A True Chinese Renaissance

Never eat from diseased"made in China chopsticks" because of slave labour and extreme unsanitary conditions

2009-12-07T20:33:00.000-08:00

My life inside a Chinese labor camp

People are taking part in Amnesty International's Write for Rights action this week by writing letters and signing petitions to show solidarity with individuals who suffer human right abuses. Former prisoner of conscience Bu Dongwei spent over two years in a Chinese Re-education through Labour (RTL) camp until his release in July 2008, following campaigning by Amnesty International and its supporters…

By Bu Dongwei
Amnesty International Blog

"I was working in Beijing for a US NGO on a project funded by US government funds when I was detained and sent to a 'Re-education Through Labor (RTL)’ camp due to my belief in Falun Gong.

On May 19, 2006, six to seven police broke into my home and searched for the book 'Nine Commentaries on the Communist Party'. They didn't find the book they wanted but found several Falun Gong books. They put me in the detention centre in Haidian District, Beijing.

I was locked in a small cell (about 220 square feet) with 30-35, sometimes over 40 people. I stayed in the detention centre for over three months before I was transferred to the labor camp.

It was to be my second time in this labor camp. In 2000, I was sent to the labor camp for one year the same reason.

Persecution in the labor camp includes; deprivation of basic needs, brain-washing, no freedom to go to the restroom, no freedom to wash clothes, bad food and bad living conditions.

In the Beijing Tuanhe Labor Camp, all Falun Gong practitioners are forced to repeatedly listen to guards insult the Falun Gong, watch videos that slander Falun Gong, forced to denounce Falun Gong and, every day, forced to sing songs that praise the Communist Party.

Force-feeding is a torture method that labor camps often use on Falun Gong practitioners, particularly on those who have staged hunger strikes to protest their unlawful persecution.

One practitioner, Mr. Yu Ming, whom I first met in Tuanhe labor camp in 2001, was in the labor camp for the third time. But this time I never saw him because he staged a hunger strike and was put into a special, small room with a video camera.

One day a guard took me into their office. He forgot to turn off the monitor before I went in. On the monitor, I saw Yu Ming bound on a small bed in the center of the room with four non-Falun Gong detainees sitting around him.

Every day, the doctor would come to force-feed Yu Ming. He had been bound on the bed for over six months before he was transferred to another labor camp in April 2007. .

The guards arranged some non-Falun Gong detainees to live with us and monitor Falun Gong practitioners. The guards promised to reduce the non-Falun Gong detainees' terms if they ‘worked well’. Falun Gong practitioners are not allowed to talk to each other.

Forced labor work

During my first time in the camp, we were forced to pack disposable chopsticks in very unsanitary conditions. Every day we were forced to pack 6,000-7,000 pairs of chopsticks. All the chopsticks were put on the ground of the small room and people often stepped on them. Some of those chopsticks are for export.

In July, 2009, while I was having lunch in a cafeteria in Capitol Hill, Washington DC, I saw that the disposable chopsticks in the cafeteria were made in China. I’m not sure if these chopsticks were made in labor camps… but we made the same chopsticks.

In my second time in the camp, we were forced to pack carton boxes and were exposed to poisonous glues with little protection.

With the help of the US government, the European Parliament, the British and German government, Amnesty International and others, my daughter and I eventually came to the US to join my wife following my release in July 2008.

I sincerely thank all the people who have helped my family and me in the past two years.

Today, millions of Falun Gong practitioners are still being persecuted in mainland China. Many have lost their jobs, their homes and their freedom. Some have even lost their lives just because of the strength of their beliefs.

Even when I was in the labor camp, I could feel from the attitude of the guards that they got pressure from the outside world. One guard even mentioned to me once that international human rights organizations cared about me.

Only after I arrived in the US did I learn that Amnesty members around the world had written me hundreds, if not thousands, of letters. All the letters were impounded by the authorities. But I believe that the pressure from international society, of course including the letters from Amnesty members, helped me a lot.

>From my experience, attention and pressure from international society can help to improve the conditions of jailed people. The Letter Writing Marathon is a great idea. Chinese people are now beginning to launch similar programs for those in China’s jails. Please help to stop the persecution of various kinds of people. The injustice must be - and will be - stopped by the joined efforts of all upright and kind people."

Top artworks highlight a grim truth

2009-12-06T00:19:00.000-08:00

Oil Painting Competition Winners Crowned

Top artworks highlight a grim truth

By Christine Lin
Epoch Times Staff Created: Dec 5, 2009

The gold winning painting "Shake" by Michelle Chen of Canada. (Epoch Times Staff)

NEW YORK—Of the 19 oil painters who received an award in this year's Chinese International Figure Painting Competition, two of the top prize winners chose to paint on the same subject—one that is dear to their hearts.

“I started this painting with the hope to illustrate what is happening in China right now,” said gold winner Michelle Chen from Canada. Her piece, titled “Shake,” portrays the scene in a modern Chinese jail house, where a practitioner of the spiritual practice Falun Gong had been beaten because of the Chinese regime's campaign to eradicate the faith. Though the theme is dark, ultimately, the painting's message is one of hope.

In the scene the woman, dressed in white, levitates in meditation as her jailers look on in shock. “She is so beautiful even though she's been shackled. She's serene and compassionate,” Chen said. “Some of the police are shaken, one is kneeling in reverence, and others are afraid of what they see.”

One of two silver prize winners is Li Yuan from Japan. His painting, like Chen's, illustrates the quiet strength that Falun Gong practitioners exhibit while under persecution. In his piece “Imprisoned Dafa Practitioners,” a man hanging from chains is heckled by three Chinese policemen, one of whom is piercing the victim's skin with a metal object. Despite all these, he looks upward into the light.

“The focus is not on the pain,” Li said. “I wanted to show the upward spirit rather than the pain—the inspiration was a simple idea.”

Li and Chen were two of 35 finalists whose submissions were put on display at Salmagundi Art Club through Dec. 5. Contestants entered paintings on a wide variety of subjects, including rural life, as in the work of silver winner Wei Way with “Old Woman Who Patches Clothes,” family, self portraits, nomads, and the native peoples of Asia.

Open to artists of Chinese descent, the competition is presented by New Tang Dynasty Television whose mission it is to promote and restore the tradition arts of East and West. The conclusion of the painting competition marks of the end of another round of NTDTV's annual competition series.

Spanish citizens learn Falun Gong after Spanish Court charges heads of CCP with genocide

2009-12-05T16:07:00.000-08:00

Spanish Court's Indictment of Jiang Zemin and Four Other CCP Officials

(Clearwisdom.net) Five high-ranking Chinese officials have been indicted in Spain for genocide and torture of Falun Gong practitioners. In a groundbreaking case, following a two-year investigation, a Spanish judge has accepted charges of genocide and torture in a case filed against five high-ranking Chinese Communist Party (CCP) officials for their role in the persecution of Falun Gong.

The report in China Press mentioned that the defendants have 4-6 weeks to reply and could subsequently face extradition if they travel to a country that has an extradition treaty with Spain.

Attorney Iglesias said, "This historic decision by a Spanish judge means that Chinese Communist Party leaders responsible for brutal crimes are now one step closer to being brought to justice. When one carries out the crime of genocide or torture, it is a crime against the international community as a whole and not only against Chinese citizens. Spain is emerging as a defender of human rights and universal justice."

The Guang Ming Daily reported that a Spanish judge has indicted five high-ranking Chinese Communist Party (CCP) officials for their role in crimes of torture and genocide committed against Falun Gong practitioners. Following a two-year investigation, Spanish National Court Judge Ismael Moreno last week notified attorney Carlos Iglesias of the Human Rights Law Foundation (HRLF) that the court had granted a petition to send rogatory letters (letters of request) to the five defendants in China with questions relating to each individual's involvement in the persecution of Falun Gong.

The Guan Ming Daily published the article again on November 21. The report states that besides Jiang Zemin, the other four defendants are Luo Gan, Bo Xilai, Jia Qinglin and Wu Guanzheng.

"Please Let Me Watch It First"

By Chengyu

(Clearwisdom.net) Before the persecution of Falun Gong began in China, people tended to learn about it on their own. They formed independent opinions about Falun Gong and made their own decisions about whether to practice it. At that time, many Chinese media reported on Falun Gong from a fair and objective point of view. Once the Chinese Communist Party (CCP) started to persecute Falun Gong, however, it also influenced people's opinions of Falun Gong through a campaign of misinformation and propaganda.

How much do the Chinese people know about Falun Gong when they are free from the CCP´s propaganda? Do they form their opinions on the basis of their own observation and inquiry? I would like to make a comparison between the Chinese and the people of the free world through the following events, which took place in a foreign country.

According to a Clearwisdom report, Spain's most prestigious national health fair took place in Madrid on November 5, 2009. More than 700 exhibitors participated in the fair, and Falun Gong was among them, as it had been in previous years. According to estimates by the organizers, more than 80,000 people attended the fair.

The organizers arranged a maximum of two seminars for exhibitors who wanted to publicize their products or services. Two seminars had already been arranged for Falun Gong. Because of the extraordinary popularity of Falun Gong among attendees, however, the organizers arranged an additional Falun Gong seminar. It was scheduled to take place just an hour before the fair closed, since the agenda was full. One would think that this would not be a good time for a seminar, since the fair would close just an hour later, people would be getting ready to leave, and exhibitors would be busy packing their things. But when the Falun Gong practitioners went to the meeting room to conduct the seminar, they were surprised to find a long line of people waiting to attend. Many of them had attended the previous two Falun Gong seminars, but they came again after they learned that another seminar had been added.

A woman who attended the first seminar bought the Falun Gong book, Zhuan Falun. The next day she went to the practitioners and said to them, "After I attended the seminar yesterday, I found myself in tears for no reason. I feel that my life has undergone a great change and that I have found what I have been looking for all my life." She told practitioners that she would practice Falun Gong.

A female exhibitor also attended the Falun Gong seminar. She told a practitioner, "On the day before the fair opened, I began suffering from pain in my arms. They hurt so much, I could not even raise them. I was very worried that I would not be able to manage my exhibit for four days with so much pain. But after I attended your seminar yesterday and learned the first set of Falun Gong exercises, I was surprised to find that the pain in my arms was gone. It was really miraculous." She lifted her arms to show the practitioners and said, "Look, I have recovered completely." She attended the following two seminars and also invited her colleagues.

At the Falun Gong exhibit, practitioners played a video demonstration of the Falun Gong exercises. A man stood in front of the TV screen and watched the demonstration closely. A practitioner approached him to tell him more about Falun Gong, but the man kept his eyes fixed on the screen and said, "Please let me watch it first."

The day after the fair was over, a woman called the practitioners and told them about her experience at the health fair. She was from Galicia in northern Spain, and she had gone to the heath fair in search of spiritual guidance. She had received a Falun Gong flyer before the fair closed, but she did not have time to read it, so she left it in her bag. When she read the flyer after she went home, she experienced a profound feeling that seemed to move her from the bottom of her heart. Then she called the practitioners and told them, "I want to learn Falun Gong. It is exactly what I have been looking for and waiting for all my life."

I was quite moved by these reports. The first woman could not help her tears after she went home from the fair because she saw Falun Gong with her own eyes and came to understand the true meaning of her life. The female exhibitor who recovered from the pain in her arms also spoke about her observations of Falun Gong on the basis of her own experience. And the woman who called practitioners after the fair was a seeker of truth. There are people like her all over the world who seek spiritual enlightenment and purification. Many of them may have had experiences similar to hers when they learned about Falun Gong.

I was most moved by the man who declined the practitioner's explanation as he kept his eyes fixed on the exercise video and said, "Please let me watch it first." He was a man who definitely had his own point of view. He wanted to learn about Falun Gong by seeing it with his own eyes.

I believe that in China, there are many people who trust their own judgment as this man did. They do not parrot what others say or blindly accept the CCP's propaganda. Although people's opinions of Falun Gong can be influenced by the CCP's media monopoly and misinformation, sincere people are bound to get a objective and fair view as the truth about Falun Gong continues to circulate throughout China.

I have some suggestions for those Chinese people who have been blinded by the CCP's propaganda against Falun Gong. Please take a look at Falun Gong with your own eyes and think about it without being influenced by the notions the CCP seeks to plant in your mind. If you learn the truth about Falun Gong, you too may be moved to tears and find your illnesses gone. If you are interested in the true meaning of life, you really need to see Falun Gong with your own eyes. You should not dismiss it on the basis of CCP propaganda. Rather, you need to be like the man who said, "Please let me watch it first."

A Chinese Mother Writes to Her Son from Prison

2009-11-28T03:12:00.000-08:00

Written by a Falun Dafa practitioner illegally imprisoned in China

(Clearwisdom.net)

My son, how are you doing?

Time flies. It’s been seven years since I was taken away from you. You were a boy back then. Now you are a bright and sophisticated college student. I’m so glad! The electric net and the high wall separate me from you. I can only walk towards you in my dream, bringing you my firm belief in truth.

