Gong was never mentioned in those documents. Falun Gong is not on the official list of forbidden groups set forth by the regime, nor has it ever been.
While I think it’s good for us to have some general legal background about the lack of legal basis for the persecution, I would also like to urge fellow practitioners not to place too much importance on these documents in our truth-clarification.
For instance, when we are told that “Christianity is not legal in a certain country,” we believe there is something wrong with that country, not something wrong with Christianity. By the same token, we need not be too concerned about how the communist regime labels Falun Gong, but stay with the fact that Falun Gong should be legal in all countries, including China.
Zhen, Shan and Ren (Truthfulness, Compassion and Forbearance) are the highest principles of the universe. If a person lives by the principles of Truthfulness, Compassion and Forbearance, he is a noble and upright person. If a regime targets law-abiding Falun Gong practitioners simply for their faith, is this not a clear indication that the regime is corrupt, lawless, and evil?
Outside China, it has always been legal for Falun Gong practitioners to practice their faith and talk to others about it. In China, however, such normal activities have been labeled as “illegal,” despite the regime’s failure to produce any legal basis to justify its claim.
The Chinese Communist Party (CCP)’s laws, to put it bluntly, exist exclusively to defend the wicked Party. Law enforcement under the rule of the CCP does not distinguish between good and evil or right and wrong, but is only used as a tool to secure what is most beneficial to the Party, “great, glorious and correct” as it claims to forever be.
Today, it is an international consensus that there is no rule of law in communist China. The only real law is to obey the Party, even if that means promoting evil and harming those who have done nothing wrong.
It’s true that the CCP has never mentioned Falun Gong in any of those documents. As a matter of fact, there has never been any enacted law that criminalizes Falun Gong. My understanding is that the CCP didn’t have any written law to criminalize Falun Gong because it faced a conundrum. In order to criminalize something or someone, the CCP must give a description of that thing or person in the first place.
Therefore, it would have had to explain what Falun Gong was all about if it wanted to enact laws to ban the practice. That may prompt many to search for Falun Gong books to find out what was there to warrant the ban. The Party didn’t want that to happen because the public would easily see that Falun Gong simply teaches people to follow the principles of Truthfulness, Compassion, Forbearance.
As such, the Party resorted to smearing Falun Gong with its slanderous propaganda and labeling it as a cult without enacting any law, all the while destroying Falun Gong books and materials to prevent the public from finding out what Falun Gong really is. It employed its massive propaganda mouthpiece to indoctrinate the general public against Falun Gong through media vilification and effectively brainwashed the Chinese people to believe that somehow Falun Gong “deserved what it got.”
Whatever the CCP does, its main goal has always been to justify and perpetuate the persecution. As a result, even when we clarify the facts by citing the aforementioned documents, we should be careful.
For example, although the “Decision on Banning Cult Organizations, and Preventing and Punishing Cult Activities” issued by the Supreme People’s Court and Supreme People’s Procuratorate of China did not mention Falun Gong, it blatantly states that one’s upholding their spiritual belief and clarifying the facts is considered a criminal act.
Another example is that although the Ministry of Public Security didn’t include Falun Gong on its cult list issued in 2000, it had published many other documents that directly targeted Falun Gong prior to that point.
If we highlight too much the fact that the cult list didn’t include Falun Gong, we are actually downplaying the evilness of the CCP and may prevent ourselves from thoroughly exposing the even more heinous aspects of the persecution.
To reiterate, the legitimacy of Falun Gong does not derive from any laws on the books in China or anywhere else. We should rely on exposing the truth behind the persecution to bring it to an end, not on referring to the CCP’s policies, regulations, and laws.
The above is my limited understanding. Please correct me if there is anything improper.
Editor’s note: This article only represents the author’s understanding in their current cultivation state meant for sharing among practitioners so that we can “Compare with one another in study, in cultivation.” (“Solid Cultivation,” Hong Yin)
Views expressed in this article represent the author's own opinions or understandings. All content published on this website are copyrighted by Minghui.org. Minghui will produce compilations of its online content regularly and on special occasions.
Category: Clarifying the Truth