Each and every day in the past seven years, like any mom in the world, I thought about you. My best wishes have always been with you when you grew up! Even though I couldn’t hold your hands to cultivate together with you, I knew Truth-Compassion-Forbearance, the truth of the cosmos, had taken deep root in your heart. When you were eight years old, your Mom was lucky enough to start practicing Falun Dafa. I took you with me to the group study every day. You read Zhuan Falun with us. At an experience sharing conference, you and a few other little practitioners went onstage to demonstrate the meditation exercise. You all looked very focused and solemn. I was so impressed that I remember it vividly even today. On your way home from school, you saw strings of colorful Falun following you. In your dream, a demon chased you. You ran to a Falun. The demon immediately disappeared. Teacher has been protecting us and paying debts that we owed to others in our past lives. That’s why we weren able to overcome one tribulation after another and walk our paths of cultivation peacefully in those years.

One night when you were fifteen years old, we were suddenly awoken from our sleep. Policemen broke into our apartment and illegally searched our home and took me away. Since then, I haven’t been back home. I was worried then about the hundreds of Falun Dafa books and DVDs of Teacher’s lectures in our home. You were so clever that you took a few with you every day on your way to school and passed the precious materials on to fellow practitioners. You took a few each day until all of them were safely in the hands of other practitioners. This is a secret between us. Nobody else knew about this. In those days, our phone was tapped and the police monitored our home. The way that you cherish the Fa moved me to tears. There is no doubt that you are Teacher’s little disciple. There is no doubt that you safeguard the Fa! As your mom, I want to say thank you! How could I not still be concerned about you? How could I try to find excuses not to firmly and righteously walk down the path of cultivation during this inhumane persecution?

Because of the persecution, you lost the warmth of our home and you had to mature early. My brave son! You didn’t give in to the evil test imposed upon us. You even wrote to me often and came to visit and encourage me. I’m so thankful to you! I have suffered all kinds of torture here. It has been like hell on earth. In the most vicious environment, I came to see more clearly that the reason a person can survive in the most difficult situation is because he or she has a soul with a strong belief! Where did people come from? Where are they going? It is Falun Dafa that answered all my questions. And I found hope in my cultivation. Isn’t it uplifting if we can let go of life and death when Dafa is being slandered and treated unfairly, and while the evil forces torture us and try to force us to give up our beliefs? So the suffering is not for naught! However, it would be devastating if a person lost his or her perseverance and belief.

In this brutal persecution, I came to understand more about life. Pushed to the extreme, I found I could still bear a little more. When I found it was hard to let go of something, I found I can give out more. My right to take care of my parents and my child were taken away. Nevertheless, my belief in the Fa has always been with me and nothing can disturb me any more.

What is it that makes life meaningful? What is it that makes us so magnificent? It is because Dafa is being spread. It is because we are assisting Teacher with Fa-rectification. It is because of our responsibility and mission of saving sentient beings. We were handcuffed. We were shackled. We were tied down to a tiger bench. It was so cold here and we were not allowed to sleep well. Bad people tried to brainwash us. However, with all of this physical torture and persecution of our mind and spirit, while we are being wronged, so many of us remained steadfast. We spread the truth about Dafa, about Truth-Compassion-Forbearance, to the people we encounter, and save people even while suffering tribulations ourselves.

Time can never change a Falun Dafa disciple’s heart. We have our firm belief in the truth. Fa gave us wisdom and made us mature and tolerant. In the prison, we were pushed to our limit. However, Teacher strengthened us. In the past seven years, when I missed you so much, I’d recite what Teacher said in Zhuan Falun,

“Cultivation is something you do right in the thick of tribulations. They’ll test whether you can sever your emotions and desires, and they’ll see if you can take them lightly.”

Once in my dream, I was out on an open field. I was holding your hand and running with others, trying to escape disaster. I picked you up and lifted you over my head. Suddenly, you turned into a white bird and flew to the sky. I looked up. Colorful clouds were all over the sky. I still see this scene vividly today. I came to realize that Teacher was encouraging me to let go of sentimentality. Our benevolent Teacher has made all the arrangements for us, yet I was attached to everyday sentimentality. How could I ascend with all my attachments?! Teacher has been watching me and protecting me and bearing suffering for me to help me break through the tribulations of life and death. During the years when I wasn’t with you, I know there are always fellow practitioners taking care of you. Even when you went to another city, you met fellow practitioners that help you improve in the Fa.

Five years after I was taken away from you, you started to go to college, which meant you could start to visit me. In the visitation room, on the other side of the big glass window, I was eagerly looking for the little face that I was so familiar with. Yet, time has changed both of us. You are now grown up! You look so confident and righteous. I was so happy! You are no longer a little boy, but now a man. Your first words to me then were, “Mom, you have been so courageous!”

My son, you will enter mainstream society in one year. In the current society where people go after physical interests, you still need to be a good man even when it is hard to do so. Returning to your true self is the hope of a life. Dafa will help you find yourself in such a noisy world, which is the ultimate goal of a life. Do not get distracted by superficial prosperity. It is actually quite bitter. People’s admiration won’t send you to heaven. All the possessions won’t put an end to reincarnation. All the relationships with family members will become history when the old cosmos is replaced by the new.

Let’s be thankful. We are thankful that we got the opportunity to study the Fa. We are thankful for the time when Teacher is with us. We are thankful for Teacher’s arrangements of making us parent and child. We are thankful that we have a chance to position ourselves well through practicing Dafa.

You said in your previous letter, “The clouds are gone. The sun is coming out. Flowers are blossoming at our apartment. The whole building is immersed in the fragrance of our flowers. The flowers are blossoming for Mom. They are welcoming Mom home. Together let’s get ready for the beautiful future!”

Together with my letter, I send you my best wishes for you!

Please give my regards to others in the family!

Finally, I wish your dreams come true!

Mom

In Prison

Australian media reports on Falun Gong organ harvesting and Ccp's paranoia on Truth Compassion and Tolerance

2009-11-25T17:32:00.000-08:00

Falun Gong marks 10 years of being banned in China

Radio Australia Asia Pacific

November 25, 2009 20:33:23

Falun Gong practitioners are marking ten years since China banned the spiritual and exercise movement as a national security threat, in the wake of a mass demonstration by adherents in Beijing in April of 1999. Thousands have since been detained, tortured and killed. Advocates say the bodies of dead Falun Gong practitioners remain the key source of organs for the booming domestic trade in illegal transplants. But there are signs that actions by foreign governments, and by authorities in Beijing, are beginning to improve matters.

Presenter: Linda Mottram, Canberra Correspondent
Speakers: Yue Chang Zhi, Falun Gong practitioner; David Matas, Canadian human rights lawyer and author

MOTTRAM: Yue Chang Zhi is 70 years old, a diminutive but vocal Falun Gong practitioner. She endured four years in a labour camp because of her adherance to the spiritual movement's practices .. she says she was tortured there by Chinese authorities.

YUE: In the labour camp they tried to forcefully transform her and she would not give up truthfulness, compassion, forbearance, so they wouldn't let her sleep, they wouldn't let her bath, and in the end she still resisted so they started beating her.

MOTTRAM: Truthfulness, compassion and forbearance is the Falun Gong mantra and Yue Chang Zhi held out against what she says was pressure to denounce it.

She says on one occasion - the 18th of March 2004 - she was tortured for six consecutive hours, beaten and bashed until her spine was broken in two places. She was eventually released, but continued campaigning, online, attracting official attention again, until she was granted asylum in Australia in March this year.

At a small demonstration on the lawns outside the Australian Parliament, several dozen practitioners demonstrated the exercise regime that is the core of Falun Gong. Others held up large posters with shocking images associated with alleged illegal organ harvesting by China. Yet more Falun Gong adherents donned Chinese military uniforms or had makeup applied for a graphic demonstration of some of the techniques they say Chinese officials use against their colleagues in detention.

David Matas is a Canadian human rights lawyer who advocates on behalf of Falun Gong. Armed with a new book called "Bloody Harvest: The killing of Falun Gong for their organs", he's been briefing Australian politicians and will speak this week at an Asia Pacific human rights conference in Sydney. While he says there's still a long way to go for Falun Gong in China, there've been dramatic changes in the Chinese organ transplant market overall, since the issues were first raised in 2007.

MATAS: Transplant tourism into China has more or less stopped partly because of foreign efforts and partly because of Chinese efforts. The Chinese government in July 2007 said that they would give priority to Chinese customers. But other governments have reacted as well. The Israeli government used to finance transplant into China and they stopped the financing. The Taiwanese used to allow brokerrs and have charters into China and that's all stopped. Australia used to allow training for Chinese transplant doctors in Australian hospitals and that's stopped. So what we see in China now is a shift in the patient market. But you don't see a decrease in the volumes of transplants in fact if anything the volume has gone up. But what you do see is a decrease in the only other sorts besides Falun Gong death penalty. So the sourcing from Falun Gong has increased.

MOTTRAM: As well China has set up a registration system for hospitals permitted to undertake transplants. That doesn't include military hospitals which are said to be a big part of the problem. But its a big shift from what David Matas calls the "anything goes" capitalism that saw hospitals, even the Peoples Liberation Army, forced to go into whatever business they could to get funds.

MATAS: When we first started, the official Chinese response all our organs come from voluntary donations but now they acknowledge that's not the case, instead they acknowledge they pretty well all come from prisoners. So the debate between them and us is which sort of prisoners.

MOTTRAM: David Matas also says countries like Australia should be more vocal about China's persecution of Falun Gong.

MATAS: I've met with many foreign affairs bureacucrats around the world who say that they raise the issue privately in bilateral talks but that doesn't have the same impact as raising the matter publicly would do.

MOTTRAM: Chinese authorities appear no less paranoid about Falun Gong than when they banned the movement ten years ago. But as China grows economically and looks to position itself as a good international citizen, the pressure over at least some critical human rights issues appears to be having an impact.

2009-11-25T16:35:00.000-08:00

Lawyer Arrest in China after Obama Visit Spurs Action from Congressmen

By Gary Feuerberg
Epoch Times Staff Created: Nov 25, 2009 Last Updated: Nov 24, 2009

Congressman Frank Wolf (R-VA) spoke at an emergency press conference Nov. 23 on Capitol Hill on behalf of lawyer Jiang Tianyong, who is being increasingly harassed by the Chinese regime. (Gary Feuerberg/The Epoch Times)

WASHINGTON—Jiang Tianyong, a veteran human rights lawyer, was unlawfully arrested during Obama’s visit to China recently, and is under further threat from the Chinese regime for seeking a meeting with the American president during that time, said Congressman Chris Smith.

Rep. Smith, a Republican from New Jersey, was prompted to hold an emergency press conference on Capitol Hill Nov. 23. He said that unless action is taken by the U.S. government, the communist regime may ratchet up the persecution of Jiang with a “show trial” and imprisonment in a forced labor camp.

“Several leading dissidents were rounded up, harassed, punched, beaten, threatened, and detained immediately prior to, during, and after the president’s visit.” said Congressman Smith.

Prior to his arrest, Jiang had just returned to China after spending four weeks in the United States. He had testified on Capitol Hill twice on his experience defending victims of forced abortions and sterilizations, part of China’s repressive one-child policy. Congress had an obligation to protect their witnesses, said Rep. Smith, and the harassment and threats to Jiang were an attack on the Congress.

The U.S. Embassy initiated the idea that Jiang and other defense rights lawyers meet with President Obama when the latter was in China, according to an interview Jiang gave to Human Rights in China (HRIC). The embassy became noncommittal and eventually said “no” to Jiang when he called from a location near the embassy, he said.

Immediately after this phone call to the embassy, 200 police pulled up and interrogated Jiang and a colleague for over an hour, Jiang said. He and his colleague were held until Obama departed that afternoon. The following morning Jiang was arrested when he and his wife were taking their seven-year-old daughter to school.

When Jiang challenged the lawfulness of his detention, the police told him that he was held for “attacking the police,” according to Amnesty International. Jiang told HRIC that he learned later that “during his detention, two policemen went to his daughter’s school and told her teacher that they were there because her father beat a policeman.”

After more than 13 hours of questioning, Jiang was told he could go home. He told HRIC that the chief interrogator, Huang Bo, said to him, “You have not seen the last of this yet.”

These words are what worry Congressmen Frank Wolf and Smith. Surveillance of Jiang has intensified with more police, and an additional police car, said Rep. Smith. His home had already been under surveillance since July 31 when a booth was set up outside Jiang’s apartment—it is manned 24 hours a day.

Obama Urged to Act

Congressman Chris Smith (R-NJ) called an emergency press conference Nov. 23 on Capitol Hill on behalf of Chinese human rights attorney Jiang Tianyong (pictured on the left). Jiang was arrested during Obama's visit and is now under heavy surveillance. Congressman Frank Wolf is seated. (Lisa Fan/The Epoch Times)

Rep. Smith expressed annoyance that Chinese authorities would mistreat human rights defenders, especially in response to an American president’s visit, and called it “an affront” to decent and civilized people.

Rep. Smith called upon the U.S. government to act. He suggested President Obama call Chinese regime leader Hu Jintao and tell him Jiang should not be harmed just because he wanted to talk to Obama.
The U.S. ambassador to China should drive over to Jiang’s home and “stand with him,” said Rep. Smith. Rep. Wolf agreed, saying, “That’s what previous administrations did.”

Jiang's Work Puts His Life in Danger

Jiang spoke of a 24-year old woman’s ordeal of forced abortion during his testimony at Capitol Hill on Nov. 10.

“The officials held her on the bed and gave her a poisonous shot, despite that her due date was soon. The needle went through her belly to the nine-month old fetus. The woman said, ‘At first, I could feel my baby was kicking; after a while it stopped.’ Ten hours later, she gave birth to a dead baby. The official threw the dead baby into a bucket.”

Reggie Littlejohn, president of Women’s Rights Without Frontiers, said that Jiang has risked his life to tell the world about “the greatest human rights atrocity against women in human history.”

Littlejohn was on the same panel with Jiang at the hearing. She quoted Jiang, who said privately to the others on the panel: “I am worried when I go back to China. If anything happens to me, could you watch out for my wife and my daughter?”

Power of Nine Commentaries 'enormous' over 60 million turn their back on communist regime

2009-11-24T16:38:00.000-08:00

Power of Nine Commentaries 'enormous': Human Rights Commissioner

By Shar Adams
Epoch Times Staff Created: Nov 23, 2009

The Epoch Times editorial series, the Nine Commentaries

The Epoch Times editorial series, the Nine Commentaries, may be just one of the many reflections of disenchantment that Chinese people have with the Chinese Communist Party (CCP), but its impact can no longer be ignored, said Dr. Sev Ozdwoski, Australian Human Rights commissioner from 2000 to 2005.

“The author remains anonymous, but the power of the ideas in this book is enormous,” he told a forum in Sydney held to celebrate the fifth anniversary of the The Epoch Times publication.

The Nine Commentaries, although banned in China, has inspired millions of Chinese people to resign from the Chinese Communist Party. Their resignations, which now number over 60 million and rising, are registered on a website established by The Epoch Times.

Dr. Ozdowski, who grew up under Soviet occupation and communist rule in Poland, compared the Nine Commentaries to George Orwell’s 1984, saying: “… after reading that book [1984], I couldn’t live in Poland anymore—I had to go.” The power of ideas in Nine Commentaries and the “written mode of expressions” were having a similar impact in China, he said.

Dr. Ozdowski said he was surprised to learn from reading the book that a foreign power, the Soviet Communist Party, had actually established and funded the Communist Party in China.

“So one could say that the Chinese Communist Party was born of high treason of Chinese people,” he said.

In reading each of the Commentaries, he noted that much of the behavior of the present rulers of China had been transplanted from Stalinist Russia, both countries losing millions of people to human-induced famine, mass terror and violence.

“I read in the book there was this 95 to 5 formula of class assignments. So 95 percent of the population was assigned to various classes, which could be re-educated and improved, and 5 percent were labeled as class enemies for destruction.

“It follows very closely what was happening in the Soviet Union. Stalin demanded from city officials lists, which would include up to 10 persons per population for the purpose of killing them,” he said.

Dr. Ozdowski also noted similar attacks on moral codes of society. “They [CCP] attacked Confucians, they attacked Buddhists, they attacked Taoists. My work in human rights confirms very much what the book is saying–Chinese cannot elect their own government, there is no freedom of speech, censorship dominates every aspect of their life.”

The Nine Commentaries, he said “simply expresses the idea that ‘the time has come’ in a unique Chinese way”.

Chen Yonglin, a former Chinese diplomat who defected to Australia from the Sydney consulate in 2005, also spoke at the forum.

Speaking in Mandarin for a live link into China, Mr Chen said many Chinese people did not know the true history of the CCP in China or the suffering of the Chinese people, but after reading the Nine Commentaries, they realized things were very different from what they had been brought up to believe.

Similarly, those intellectuals and democracy activists who had hoped they could work with and transform the CCP from within saw clearly that there was no hope for democracy while the Party was there.

“Why has the CCP not brought democracy [to China]?” he asked the audience. “I say it is because they are anti-human and for the past 60 years what the CCP has perpetrated on these people, we could never forgive and never forget.”

Mr. Chen, who had spied on Falun Gong practitioners and others as part of his role in the Sydney consulate, said the Nine Commentaries had so shocked the Chinese communist leadership that they had searched the mainland and overseas for the writer.

“They actually put a few people in jail in China because they thought they were the writers,” he said.

“Even the lawyer, Gao Zhisheng, they thought he was speaking about the Nine Commentaries everywhere and so they put Gao in jail and sentenced him for three years,” Chen said.

Gao Zhisheng, a human rights lawyer considered to be the Nelson Mandela of China, is still being held, with his exact whereabouts unknown to this day.

Associate Professor in Chinese Lawyer Tie Ming Yuan also spoke in Mandarin, telling listeners that the Nine Commentaries played an important role in educating Chinese people about the methods the Chinese Communist Party had used to come to power and how they continued to stay there.

“Before, we never thought that the government did not have the right to rule in China, but after this book has been published, we understand it came to power not by election and not by law,” he said.

Chinese leaders are not interested in the Chinese people, but only in maintaining their own existence, he said. For this reason, he said, Chinese people would n

The Ten-Year Persecution of Falun Gong Is Ilegal (Part 1)

2009-11-22T01:15:00.001-08:00

(Clearwisdom.net) On July 20, 1999, the Chinese Communist Party (CCP) initiated a comprehensive campaign of persecution against Falun Gong. This brutal persecution has continued for more than ten years at this point. Since the beginning, this persecution has been illegal in every sense.

1. Persecution that Goes Against Humanity is Fundamentally Illegal

During the Nuremberg trials more than sixty years ago, all of the war criminals employed the defense that they were "executing the existing law." Hitler had systematically set up laws to carry out his genocide against the Jewish population. He segregated them using legal designations, cut off their means to make a living, and eventually drove them into concentration camps to be exterminated. The judges at Nuremberg quickly rejected this defense, however. They concluded that the atrocities committed by these war criminals did not amount to carrying out the law, but rather crimes against humanity. These laws in fact directly led to crimes against humanity, the trampling of human rights, and demeaning human dignity, ultimately resulting in genocide. Thus, these were not considered legitimate laws. In a different time and set of circumstances, those carrying out the persecution of Falun Gong are doing much the same thing.

2. The Persecution is Destroying Human Morality

One of the things that allowed the Holocaust to happen was the de-humanization of the Jewish community by the Nazi regime. It first created the illusion that a part of the human race, the Jewish community, was sub-human and separate from the rest of humanity, which made mass murder possible. The Chinese Communist Party's strategy is to create a culture that is increasingly reliant upon money and material wealth, sacrificing faith and human rights in the process. By separating the Chinese people from their traditional values, it is creating a tragedy in the form of lost fundamental human morality.

Ignoring for the moment the tactical actions taken by the CCP during the persecution, one of its strategic goals is to wipe out those who believe in the principles of "Truthfulness-Compassion-Forbearance," values that go directly against the greed-driven, atheist culture espoused by the CCP. In the process of carrying out this persecution, the CCP has not only committed crimes against the direct victims of the persecution, but also against those who have been swept up in its destruction of morality.

3. The CCP's Rule Itself is Illegitimate

Throughout history, it has been the responsibility of any ruling body, whether it came to power by conquest or democratic election, to bring prosperity and virtue to those whom it governs, and therein lies its mandate to remain in power. However, the CCP has clearly violated that mandate. As the Nine Commentaries on the Communist Party states, the Communist Party stands for all that is wicked and destructive, and since it took power in China, it has caused the deaths of at least 80 million Chinese people. During its persecution of Falun Gong, it has positioned itself in direct opposition to the principles of "Truthfulness-Compassion-Forbearance." This type of regime, whether one looks at it from a spiritual, cultural, or legal perspective, is one that has lost its legal mandate. More specifically, its policies to stamp out "Truthfulness-Compassion-Forbearance" are also illegal.

4. How do the CCP's Legal and Legislative Processes Compare to the Product of Modern Countries' Legitimate Processes?

In most countries, the legal framework consists of a constitution, criminal laws, civil laws, commercial laws, administrative laws, and other components. For most democratic countries, a parliament or congress is in charge of legislation. China has the People's Congress to establish or amend the Constitution and associated laws, and the court system to interpret and enforce the laws. However, in the Chinese regime, these and related organs are not independent bodies, but rather extensions and tools of the CCP. The 610 Office established by Jiang Zemin specifically to persecute Falun Gong was given power to override all other government organs in carrying out its purpose. It is quite telling that in persecuting Falun Gong, the 610 Office is able to ignore specific provisions of the Chinese Constitution granting freedom of belief and assembly, use the legal system to pronounce practitioners guilty of arbitrarily assigned offenses, and then sentence them to prison, forced labor camps, and even mental institutions.

Chinese Classical Dance Transforms the Heart

2009-11-06T20:42:00.000-08:00

Michelle Ren

Exquisite Chinese Classical

Dancer principle Female

Dancer in ShenYun

By Helena Zhu
Epoch Times Staff

Michelle Ren won the first prize in the Adult Female Division of New Tang Dynasty Television’s International Chinese Classical Dance Competition in 2007. (The Epoch Times)

Michelle Ren began training in artistic gymnastics in China at the age of 6 and has won several awards, including the first prize in the Adult Female Division of New Tang Dynasty Television’s International Chinese Classical Dance Competition in 2007.

Ms. Ren currently serves as a choreographer and principal dancer with DPA. She spoke of the inner meaning and outer form of Chinese classical dance, which has moved and exhilarated audiences at DPA shows around the world.

Chinese classical dance, a comprehensive system featured by ShenYun, has been passed down through Chinese history by common people and by members of the imperial court. It has three components: technique, bearing, and form. Michelle Ren says the dance not only displays high artistry, but also contains deep resonances of traditional Chinese culture—a divinely inspired heritage.

“When people really have respect toward and have faith in divine beings, they will then let people know how to conduct themselves. And the performers can manifest to the audience the different inner meanings of the art.”

Chinese Classical Dance Transforms the Heart

Ms. Ren said the profundity of Chinese classical dance mirrors that of China’s 5,000-year-old culture, and its movements have influenced martial arts, Chinese opera, and more.

“Many difficult techniques such as aerial movements and spins in artistic gymnastics and martial arts are actually derived from Chinese classical dance.”

There are endless techniques and bearing that explore inner meaning and style. Form, gestures, and movements can delineate different scenarios in stories and depict a wide range of characters.

Ms. Ren said that after a Western dance critic watched the show, he noted that Chinese classical dance has a lot of round movements with the arms and steps, and it is true. Many movements in Chinese classical dance emphasize circles: horizontal circles, vertical circles, and more.

Tim Wu, principal dancer of ShenYun New York Company demonstrated expressive movements at NTDTV's International Chinese Classical Dance Competition in 2008, where he received gold metal of Adult Male Division. (Dai Bing/The Epoch Times)

“This audience member saw culture and harmony in the circle. Actually, in the Confucian culture, moral values such as compassion, righteousness, courtesy, wisdom, and trust can all be expressed by movements in Chinese classical dance. The dance’s manifestation of respect towards heaven can truly transform the heart.”

She spoke further of the circles formed by movements such as turns, flips, and gestures. The circle—the shape itself is a kind of form—can display softness or determination.

There are different meanings behind every movement, and audiences can sense that, she said: “‘Ah, this is a compassionate person. This one is a hero. The hero looks so and so, and the compassionate person appears so and so. …’ This is the bearing, the inner meaning part.”

“Techniques in Chinese classical dance include high-flying dives, flips, leaps, and tumbles. A predominant characteristic of the dance is its extremely demanding aerial techniques. The techniques can display different characters, such as elegant ladies of the Manchu Court, passionate and welcoming Mongolian women, and gentle girls of the Han ethnicity. These characters are then portrayed by the performance of individual dancers, with music, costumes, and gestures.”

Michelle Ren on 'Dignity and Compassion'

A dancer from the Western tradition seemed to perceive what Ms. Ren described. Anna Liceica, a soloist with the American Ballet Theatre, said, “The dances were graceful, delicate, and beautiful! There was something pure and bright and also very dignified about them. This show gave me a real sense of goodness and meaning in life.”

The Epoch Times is a proud sponsor of the Divine Performing Arts 2009 World Tour. For more information visit Divineperformingarts.org

Jiang Jemin former communist head in Australian Court precedent

2009-11-06T20:35:00.000-08:00

Australian Court Asked to Set a Precedent in Chinese Torture Case

By Shar Adams
Epoch Times Staff Nov 4, 2009

(Courtesy of Zhang Cuiying)

An Australian court is being asked to make a definitive decision on the extent diplomats can be exempt from prosecution for torture.

The New South Wales Court of Appeal has asked for more information in regards to a decision dealing with whether a person from the Government of another country can be protected from prosecution.

The decision was made by the New South Wales Supreme Court in regards to a civil case against former Chinese leader Jiang Zemin and others. Leave to appeal against that decision is now being sought.

The Australian Attorney-General’s Department is defending the decision, arguing that all the defendants come within the protection of the Foreign States Immunity Act and that the minister has issued a certificate to that effect.

Ms. Zhang Cuiying, a Falun Gong practitioner and artist presently living in Australia is suing for torture and wrongful arrest in China.

“Justice Basten of the Court of Appeal has told the Registrar that the Court wants more submissions from both parties. He plainly realises the importance of the case to everyone,” said David Raphael, leading Counsel for the plaintiff.

“The Attorney-General’s Department has appointed the Senior Queen’s Counsel attached to the Attorney-General’s Department to maintain its view that a certificate issued under the Act exempts, even from torture, the head or some member of the Government. This is an indication of the seriousness with which the Government is taking the case.”

Mr. Raphael said the case was significant because he was asking the New South Wales Court of Appeal to ignore the precedent set in British Courts and exempt torture from the protection of the Foreign States Immunity Act.

“I must emphasise the Government sees this as a very serious matter. It does not involve just a point of law. We are asking the Court of Appeal to ignore English authority,” he said.

“In England, the law Lords have said the English equivalent of the Foreign States Immunities Act applies to exempt persons despite them having resorted to torture.

“I will argue that this is Australia. Australia does not have to be led by England—that is pretty important.”

“There is really nothing in Australia on this point,” he added.

Zhang Cuiying, an Australian citizen, was detained for eight months in a Chinese jail from 1999 to 2000 without legal process after appealing in China for an end to the persecution of Falun Gong.

While in detention, Ms. Cuiying said she was regularly beaten about the head and body, made to stand without sleep for long periods, as well as suffering other physical and psychological torture methods.

The extent and ferocity of torture suffered by Falun Gong practitioners under Jiang Zemin’s directive have been well documented, but Mr Raphael said it was not the type of torture suffered that would determine this case.

“My submission argues that immunity from torture is wrong in principal; torture should be outside the immunity from liability which persons who are part of a government enjoy.” he said.

Justice the Issue

International human rights lawyer Theresa Chu said cases had been filed against Jiang Zemin in 15 other countries.

“A person like Jiang Zemin committed such serious crimes, especially international crimes like torture, genocide and crimes against humanity. He should not be entitled to state immunity, especially as he has now no official position in the government. So there should be no way that Australia can let him go,” she said.

Ms. Chu said Chinese people had no hope of achieving justice within China as the present rulers, the Chinese Communist Party (CCP), dictated how the legal process should be conducted.

“The law is always a tool for this dictatorial regime and Jiang, so it is not possible to have rule of law under this CCP,” she told The Epoch Times, “It is only possible when the CCP does not exist, then Chinese people can really get justice from the court.”

The legal process in Australia, and particularly the case against Jiang Zemin, is a “good role model”, she said.

Mr. President, Do Not Let the Obama Dream Die in Your Hands

2009-11-04T23:12:00.000-08:00

Conscience Foundation

Thursday, 05 November 2009

Sign the Petition Letter

Dear Mr. President, you challenged Americans to enact a change, and Americans have responded and sent you to the White House to be the catalyst of change. You took the message of change to Europe, and Europeans have responded and reengaged with the leader of the free world.

We now challenge you: Will you bring change to the US policy toward China, a policy of economic engagement that has tainted our nation’s image for the past twenty years, or will you maintain the status quo?

The United States’ engagement with China originally donned a pretext of helping to improve China’s human rights. Over time, however, its true motive and consequence has emerged: with the passing of one so-called opportunity after another to improve human rights in China, including the granting of PNTR to China, the admission of China into the WTO, and the Beijing Olympics, more and more Chinese people have fallen victim to the Chinese regime’s human rights abuses. As such, this policy has turned into our nation’s worst example of hypocrisy, and the complete lack of acknowledgement of and accountability for its failure also makes it our worst example of irresponsible politics.

At the same time the US has been losing its moral standing. The former Soviet bloc was far more powerful then than China is now, and it took thirty-eight years for the Berlin Wall to fall. The US was never weak or vulnerable during the Cold War, and was a source of inspiration and hope for people in Eastern Europe. Now the US is not only increasingly timid about mentioning human rights to China, it is on its knees supplicating China to buy its debt. Internationally, the US has helped to fund the Chinese regime to become a new anti-human rights ringleader and has to face it on multiple continents. Domestically, we are suffering the consequences of our own deeds: We ignored China’s suppression of workers’ unions, and we lose our jobs to China’s slave laborers who work under unsafe conditions; we ignore China’s persecution of Christians and Falun Gong practitioners who merely want their right to conscience, and we receive unconscionable toxic products from China.

Most alarmingly, we are losing sight of our real national interest – our American values. Had Abraham Lincoln not been so dedicated to the founding principles of America, had he instead carried on a policy of economic engagement with the South, rationalizing that the profit would somehow trickle down in the form of greater freedom for the slaves, that would be equivalent to today’s China policy, and there would be no President Obama. Today, our founding principles and values have eroded to the point where we have accepted a China policy based on greed rather than principle for the past twenty years.

Mr. President, in those twenty years how many of China’s Obamas have been locked up and lynched in jail? How many of China’s Obamas have been exiled to the US and cannot go back home to pursue their dreams? Over the globe, how many Obamas have suffered under various regimes that remain in power only because of the support of the Chinese regime?

Mr. President, we take it to heart when you claim Lincoln as your role model, so we ask you to carry on Abraham Lincoln’s legacy to give people in China and around the world the opportunity to see their Obama’s dream to come true.

Please do not let Obama’s dream die in your hands.

Last Updated ( Thursday, 05 November 2009 09:03 )

The Mystery of the Udumbara Flower

2009-11-04T18:26:00.000-08:00

Udumbara: Mystical Flower or Insect Egg?

Author:

Yi Wen Pure Wisdom sight

Udumbara flower

[PureInsight.org] Recently on Zhengjian.org, I read many articles about Udumbara flowers blossoming all over the world. The flower looks like a bell and its stalk looks like a silk thread. It is noble, holy and pure. Whoever sees these flowers expresses his or her surprise and gasps with admiration.

Those who know the truth understand what the appearance of the Udumbara flower means. However, those who believe in science regard the mystical flower as the egg of the lacewing insect. These words confuse ordinary people the most.

At first glance, they do look similar. However, their similar appearance to the naked eye doesn’t mean they are the same.

The egg of the lacewing insect is a light green color. It is intact, solid, sealed and elliptical. After several days, the color of the egg turns gray. Then, depending on the temperature, the egg hatches after 3 to 15 days. The top end of the egg is broken, and the egg just withers after the insect leaves the egg.

[1]
The egg of Chrysopa before hatching (left picture) and after hatching (right picture)

[2]
The top end of the egg is broken after hatching.

Taking a closer and careful look at the Udumbara flower, its shape is like that of a bell. When taking pictures of Udumbara flowers under a microscope, the flower petals and flower heart are clearly visible. Some smelled the fragrance of the flower, while others observed the whole process of the flower blooming. They even saw the halo.

[3]

[4]

Udumbara flower

Insects lay eggs seasonally, which happens mostly in the spring or summer. Udumbara flowers are often seen in winter.

Insects usually lay eggs on tree branches, flower petals, or leaves. Udumbara flowers can bloom anywhere, on flower leaves, stainless steel, wooden boards, plastic, fruit, granite, glass, aluminum doors, paper, light bulbs, etc.

[5]
Udumbara flower

I wrote an article about Udumbara flowers seen on a Nanmu branch in a Qing Dynasty temple (the article was published at http://big5.zhengjian.org/articles/2008/6/6/53213.html [6]). I kept the Udumbara flowers at home for over a year. Only several flowers withered, but the rest are still blooming.

[7] [8]
Udumbara flower kept for over 1 year in my home

Translated from: http://www.zhengjian.org/zj/articles/2009/7/28/60782.html [9]

Falun Gong’s Counter Media Campaign

2009-11-02T17:18:00.000-08:00

Falun Gong’s counter media campaign signifies a new era of protests in Chinese political culture. Never before in Chinese history has any organisation, group, or party been able to pose an open protest against the ruling authorities through the power of the media as Falun Gong does. Falun Gong’s concerted and consistent efforts to stage the counter media campaign against the Chinese government are illustrations of how cyber-networked and mediatised protests can mobilise and accumulate social capitals across spatial and temporal disparities, and how an alternative ideology can be sustained through transnational visuality of dissent.

Falun Gong’s Counter Media Campaign

By Haiqing Yu

Introduction
Much literature has been written on Chinese government’s persecutions of Falun Gong, or Falun Dafa, a self-cultivation and quasi-religious qigong practice banned in China since July 1999. Falun Gong has been making headlines in the world media as a champion of human rights and victim of violations of human rights in China. While Chinese government’s campaigns against Falun Gong and cults are worth noting, it is equally fascinating to note Falun Gong’s worldwide protests against the persecutions as constituting a new protest culture in the 21st century.

The Counter Media Campaign
Falun Gong’s protests against the persecutions by the Chinese government combine the traditional forms of protests (e.g. taking to the streets and Tiananmen Square) with a new form of protests—using the media to stage a counter media campaign against its persecutors. The counter media campaign has proven to be the most effective means to sustain its transnational growth and influence despite various efforts by the Chinese government to crush the “cult” in China and defame it outside China.

Li Hongzhi and his Falun Gong disciples are media savvy. They have skillfully used Western media’s interests in human rights issues by presenting themselves as victims of a totalitarian and communist regime that is notorious for human rights violations. Through victimisation and self-victimisation, Falun Gong has managed to stay being the headline news in the world media (at least for three years since it was banned in China in 1999). Falun Gong disciples have also skillfully used their own global media networks composed of the Internet, newspapers, magazines, media production studios, radio, and television broadcasting units to stage a counter media campaign, or to use their words, to “send forth righteous thoughts” to the world. In the counter media campaign, Falun Gong poses itself not only as a self-promoter and public relations expert, but also as a media watcher, analyst, usurper, and dissector.

Inside China, Falun Gong followers have changed their strategies from staging a high profiled showdown in protests and demonstrations on Tiananmen Square to staging a high profiled media campaign against the state authorities after the traditional channel of protests was blocked. So far, the staged strategies include sending a barrage of mysterious, automated voice messages praising Falun Gong to mainland telephone users, slipping pro-Falun Gong contents into Chinese official newspapers, and sabotaging local terrestrial and cable TV transmission systems to relay their own print and video materials. The guerrilla media warfare became a bold, concerted, and high-profile media protest when Falun Gong disciples hijacked Sinosat 1, the satellite that transmits China’s satellite broadcasting programs, to insert pro-Falun Gong videos and slogans to Chinese audiences. During the World Cup soccer finals between 23 June and 30 June 2002, nine channels of CCTV (Central China Television) and at least ten provincial TV channels were usurped by Falun Gong. Since then on almost every important occasion, such as the anniversaries of Hong Kong’s return to China (1 July), the National Day (1 October), and the Spring Festival (Chinese New Year), Falun Gong has broken into the state media vectors to stage mediatised protests.

Outside China, Falun Gong has kept vigilant of its images presented in both Western and Chinese media. While encouraging Western media to use less pejorative language (as in changing terms “cult” to more neutral ones such as “sect” or “movement”) and to present a favorable image of it, Falun Gong has been trying to refute every accusation by the Chinese government through content analyses and dissections of audio-video footages from the Chinese state media. “A Staged Tragedy: Self-Immolation in Tiananmen Square—Analysis of CCTV’s Video Tape of January 23, 2001,” one of Falun Gong’s “truth clarification” series, is such an example. Through scene-by-scene news dissection and frame-by-frame video analysis, the program exposes the tricks of news fabrication (hence false accusations on Falun Gong) in Chinese media’s representations of the “cult.”

Falun Gong’s global visibility directly relates to and results from its strategic use of the media to stage a series of protests. The Internet especially has become a key medium in the counter campaigns against persecutions. Many observers have noted Falun Gong’s high-profile presence on the Internet. Danny Schetcher, for example, points out that the Falun Gong story appears to be “as much about technology as it is about religion; it offers a fascinating glimpse of an ancient religious tradition that is mutating rapidly as it makes the leap into cyberspace.” The Internet is the major tool of communication, organisation, and mobilisation for Li Hongzhi and the leadership of Falun Gong. It also constitutes an important part of being a Falun Gong practitioner. Through the Internet, concerted actions can be taken among Falun Gong practitioners all over the world. From the April25 (1999) Zhongnanhai protest, the annual Falun Dafa Day (13 May), global Dafa conferences, to the global trial on Jiang Zemin (former Chinese president who was responsible for the persecutions of Falun Gong), the Internet is constituted as the medium of protests. Because of the centrality of the Internet in organising and mobilising protests, Falun Gong is described by Karaflogka as one of the “New Cyberreligious Movements,” (NCRMs) and by Thornton a kind of “new cybersects.”

Conclusion
Falun Gong’s counter media campaign signifies a new era of protests in Chinese political culture. Never before in Chinese history has any organisation, group, or party been able to pose an open protest against the ruling authorities through the power of the media as Falun Gong does. Falun Gong’s concerted and consistent efforts to stage the counter media campaign against the Chinese government are illustrations of how cyber-networked and mediatised protests can mobilise and accumulate social capitals across spatial and temporal disparities, and how an alternative ideology can be sustained through transnational visuality of dissent.

Works cited
Karaflogka, Anastasia. "Religious Discourse and Cyberspace." Religion 32 (2002).
Murphy, David. "China—Mixing Signals." Far Eastern Economic Review 11 July 2002.
O’Leary, Stephen D. "Falun Gong and the Internet." Falun Gong’s Challenge to China: Spiritual Practice or Evil Cult. Ed. Danny Schechte. New York: Akashic Books, 2000.
Porter, Noah. "Falun Gong in the United States: An Ethnographic Studies." MA thesis. University of South Florida, 2003.
Thornton, Patricia M. "The New Cybersects: Resistance and Repression in the Reform Era." Chinese Society: Change, Conflict and Resistance. Eds. Elizabeth J. Perry and Mark Selden. 2 ed. London and New York: Routledge, 2003.
Wong, John. "The Mystery of Falun Gong: Its Rise and Fall in China." The Mystery of China’s Falun Gong: Its Rise and Its Sociological Implications. Singapore: World Scientific Publishing Co., 1999.

Notes
1. Since 2002 Falun Gong followers had broken into local terrestrial television broadcasts in North-east China and hacked into cable television networks in half-a-dozen different cities including Laiyang, Yantai, Chongqing, Changchun and Harbin. David Murphy, "China—Mixing Signals," Far Eastern Economic Review 11 July 2002. Also see “Falun Gong saboteurs nabbed in Jilin,” People’s Daily, available from http://english.peopledaily.com.cn/200204/02/eng20020402_93317.shtml (20 January 2004)
2. For Chinese official accounts of Falun Gong hijacking Chinese satellite broadcasting, see “special reports” from http://www.zhengqing.net.cn/weixing/index.htm (24 March 2004).
3. The video is made into VCD and distributed free around the world. It is also accessible from major Falun Gong websites. For example: www.minghui.org/mh/articles/2001/10/1/17092.html, www.clearwisdom.net/emh/special_column/self-immolation.html (20 March 2004)
4. For examples, see John Wong, "The Mystery of Falun Gong: Its Rise and Fall in China," The Mystery of China’s Falun Gong: Its Rise and Its Sociological Implications (Singapore: World Scientific Publishing Co., 1999). Stephen D. O’Leary, "Falun Gong and the Internet," Falun Gong’s Challenge to China: Spiritual Practice or “Evil Cult", ed. Danny Schechte (New York: Akashic Books, 2000).
5. Danny Schechter, Falun Gong’s Challenge to China, 2000, p. 190.

Quit the Ccp must be paid attention to now with over 60 million renunciations

2009-10-22T22:33:00.000-07:00

An underground challenge

to China's status quo

As Obama plans his visit to China in November, he should pay attention to the Tuidang movement. It shows that the Chinese people understand human rights and civil liberties.

By Caylan Ford

Washington - The lead image on the Sept. 27 edition of the Jinzhou evening newspaper was hardly unusual. In anticipation of the 60th anniversary of Communist Party rule in China, it featured a street lined with enormous red flags beating in the wind.

It would have been nearly indistinguishable from any other Chinese state-run newspaper that day but for one important detail. In the bottom left corner of the photo, scrawled on a bike rack, were eight tiny but clearly visible characters: "Heaven condemns the Communist Party; denounce it and be blessed."

Similar writings that dare to challenge the divine mandate of China's rulers appear regularly across China, hanging as banners in city parks, posted on Internet forums, or handwritten on paper bank notes. It is all evidence of a movement that has silently swept the nation. Called Tuidang, which translates simply as "withdraw from the party," the movement encourages people to publicly renounce their membership in Communist organizations. The implications are manifold. This is the first time since the 1980s that China has seen such a large, organized dissident movement – if an underground one.

The day after the image ran, the Jinzhou newspaper came under investigation by the government. Its website was shut down, and the paper taken out of circulation.

The incident represents a fitting analogy for the state of the Communist Party today. Beneath the pomp and power lie resentment, discontent, and questions. In 60 years of Communist rule, China has endured political and social upheaval that have left deep psychic wounds.

But in the country's totalitarian climate, the people have few avenues to openly discuss their country's history or to make peace with their own role in it. Since China has not had its opportunity for truth and reconciliation, its citizens are finding their own ways to do this.

Perhaps that explains the extraordinary appeal of the Tuidang movement, which organizers say has more than 60 million participants. It began in late 2004, when New York-based Chinese dissident newspaper DaJiYuan ran a series of polemic editorials detailing the history of the Communist Party in China. They also proclaimed that the country would not truly be free or prosperous until it was rid of the party, which, it argued was at odds with China's cultural and spiritual values.

Millions of copies of the articles found their way into mainland China through e-mails, faxes, and underground printing houses. Some Chinese readers say the articles finally confirmed what they suspected all along – about the Great Leap Forward, the Tiananmen massacre, the Cultural Revolution. This offered recognition that their memories were real and their suffering was shared.

But despite appearances, this is not a political movement in the conventional sense. Unlike the student movement of 1989 or the more recent Charter 2008 manifesto – both of which embraced the language of Western democracy – the Tuidang movement employs distinctly Chinese language and meaning. More Confucian than humanist, it often makes its points by drawing on Buddhist and Daoist spirituality.

Denouncing the party is thus not simply political activism, but takes on spiritual meaning as a process of cleansing the conscience and reconnecting to traditional ethics and values.

In December 2004, one month after the articles were published by the dissident newspaper, its editors starting receiving statements from readers declaring their wish to disavow membership in the Communist Party, the Communist Youth League, or the Young Pioneers, sometimes after their memberships had technically expired. Today, statements representing some 60 million people have been sent to the newspaper, which posts them to an online database.

The authenticity of the declarations is impossible to independently verify. Most people sign them using aliases to protect their safety, and there are no provisions to prevent fraudulent postings.

But the numbers are really not the point. For those who do send in their statements disavowing the party, the postings offer a rare platform to vent frustrations, discuss ideas, share stories of suffering, or find forgiveness.

Many relay tales of personal victimization under the Communist Party. Take, for instance, Ding Weikun, a 74-year-old veteran party member from rural Zhejiang Province. In 2003, his town's government colluded with private developers to seize the land of local farmers. The farmers protested, Mr. Ding wrote, and armed thugs were brought in to suppress them. "I witnessed the killing and injuring of dozens of villagers, on the spot," he noted. The old man tried to pursue justice by appealing to the local government, but he was arrested and sentenced to prison by the very party that he had served for 40 years.

While some write of their personal suffering, others speak of their crimes. For them, withdrawing from the party is about seeking absolution.

"I have always thought that I was a good man, but looking back I realize that I had gradually lost myself," wrote Xiao Shanbo, a former party member from China's northeastern Liaoning Province. "My mind and heart slowly became corrupted. I declare invalid all the words and deeds I have done in the past. These were decisions that I made out of ignorance due to the lies and propaganda of the [Communist Party]."

Mr. Xiao never specifies his crimes, but closes his posting with a plea for forgiveness: "God, please give me this chance! I have gone through much arduous soul-searching, and I intend to change my ways and make up for what I have done."

The Communist Party has reacted to the phenomenon with predictable disdain. Terms related to the movement are among the most vigorously censored on the Chinese Internet, and at least 71 people have been imprisoned for possessing movement literature or propagating its spread. That means that, if found, the activist who vandalized the bike rack in Jinzhou city will be in serious trouble.

The party may have good reason to be anxious. For decades, its power has relied on an ability to censor information, control public memory, and suppress dissenting views. The statements of participants offer a rare glimpse and great insight into the sources of discontent in China.

The Tuidang movement also shows the manner in which Chinese people understand human rights, civil liberties, and democracy, and how they might reconcile these ideas with a more traditional Confucian worldview. It could perhaps even serve as a precursor for another democracy movement.

But one way or another, the movement certainly challenges the popular view that most Chinese people are satisfied with the status quo. As President Obama prepares for his November visit, it is reason to consider engaging more with the Chinese people, and not only with their government.

Today, as more and more Chinese citizens are remembering their past, they may well change China's future, too.

Caylan Ford is a master's degree candidate in international affairs at The George Washington University, where she studies Chinese politics and international security. She is currently writing a thesis on organized dissent in China.

Quit the Ccp must be paid attention to now with over 60 million renunciations

2009-10-22T22:21:00.000-07:00

An underground challenge to China's status quo

As Obama plans his visit to China in November,

he should pay attention to the Tuidang movement.

It shows that the Chinese people understand

man rights and civil liberties.

By Caylan Ford

from the October 21, 2009 edition

The day after the image ran, the Jinzhou newspaper came under investigation by the government. Its website was shut down, and the paper taken out of circulation.

Denouncing the party is thus not simply political activism, but takes on spiritual meaning as a process of cleansing the conscience and reconnecting to traditional ethics and values.

The authenticity of the declarations is impossible to independently verify. Most people sign them using aliases to protect their safety, and there are no provisions to prevent fraudulent postings.

While some write of their personal suffering, others speak of their crimes. For them, withdrawing from the party is about seeking absolution.

Today, as more and more Chinese citizens are remembering their past, they may well change China's future, too.

Falun Gong persecution reported in Good old USA -You Tube

2009-10-21T20:31:00.000-07:00

What Has NOT Changed in China?

2009-10-19T22:58:00.000-07:00

What some so called China experts usually say to me and what is commonly believed in China by your average neitzen is that before the Ccp took control the tribal wars were destroying China..so they believe they are in debt to the Ccp for saving their country. But now as more people leave China to live overseas and write about their experiences with no fear of reprisal (such as this article below) we can understand the real nature of the Ccp and it is nothing but a totalitarian brutal carnivore capitalist regime.

What Has NOT Changed in China?

An Analysis of the Chinese One-Party Dictatorship By Professor Li Dong Oct 12, 2009

Professor Li Dong in 2008 supporting the pre-Olympic Human Rights Torch Relay on its journey through New Zealand. (The Epoch Times) Exactly 60 years ago, the Chinese Communist Party (CCP) came to power after a bloody civil war and established the “People’s Republic” of China.

The CCP was able to win the civil war because most Chinese people were disappointed with the legitimate Guomindang government, a corrupt and undemocratic regime, and the CCP made wonderful promises.
Two of them were especially appealing: The first is the promise of land reform, made to the peasantry who made up 0ver 80% of the population. The second is the promise of democracy, made particularly to the better educated urban people.What happened to both of these promises?

Land Reform and Famine

Immediately after the CCP gained control of the mainland, it introduced a nation-wide land reform. This was a violent campaign which killed millions of country gentry and annihilated the entire landowning class. Anyway, peasants got their land, right? Wrong. Hardly had the land reform been concluded, when the CCP launched its Soviet-styled agricultural collectivization drive.

Peasants were forced to give up their newly-acquired land to agricultural co-operatives and people’s communes, and thus began their 30-year socialist ordeal; during 1959-1962 at least 36 million peasants died of starvation in a nation-wide famine. This worst famine in human history was caused entirely by Mao Zedong’s lunatic economic adventurism called the Great Leap Forward.

It is therefore quite legitimate to contend that the promise of “Land to the tiller” was a big lie and the CCP had betrayed Chinese peasantry.Then, what of the promise of democracy?

Promise of Democracy a Lie

A study of China’s history after 1949 shows it was another big lie, with the CCP betraying the Chinese people, who had believed and backed the Party in its drawn-out bid for power. It was interesting to note that when the Government of the People’s Republic of China was first formed in 1949, it did include some nominal figureheads who were not CCP members.

Three out of the country’s six vice premiers were non-CCP members. All were middle-of-roaders and fellow travelers. But each of them vanished without fanfare, until 1956 when every vice premier was CCP members; even nominal figureheads were no longer tolerated.

Today a superficial scan of China’s Governance arrangements would show that China has what we call the super structure of a modern state – it has a legislature, an executive branch and even a judiciary system, similar to the United States.

Let us, however, look a little more closely at each of these.

The Real Holders of Power

The legislature is called the People’s Congress, which Western journalists obligingly call “China’s parliament”. The members of this so-called “parliament”, or delegate to the People’s Congress, however, are not elected by the people. In fact they are not elected at all. Next time you meet a visiting Chinese person, ask him or her who is their delegate in the People’s Congress.

Ask them to name that person. I can assure you you’ll see a blank look on their face, as if you had asked them to name their banker on the moon, or on mars. All the delegates are carefully selected by the CCP on behalf of the people, without bothering to consult the people, and most people are sensible enough to know it is none of their business who the delegates are.

The majority of the delegates are Party and government officials, anyway.

The rest are celebrities such as film stars, Olympic medalists, prominent academics or successful businessmen, who have proven their loyalty to the Party. To be a delegate to the Chinese People’s Congress is more or less the same as being on the royal honor lists in New Zealand. It’s largely a ceremonial role.

The Chinese parliament meets only two weeks a year. How could it be possible that the legislative programmes of such a huge and complex country as China be dealt with in only two weeks? This fact alone reveals the true nature of the People’s Congress, namely, a rubber stamp, and a Potemkin-village façade of democracy.

The Politboro

The executive branch of the Chinese Government is called the State Council, and its head is the premier. The current Chinese premier is only number three in the CCP hierarchy, and important policy decisions on matters of the state are all made in the nine-member Standing Committee of the Political Bureau of the CCP (politburo), the nation’s real power center. The State Council’s task is to implement the politboro’s decisions and directives.

All the government departments receive instructions from a corresponding office in the CCP politburo. For example the Minister of Foreign Affairs

(MoF) is under the direct leadership of the “Foreign Affairs Leading Group” within the CCP politburo. The MoF is only the front and executive branch while the CCP politburo “Foreign Affairs Leading Group” makes Chinese foreign policies and decisions on major foreign relations issues.

The Chinese Ministry of National Defence is purely a front of the CCP Military Commission which is really and truly the Chinese counterpart of the Pentagon in Washington D.C., not the Chinese Ministry of National Defence.
By the way, the person who heads both the CCP “Foreign Affairs Leading Group” and CCP Military Commission is the General Secretary of the CCP, Hu Jintao, who doubles as the President of the country.

At every level of governance there is the dual track of the Party and the government, and the government is subordinate to the Party. The Number One, or the real boss of any Chinese province, for example, is not the governor of the province, but the first secretary of the CCP provincial committee, who has been appointed by the 9-member Standing Committee of the Political Bureau in Beijing.

Judicial Members Appointed for Their Party Loyalty China seems to have a fully-fledged judicial system with prosecutors and judges, but all of them are CCP members, appointed on condition of their loyalty to the Party.
In each local CCP committee there is a secretary who is the overlord of law and order of the locality, summoning the police chief, chief prosecutor, and chief judge for conferences to give orders and pass CCP committee decisions on important cases. Put it in colloquial sporting terms, everyone involved in the judicial structure hails from the same team and is beholden the same coach. An independent judiciary system is absolutely non-existent and totally impossible to have under the one-Party dictatorship.

Important as the control of the state apparatus is, it is not crucial for CCP rule. What is crucial is the control of the armed forces and the propaganda machine, or, in the CCP parlance, the gun and the pen. Mao Zedong instructs in a famous quotation, “The gun and the pen—we relied on these two for winning the nation-wide power, and we rely on them for the maintenance of the power.”

Absolute Control Through Armed Forces

The source of the CCP power ultimately lies in its absolute control of China’s huge armed forces. In accordance with Mao’s famous adage “Political power grows out of the barrel of a gun” and the CCP principle of “the Party commands the gun,” the CCP does everything possible to ensure that the Chinese People’s Liberation Army (PLA) is truly a “Party army.”

It is written in the Chinese Constitution that the PLA must at all times be under the direct command of the CCP. As we know, the Party boss, called the General Secretary, Hu Jintao, is Chairman of the CCP Military Commission and is automatically Commander-in-Chief of all the Chinese armed forces. As such, he personally appoints every general or admiral of the PLA. It is also ominously declared time and again that the PLA has the dual function of national defense and keeping domestic order. Any talk of nationalizing the armed forces is heresy, and punishable by imprisonment.
Since the CCP won power through a violent civil war, the PLA always enjoys a special and privileged position in the CCP organization. It is the real power base of the CCP, and as such the citadel of political conservatism.
Personnel-wise, high-ranking military positions are the reserve of adult children of CCP leaders and top officials, who are either deceased or living. They are ready at all times to spring to action to “maintain law and order.” The army is the ultimate deterrent to challenge to the CCP monopoly of power, and an extremely effective one.
While the PLA is a deterrent force, the well-equipped People’s Armed Police
(PAP) and regular police force are there to maintain everyday order.

Maintaining Order Through Mind Control
If we say the PLA, PAP and the regular police force maintain a physical control over the population, the CCP propaganda departments try to control the people’s minds. China now has more than 2,000 newspapers, 9,000 magazines 2,000 television channels, as well as 450 radio stations, but they are all, without a single exception, under the watchful eye of the propaganda department in Beijing or provincial propaganda departments.

The CCP propaganda bosses issue daily instructions on what may and may not be reported and how to report on sensitive matters. Here is an example: On June the 4th every year there is a massive public rally in Hong Kong to commemorate the Tian’anmen Massacre in 1989 and to demand democracy in China. It is the biggest political rally in the territory, attended by several tens of thousands of citizens, but just across the border, there was not a word uttered about it in the Chinese press, radio or on TV.

On July 1, 2003, half a million Hong Kong people staged a massive demonstration demanding democracy, but there was stony silence across the border in the mainland Chinese media. Ordinary Chinese simply do not know these events occur because the Party decides it is not convenient for the people to know of them. Instead the people in mainland China are constantly fed with such rubbish as how “patriotic” Hong Kong billionaire tycoons love their “socialist” motherland.

Journalists who digress from CCP instructions will be suspended from work or even imprisoned. According to the Amnesty International 2008 Report: State of World’s Human Rights: “Around 30 journalists were known to be in prison and at least 50 individuals were in prison for posting their views on the internet. People were often punished simply for accessing banned websites.”

Tailoring School Textbooks
CCP propaganda departments also control what is taught and what is not taught in Chinese schools. Political education singing praises of the CCP leadership is compulsory for every youngster, and a “must pass” subject for school leavers. After the Tiananmen massacre in 1989, paramount leader and long-time colleague of Mao, Deng Xiaoping concluded that the cause of the pro-democracy movement was that political education had been neglected.
In the months and years that followed, new textbooks were compiled that emphasize the glories of the CCP, omit inconvenient truths and whitewash the many so-called “errors” that the CCP had made. This so-called patriotic education extends beyond schools to include television, film, and the news media.

All this has serious consequences. Modern Chinese history is being re-written while participants and witnesses of events are still well alive.

Many middle-aged people do not know just 50 years ago the worst famine in human history took place in China and claimed at least 36 million lives, still less do they know the Anti-Rightist campaign which inflicted over 20 years’ untold sufferings on half a million of the cream of the Chinese society.

Many young or not so young people in China today do not know what the Cultural Revolution was, and many young people do not know Tian’anmen massacre that took place in Beijing merely 20 years ago. Instead, thanks to the permeating propaganda, many people in China believe in the infallibility of the CCP and its exclusive and almost divine-given right to rule.

Brainwashing Generations, Controlling Religions “Perception management” may be a term coined by the US Department of Defense, but it is a skill of which the CCP is a past master. The result is that entire generations of Chinese have been brainwashed. This, I think, is the great loss for the Chinese nation.

Nothing in the CCP’s control of the Chinese minds is more bizarre than religion. China is the only country in the world whose government includes a Religious Affairs Bureau. This Bureau supervises the activities of all faiths. Believers are allowed to worship only in state-sanctioned-and-sup ervised churches and temples. Any religious organization that the CCP finds difficult to control will be subjected to ruthless persecution. The bloody crackdown of Falun Gong is a case in point.

Paternal authoritarianism is deeply rooted in Chinese culture. The Chinese word for “country” or “state” is composed of the two ideograms of guo and jia, meaning “state” and “family.” The country is ruled like a family, where the rulers are parents and the people are kids. As “Dad knows best,” the rulers make decisions for the people, from what they may know to how many children a couple may have. The people have no civil rights, no freedom of speech or assembly, and their participation in public affairs is tightly controlled.

On the other hand, just like responsible parents, good rulers should see to it that the people are fed, clothed and sheltered. And it is the large-scale relief efforts and huge social projects that justify such authoritarianism.
The problem with paternalistic authoritarianism is that the rulers are not genuine parents of the people.

Consequently the rulers will not be genuinely concerned with the welfare of the people as genuine parents usually are with the welfare of their children. Instead, with unaccountable and unrestrained power in hands, almost all Chinese rulers have been corrupt, bleeding the people dry to accumulate fortunes for their own families.

Officials Accumulating Wealth, People in Poverty And CCP officials have set a new record of personal wealth accumulation at the expense of the people. A study undertaken by Chinese researchers two years ago reveals that the income of Party and government officials is 8 to 25 times that of urban dwellers, and 25 to 85 times that of rural people. Of the 3,200 super-rich in mainland China whose personal wealth exceeds 100 million Chinese Yuan (US$14.6 million), 2,932, or over 90 per cent, are adult children of top Chinese leaders. At the same time, 400 to 500 million rural Chinese, almost 35 percent of the population still live under US$2 a day, or at subsistence level.

The CCP today has abandoned its communist ideals of public ownership and egalitarian distribution of wealth, and it keeps scoffing at the universal values of democracy, human rights and rule of law. It is singularly devoid of values. Its actions are guided by a crude form of social Darwinism.

Social Darwinism began to enjoy enormous influence among the Chinese intelligentsia in early 20th century. It was used to explain why Western powers were able to subjugate other lands (like China), and at the same time it was a wake-up call for the Chinese people to do whatever they could to make their country strong so as to survive and thrive.

‘Kill or Be Killed’
China’s experiences in the 20th century reinforced the national consensus of the importance of ruthless competition for economic and military power.

Every Chinese child is taught Mao Zedong’s admonition “If you’re backward, you’ll be beaten up.” and it follows that if you’re beaten up that’s probably because you’re weak and useless (and therefore have only got yourself to blame).
Conversely if you are strong and powerful you can legitimately beat up others. Mao also taught his followers that, confronted with an adversary, it was a matter of killing or being killed. It is only zero-sum games that the CCP plays. It is in this social Darwinist spirit that Deng Xiaoping instructed “[Economic] development overrides everything else.” That means economic growth at any cost, even if it has brought about a yawning and worsening gap between rich and poor and irreversible environmental degradation.

Today social Darwinian sentiment is mixed with a popular nationalism—a nationalist sentiment based on the belief in survival of the fittest and resulting from the ambition to replace the United States as the dominant power—first in Asia and subsequently in the world. Nationalism is increasingly used to fill the vacuum created by the CCP’s abandonment of communist ideology.

Ross Terrill, a leading Australian-born China expert in the world, says, “In tacit acknowledgment of the weakness of its belief system, the Party-state, to stave off its death, added the gaudy mask of nationalism.” (The New Chinese Empire, page 154). Now patriotism is rated as the No. 1 virtue in the CCP book. Over 200 hundred years ago Dr Samuel Johnson said, “Patriotism is the last refuge of scoundrels.” How true!

Thank you for your attention.
Professor Li Dong is a retired Chinese academic, having taught at universities in China, the UK, USA and New Zealand.
Last Updated
Oct 12, 2009
http://www.theepochtimes.com/n2/content/view/23759/

It's time for the international community to rethink its approach to the human rights situation in China.

2009-10-13T06:04:00.000-07:00

The highest principles of Falun Gong AKA as Falun Dafa are Truth, Compassion and Forbearance . These principles frighten the Chinese communist regime. The universal principles do not support 100 methods of violent torture,brainwashing, destruction of true chinese culture, murder, rape, organ theft, denial of ones creator, lies, slander , propaganda , genocide of race, freedom and all culture. Yet this is what the barbarous Chinese communist regime is spreading around the globe. Is it no wonder they are frightened of Falun Gong?

International Religious Freedom - China Report

Religious repression in China has worsened in the past three years, despite China's increasing economic and diplomatic engagement with other countries, says a religious freedom watchdog organization.

The United States Commission on International Religious Freedom released its China report February 13, citing an increase in arrests of religious leaders, and the systematic persecution of unregistered religious groups. The commission, an independent organization that advises the U.S. government on religious freedom issues, noted in particular the recent arrests of thousands of Falun Gong members, who practice a form of meditation.

John Graz, public affairs and religious liberty director for the Seventh-day Adventist world church, attended the meeting marking the release of the report, and he says it's time for the international community to rethink its approach to the human rights situation in China.

"The entry of China into the World Trade Organization, and China's successful bid to host the 2008 Olympics, led many people to predict the gradual easing of some of these civil rights abuses," says Graz. "But this expectation has not been borne out in reality. China's internal policy remains undisturbed. Religious groups that choose to operate outside the government's system of religious registration continue to face harsh government action."

Christian minorities are not the only groups that experience persecution, notes Graz. Many Islamic and Buddhist groups, along with any organization the government labels a "cult," have also felt the force of the government's recent crackdown.

"In general, any religion that is not registered--that is not under government control--is viewed as a potential enemy to the unity of the nation," says Graz. While this is China's national policy, he adds, the country's immense size means that in practice the level of state interference with religious activities may vary on a province-by-province basis.
Papers published last week, believed to be official documents of the Chinese state, also lend support to the U.S. commission's conclusions that the human rights situation in China has deteriorated.

The documents were made public by a group known as the Committee for Investigation on Persecution of Religion in China. They outline China's widespread campaign against unregistered religious groups--a campaign that includes arrest, torture and state-sanctioned killings.

Washington, D.C. USA,
Bettina Krause/ANN

Falun Gong spreads in Tonga

2009-10-11T19:19:00.000-07:00

Chinese Embassy Reacts with Fear as Practitioners Introduce Falun Gong in Tonga (Photo)

By a Falun Gong practitioner in New Zealand

(Clearwisdom.net) Tonga is an island nation in the Pacific Ocean, near New Zealand. Between May 13 and 20, 2009, three Falun Gong practitioners, native New Zealanders, visited local people in Tonga, talked to them about Falun Dafa (also known as Falun Gong), and exposed the persecution of Falun Gong by the Chinese Communist Party (CCP). The Chinese Embassy in Tonga was very disturbed and sent a letter to the Ministry for Foreign Affairs of Tonga, demanding the Tonga Government take immediate measures to prevent Falun Gong practitioners from their truth clarification activities.

Several New Zealand practitioners visited Tonga to

introduce Falun Gong, alarming the Chinese Embassy

Tonga has a population of about 130,000, of which more than 2,000 are Chinese nationals. Most of them run grocery stores. Upon hearing about Falun Gong, many people in Tonga immediately asked, "Where can I learn to practice ? Where do you hold classes?"

The second day of the practitioners' visit in Tonga, Channel 2-TV in Tonga aired news about Falun Gong. When the practitioners in yellow T-shirts bearing the words "Falun Dafa" walked down the street, some passersby greeted them with, "We welcome you! We saw you on TV."

After local people saw the practitioners demonstrate the exercises, they were puzzled by the CCP's persecution of Falun Gong. Many asked, "Why do they [the CCP] persecute Falun Gong?" The practitioners told them it was for two reasons. One is that the number of Falun Gong practitioners exceeded the number of the Party members at the time, and the then head of the CCP felt threatened and therefore launched the persecution. Another reason is that Falun Gong believes in Truthfulness-Compassion-Forbearance, a different belief from communism. The practitioners' explanations made sense to many people who despised the CCP.

A person in charge of a company said after having learned the facts, "Some others also came to our company to spread their religions, I did not let them in. You Falun Gong [practitioners] can come. I will open the door for you." Several hundred people learned to practice Falun Gong during the practitioners' eight-day stay.

The practitioners introduced Falun Gong and told about the CCP's persecution of Falun Gong to governmental agencies, departments, and companies in Tonga. They also introduced the Nine Commentaries on the Communist Party and the global trend to quit the Chinese Communist Party and its affiliated organizations. The practitioners also came across many Chinese nationals. They introduced them to Falun Gong and the Nine Commentaries and exhorted them to quit the CCP and its affiliated organizations. Many people quit and also wanted to persuade their relatives and friends to do "Three Withdrawals."

The practitioners' truth clarification activities aroused great anxiety and fear at the Chinese Embassy in Tonga. Embassy officials sent a letter to the Ministry of Foreign Affairs of Tonga on May 18, 2009, fabricating a lie that two female Falun Gong practitioners would hold an assembly against China that day in the Tongan capital of Nuku'alofa. It also claimed that the two female practitioners had done a lot of things discrediting the Chinese government over the previous several days. If such activities continued, more Falun Gong practitioners would come to Tonga, which would damage the long-term friendly relationship between Tonga and China. The letter demanded that the Tonga Government take immediate measures and appropriate actions to prevent the assembly from taking place.

In fact, all three of the visiting practitioners were native New Zealanders. Their trip to Tonga to introduce Falun Gong was undertaken with appropriate permission and protected by the laws of both New Zealand and Tonga. The Chinese Embassy had no right to interfere in their activities. In addition, the practitioners had never planned to hold an assembly in Tonga, but even if they had held an assembly to condemn the CCP's persecution of Falun Gong, it would have conformed to local laws. The Chinese Embassy's letter showed just how much China fears Falun Gong.

Think about it: if two women practitioners' one week stay in Tonga to introduce Falun Gong could discredit the CCP (the third practitioner returned to New Zealand after two days in Tonga due to work reasons), how much is this a reflection of the fact that the CCP knows it has done all kinds of bad deeds and has reached the point of being easily dissolved? If Tonga and China truly have a long-term friendly cooperation, how could it be damaged by two Falun Gong practitioners within a week? Someone from a local media outlet said to the practitioners, "You Falun Gong practitioners are so capable that your distribution of Falun Gong materials frightened the Chinese Embassy." A government official who met with the practitioners said, "You two [ladies] are what the Chinese Embassy is afraid of. Really interesting, inconceivable."

Before leaving, the hotel manager said to the practitioners, "You are really remarkable. The two of you have caused such fear in the Chinese Embassy." He said that the Immigration Bureau had made a phone call to him to inquire about the two practitioners, and he answered, "They are good people. They paid for their stay long ago." He continued by saying that he had learned from the immigration officer that the Chinese Embassy was afraid of the yellow T-shirts the practitioners wore, because they bore words, "Stop the Persecution of Falun Gong." The practitioners told the hotel manager, "They [the embassy] are also afraid that we spread the news about the grand trend to quit the CCP. More than 50 million Chinese people have quit the CCP and its affiliated organizations. Heaven will eliminate the CCP. The CCP is soon to be disintegrated. It will be a great event in the world." A gentleman standing beside them from New Zealand said, "I saw your Falun Gong practitioners protest in front of the Chinese Consulate on a daily basis in Auckland. The Chinese Embassy staff do nothing else--their job is to deal with Falun Gong. No Western countries support the Communist Party. The CCP is doomed to collapse."

New York 6000 Falun Gong practitioners call for an end to persecution from chinese communist regime

2009-10-11T19:13:00.000-07:00

New York: Six Thousand Falun Dafa Practitioners March in Manhattan, Call for An End to the Persecution (Photos)

By Cai Ju and Kerry Huang in New York

(Clearwisdom.net) A grand parade composed of six thousand Falun Gong practitioners from all over the world was held on June 6, 2009, on 6th Avenue in midtown Manhattan, New York City. The large-scale procession was majestic and in good order, conveying the messages of Falun Dafa's wide spread around the world, the persecution in China, and saving sentient beings.

Six thousand Falun Gong practitioners hold a grand march in Manhattan, displaying the magnificence of Falun Dafa

Falun Dafa Has been Spread to 114 Countries

In May, 1992, Master Li Hongzhi, the founder of Falun Dafa, started teaching in Changchun. Within seven years, by word of mouth, the blessings of Falun Dafa were spread to every corner of China, and between 70 and 100 million people were practicing Falun Dafa. At dawn every morning, practice sites of hundreds to thousands of practitioners could be seen everywhere in cities and the countryside. Falun Dafa was first introduced outside of China in 1996.

In July, 1999, the persecution of Falun Dafa began in mainland China. Falun Dafa has since become known to the world. Amidst practitioners' anti-persecution efforts, Falun Dafa has been rapidly spread around the world. As of 2009, Falun Dafa is being practiced by people in 114 countries on six continents. Falun Dafa's main book, Zhuan Falun, has been translated into over 30 languages.

Falun Dafa transcends nationalities, languages, and cultural boundaries. Its principles of Truthfulness-Compassion-Forbearance touch the hearts of everyone. This pure discipline includes the elderly, young people, children, people of different races, social status and professions. Everyone in the group strives to live by the principles of Truthfulness-Compassion-Forbearance to be good people who are constantly cleansing, purifying and improving themselves in Falun Dafa.

The first section of the parade procession was led by the Divine Land Marching Band, composed of over a hundred Falun Gong practitioners. They performed "Falun Dafa Is Good," "Fa Drums and Fa Trumpets Shake the World of Ten Directions," "Fa Rectifies the Universe," and "Holy Law-Wheel King." The resounding music reverberated over the high-rise buildings in Manhattan, drawing attention from passersby, drivers and business owners. Practitioners from over 40 countries held beautiful banners reading "Falun Dafa" in different countries. They wanted the people of the world to know that Falun Dafa has been spread to so many countries, and everybody has an opportunity to learn Falun Gong.

After that were the Dragon and Lion dance teams, celestial maidens spreading flowers, a huge model of the book Zhuan Falun and over 40 book models of Zhuan Falun escorted by celestial maidens. Following these were an exercise demonstration team composed of six hundred practitioners. They demonstrated the gentle and elegant Falun Gong exercises accompanied by the peaceful music. The compassionate energy emitted from them harmonized the environment. Spectators were amazed while watching this simple and miraculous exercise demonstration.

Falun Gong Practitioners' Suffering in China

Many passersby are shocked after seeing the photos of practitioners

who have died as a result of the persecution by the CCP.

A police officer reads the truth clarification flyer

In the face of inhuman and brutal persecution, torture and killing, Falun Dafa practitioners have remained steadfast in their belief in Truthfulness-Compassion-Forbearance.

The Chinese Communist Party's (CCP) atrocities were exposed. The anti-torture exhibit on a truck truly revealed the CCP's abuse and mistreatment of Falun Gong practitioners and the horrifying organ harvesting from living Falun Gong practitioners.

Hundreds of practitioners wearing white clothes and shoes walked slowly while holding photos of practitioners who have died as a result of the CCP's persecution.

Disintegrate the CCP and Stop the Persecution

Since the persecution started in July, 1999, over the past ten years, more than 3,000 practitioners are verified to have died as a result of the CCP's persecution. More than a hundred thousand practitioners have been detained in forced labor camps and mental hospitals. They were forced to do slave labor, forced to attend brainwashing sessions and tortured. The CCP has committed monstrous crimes.

The publication of the Nine Commentaries on the Communist Party at the end of 2004 unveiled the prelude of the "Quit the CCP" movement. Within just five years, 55 million Chinese people have announced their resignation from the Chinese Communist Party and its affiliated organizations.

The parade procession marched through 20 streets on the parade route, telling people in multiple aspects that the CCP is disintegrating, calling on people to see clearly the CCP's evil nature, and joining in the historic mighty current of "disintegrating the CCP and stopping the persecution."

Falun Dafa Is Good

Echoing the first section of the procession, hundreds of practitioners who held colorful banners bearing the message of "Falun Dafa is great" sincerely told the people again and again "Falun Dafa is good" and "Truthfulness-Compassion-Forbearance are good," accompanied by the vigorous performance of the song "Falun Dafa Is Good" performed by the second Divine Land Marching Band.

Led by a beautiful float, the waist drum team that appeared at the end of the procession performed "Falun Dafa Is Good." The parade came to a successful end.

Passersby Show Support

The parade procession drew attention of passersby from beginning to end. Some people took photos, and some had conversations with practitioners. Grant and his wife happened to pass by. They saw the grand parade and stopped to watch. Grant said that he had learned about Falun Gong and the persecution in the media. He said, "I support Falun Gong!"

Todd Evans said that the CCP regime is doing

things against the law, and should be stopped.

Todd Evans watched the parade until it ended. He was stunned when he saw photos depicting practitioners who have been tortured by the CCP and have been wounded and injured. He said that it was horrifying, and could not have been done by human beings. He had learned about the persecution of Falun Gong in China, but did not know that it was still going on. He said that the CCP is doing things against the law and should be stopped. He was pleased to learn that Falun Gong books and exercise music can be downloaded freely from the internet. He said he would learn more about Falun Gong.

Natasha from Virginia plans to start practicing Falun Gong

Natasha is from Virginia and used to practice Yoga. She has been looking for a good cultivation practice. While watching the march, she came across a practitioner from Virginia who introduced her to Falun Gong. Natasha told the reporter that she was interested in Falun Gong's characteristic of looking within and cultivating xinxing. She wanted to start practicing Falun Gong after returning home. She was especially moved today by this group of people who have made efforts for others, and for those innocent people who are suffering persecution in China.

Chinese version available at http://minghui.ca/mh/articles/2009/6/7/202396.html

Christian Gao Zhisheng is being tortured in China for defending FAlun Gonga

2009-10-11T18:12:00.000-07:00

Chinese Embassy Report on Gao Zhisheng ‘beyond laughable,’ Says Professor

By Charlotte Cuthbertson
The Epoch Times

Gao Zhisheng at his office in Beijing in November 2005. (Verna Yu/AFP/Getty Images)

News that China’s human rights lawyer, Gao Zhisheng, is not being mistreated by authorities in China is “laughable,” says Professor Donald C. Clarke of George Washington University Law School on his blog.

Gao, a stalwart for representing repressed groups in China such as Falun Gong practitioners and Christians, has been harassed, tortured, and detained by Chinese authorities since 2005.

Gao was taken from his family’s home by authorities in February this year and has not been seen since. His wife and two children escaped to the U.S. shortly after Gao’s disappearance and now reside in the New York area.

From 2004 Gao wrote several open letters to the leaders of the Chinese regime criticizing their human rights record, particularly their persecution of Falun Gong. He also wrote an open letter to the U.S. Congress in 2007 and this year released a vivid account of more than 50 days of torture he suffered while in captivity by the regime in 2008.

John Kamm of the Duihua Foundation said Gao was not being mistreated and was free to visit his hometown in June, citing information he obtained from the Chinese Embassy in Washington.

Kamm spoke at a Congressional Executive Commission on China (CECC) hearing titled “Human Rights and the Rule of Law in China” in Washington D.C. Wednesday.

“In late June, Gao Zhisheng was allowed to return to his home village in Shaanxi Province to pay his respects to his ancestors,” Kamm said, relaying the information he had received from the Chinese Embassy. “He is not being mistreated and is not being subjected to coercive legal measures.”

Clarke also testified at the CECC hearing and said on his blog: “The claim that he is not being subjected to ‘coercive legal measures’ is of course beyond laughable, and in contradiction to the notion that he was “allowed” to return to his home village."

Beijing legal scholar and rights activist Teng Biao has reported that Gao was in contact with his family briefly in July.

Gao’s wife, Geng He, published an open letter on Oct. 3 titled, “Gao Zhisheng, my husband and the father of my children—where are you?” She wrote that she and her children have worried terribly about Gao because they had not heard anything from him for the past 10 months, and do not know whether he is alive or not.

Clarke said the information presented at the CECC hearing represented some kind of progress: “At least the [Chinese] government is now admitting that it has information about Gao.”

This is a sign of hope for the Chinese people and a sign of the end for Chinese communist regime

2009-10-06T05:41:00.000-07:00

Hong Kong Parade Delivers

a Different Message on Oct. 1

Hong Kong parade delivers 'Quit CCP' message

By Lin Yi
Epoch Times Staff Oct 1, 2009

The Tianguo Marching Band delivers 'Quit CCP' message in Hong Kong. (The Epoch Times)

While a massive display honoring the 60th anniversary of the Chinese Communist regime played out in Beijing on Oct. 1, the Tianguo Marching Band set out through the busy streets of Hong Kong with a vastly different message.

With banners, music, and 600 participants, the parade started with a rally at an amusement park, and went from Eastern District to the Liaison Office of the Central People’s Government in West District. Well-known guests urged people to use the occasion of the 60th anniversary celebration to withdraw from the Chinese Communist Party (CCP).

“The CCP is a fragile regime, and may collapse at any time,” announced Szeto Wah, Chairman of the Hong Kong Alliance in Support of Patriotic Democratic Movements in China. He thinks that is why Beijing has behaved as if it were at war over the past month.

The movement of people resigning from the CCP and its affiliated organizations began shortly after The Epoch Times published the “Nine Commentaries on the Chinese Communist Party” in 2004. A Web site keeps track of the number of people who write statements renouncing the Party and negating the pledges they once made to give their lives for the Party. The Web site has recorded over 60 million renunciations to date.

Dr. David Gao, Chairman of the Service Center for Quitting the Chinese Communist Party, said that after he had collected opinions from Chinese people around the world, he began referring to the National Day Celebration as Chinese Memorial Day, referring to what he believes to be the imminent collapse of the CCP.

“The Soviet Union and the Romanian Communist Party have collapsed. The CCP is walking the same path,” Gao said. “It is because the CCP is so afraid that it needed to boost itself by showing all its armed might in a military review parade.”

Jia Jia, defected former Secretary General of the Shanxi Provincial Association of Science and Technology Experts, called upon the Chinese people to let go of fear and cowardice. “We must tell the CCP that we are not afraid of it, and we will combat it. We will do what the CCP fears—that a vast number of its members will quit.”

Zheng Enchong, a human rights attorney from Shanghai, announced publicly that he had renounced the CCP. “With all of its corruption, the CCP is the enemy of the 1.3 billion Chinese people,” Zheng said. “The Chinese people have a right to withdraw from the Party.”

Chinese communist regimes propoganda all over the world

2009-10-03T03:57:00.000-07:00

But those who can give it a sober thought can see right through it all. If all you want for the Chinese people is peace, freedom and the right to love your God Buddha or Dao then it is very clear that the self imposed heads of the regime are very very evil.

Below is an article from the New York Times of what the people of the world can see in the regime. This is precisely what the regime is afraid of and losing their grip on the enslaved peoples minds.

China Is Wordless on Traumas of Communists’ Rise

By ANDREW JACOBS
New York Times

CHANGCHUN, China — Unlike in other cities taken by the People’s Liberation Army during China’s civil war, there were no crowds to greet the victors as they made their triumphant march through the streets of this industrial city in the heart of Manchuria.

Even if relieved to learn that hostilities with Chiang Kai-shek’s Nationalist Army had come to an end, most residents — the ones who had not died during the five-month siege — were simply too weak to go outdoors. “We were just lying in bed starving to death,” said Zhang Yinghua, now 86, as she recalled the famine that claimed the lives of her brother, her sister and most of her neighbors. “We couldn’t even crawl.”

In what China’s history books hail as one of the war’s decisive victories, Mao’s troops starved out the formidable Nationalist garrison that occupied Changchun with nary a shot fired. What the official story line does not reveal is that at least 160,000 civilians also died during the siege of the northeastern city, which lasted from June to October of 1948.

The People’s Republic of China basked in its 60th anniversary on Thursday with jaw-dropping pageantry, but there were no solemn pauses for the lives lost during the Communist Party’s rise to power — not for the estimated tens of millions who died during the civil war, nor the millions of landlords, Nationalist sympathizers and other perceived enemies who were eradicated during Mao’s drive to consolidate power.

“Changchun was like Hiroshima,” wrote Zhang Zhenglu, a lieutenant colonel in the People’s Liberation Army who documented the siege in “White Snow, Red Blood,” a book that was immediately banned after publication in 1989. “The casualties were about the same. Hiroshima took nine seconds; Changchun took five months.”

The 40,000 who survived did so by eating insects, leather belts and, in some cases, the bodies that littered the streets. By the time Communist troops took over the city, every leaf and blade of grass had been consumed during the final desperate months.

There are no monuments or markers recalling the events that decimated Changchun’s populace. Most young people have no knowledge of the darker aspects of the siege, and the survivors, now in their 70s and 80s, are reluctant to give voice to long-buried trauma. “I’ve always heard that Changchun was captured without bloodshed,” Li Jiaqi, a 17-year-old high school student, said as she sat on the steps in front of the city’s Liberation Memorial.

Chinese scholars have largely steered clear of the subject. Several historians, when asked about the episode, declined to be interviewed. Zhou Jiewen, a retired nuclear physicist in Changchun who has become a self-taught expert on the siege, explained that many key details, if widely disseminated, would tarnish the army’s reputation as defenders of the common man. Those include shooting civilians who tried to escape the city and ignoring the pleas of mothers holding aloft starving children on the other side of the barbed-wire barricades. “To cause so many civilians to die was a great blunder by the P.L.A. and tragedy unparalleled in the civil war,” Mr. Zhou said.

While history is often written by the victors, the Communist Party has never been shy about shaping the past to serve its central narrative. Textbooks portray the revolution as the inevitable outcome of a popular uprising; the patriotic films that have flooded television in recent months are not subtle in their glorification of Mao’s troops as munificent liberators. The unpleasant aspects of the revolution, including innocents caught in the cross-fire, are often omitted.

“The party has no use for objective history,” said Bao Pu, a Hong Kong publisher who infuriated party leaders last spring by printing the memoir of Zhao Ziyang, the deposed Communist Party leader who spent 15 years under house arrest after opposing the violent crackdown on democracy protesters in 1989. “The basic idea is that history can be rewritten and used as a tool of the state. But this requires constant censorship. And it has a destructive effect on society.”

Other unintended consequences of suppressing the truth are hard to quantify. Many Chinese, especially those who grew up during the tumultuous decades of war, famine and political persecution, carry psychic wounds that are seldom expressed, let alone healed.

Lung Ying-tai, a University of Hong Kong professor who studied the siege of Changchun, said nearly every elderly army officer she interviewed for her book about the civil war, “Big River, Big Sea — Untold Stories of 1949,” broke down when recounting what he experienced. “It’s an unspeakable national trauma that has not once been opened up and gently treated for 60 years,” she said.

The book, which was published last month in Taiwan and promptly banned on the mainland, seeks to portray the horror of the civil war through the stories of those who survived. “There are not too many left who can clearly remember,” she said.

The elderly survivors who gather in Changchun’s Labor Park most days are not eager to tell their tales. But after some prompting, the details spill out. They describe babies too weak to cry, brides sold for a morsel of food and the milewide no man’s land where thousands perished in full view of troops under orders from Gen. Lin Biao to turn Changchun into a “dead city.”

In the first few months of the siege, food could be purchased, albeit at exorbitant prices. By the end of the summer, people were trading thick gold rings for a biscuit.

“At first we ate rotten sorghum, then corncobs and then the bark off the trees,” said Meng Qinghua, 85. “After a week of not eating you’d get very sleepy. Once that happened, you would start to die.”

The few airdrops of aid, delivered by American planes, were quickly gobbled up by Nationalist troops. When those stopped, the soldiers stole food from civilians at gunpoint. In the poorer quarters of the city, according to “White Snow, Red Blood,” 9 of 10 families were wiped out.

Although her family was relatively well off, Zhang Yinghua said there was nothing to be bought by the end of summer. They opened their pillows and consumed the corn husk filling. Later they boiled and ate leather.

Then 25, Ms. Zhang understood that swallowing such unpalatable matter was the only way to survive. “Every day we would eat a spoonful, just enough to maintain the flicker of life, but the children would not,” she said. When her 6-year-old sister and her 9-year-old brother finally died, her parents, barely able to stand, dragged their bodies to the street.

Some of those charged with enforcing the blockade have come to regret their participation. Wang Junru said he was 15 when the Communists forced him to join a militia for teenagers. Later, he joined 170,000 other soldiers ordered to drive back hungry civilians. “We were told they were the enemy and they had to die,” he said.

Whatever zeal he had for the revolution was extinguished by the 23 years he spent in a labor camp — punishment, he said, for insulting the relative of a party official when he was a college student. After his release, he spent the rest of his working life hauling logs.

Now 76 and embittered, he said young people should learn about what happened in Changchun — and during the rest of the civil war. “They only know the propaganda,” he said. “Maybe if they know how horrible war is, they can try to avoid it in the future.”

Li Bibo contributed research.

SBS News Shame on the heads of communist regimes so called celebration

2009-10-01T17:07:00.000-07:00

If it was such a good supported celebration then why did they have no one on Tienanmen square except the Ccp officials and their families? Why were the Chinese people refused entry amidst a tight security shutdown in Beijing? I mean any other legitimate Government would celebrate with all of its citizens right? -Australia day Independence Day etc... we share our successes and greatness of our nation all together right?

Well that just points to one issue .. The poor Chinese people do not support the communist regime and illegitimate heads of the Ccp. IN fact over 60 million renunciations from the communist regime and all its affiliated organizations has happened since 2004 when the Nine commentaries were spread through out the world and in China to expose the history and principles of the imported Russian communist regime. Let face it Mao was a butcher and so are the imposed heads of the communist party today...

SBS news-China to mark Communist anniversary

Nothing to celebrate in China on Oct 1, way too much shame on the communist regime.

2009-09-30T05:44:00.000-07:00

There is nothing to celebrate in China after 60 years of terror

As Australian businesses sell our resources and Chinese communists pump $500 million a week into Australian government securities, as Australian companies are moving to China to take advantage of cheap labor and no environmental laws why are the common folk left in the dark about China’s reality?

Thousands of human beings are locked away in slave labor camps. They are tortured, raped and used for organ harvests by a brutal communist regime that has no regard for its citizens. The Falun Gong group has been targeted as well as anyone who dares to question the regimes absolute corruption and total disregard for human rights. It’s all about the money and the viral cancer China’s has been infected with has spread around the world as corporate interests take priority over the concerns of human beings.

The war on freedom of speech has spread throughout the free would as new types of censorship take hold under the guise of trade with China. China is a classic example of what mankind has to look forward to in the future if tyranny continues to go unchecked in favor of political correctness and corporate profits.

The atrocities being committed in China stagger the imagination in cruelty and barbarism. Even as China and world leaders hammer out a new economic deal people are being brutalized and murdered. The shelves of every department store in Australia and the rest of the free world should be dripping with human blood for that is the real price being paid for trading with communists and not exposing and yes demanding a stop to this terrorism of innocents.

For some back ground information I am including a few links

Sept. 28, 2009: Falun Gong News Bulletin Monitoring the Falun Gong Human Rights Crisis in China http://www.faluninfo.net/article/906/?cid=6

Behind Military Show, Chinese Regime Grapples with Dissent

http://www.theepochtimes.com/n2/content/view/23084/

Unsolved: Organ Harvesting in China /Interview with UN Rapporteur Manfred Nowak http://www.theepochtimes.com/n2/content/view/20596/

Shame on the heads of the communist regime

I hope the Chinese people can wake up to this attrocity very soon