Falun Dafa, also known as Falun Gong, is a meditation practice based on “the values of Truthfulness-Compassion-Forbearance.” The exercises are designed to improve physical and mental health. What sounds peaceful and simple is severely punished in China.
Followers of the Falun Gong teachings have been persecuted, arrested, tortured and killed by the Chinese government for the past 20 years. It is estimated that thousands of them have fallen victim to organ harvesting: a “large-scale, systematic removal of organs while still alive,” as the US government writes in its annual “Report on Human Rights.”
Falun Gong has been banned in China since 1999 after the spiritual movement’s surge in popularity in the early 1990s. The inventor of the teaching, Li Hongzhi, combined Buddhist values with traditional movements from Qigong. He thus developed a modern connection between two ancient teachings. “Unlike other religions, Falun Gong focuses on physical exercise and meditation,” says an analysis of the Australian.
China bans the practice of Falun Gong
Millions of people joined the practice of Falun Gong, which the Chinese government saw as a growing threat. After several thousand followers organized a silent protest, the Communist Party classified Falun Gong as a “threat to social and political stability.” The movement was then declared a “heretical sect” and banned. To do this, the government set up a new security agency called the 610 Office to eliminate spiritual practice.
Both the Australian report and the “” point out that the agency operates outside of party and government frameworks and is therefore above the constitution and therefore also has powers over the police and judiciary. According to Amnesty International, since the persecution began, tens of thousands of Falun Gong practitioners have been arbitrarily detained, tortured and ill-treated.
Falun Gong followers call China “political opponents”
After arrest, most have to spend a few months in detention before appearing before a judge in what the Coalition to Investigate the Persecution of Falun Gong says are sham trials. The accused are almost always found guilty. Those convicted face up to seven years in prison. Many of them end up in labor camps or “re-education institutions.”
Because: “The government regards Falun Gong supporters as political opponents,” stated the Australian Foreign Ministry. According to the organization “”, which works for the international Falun Gong community, around 6,000 followers of the spiritual movement were arrested in 2019 alone.
abuse and torture
It is not uncommon for prisoners to be brutally tortured. The Chinese government’s methods have become increasingly violent over time. “Sleep deprivation, being forced to remain in stressful positions and other forms of physical and mental torture and other ill-treatment,” lists Amnesty International. The human rights organization repeatedly publishes examples of this on its website. Among others, that of Wang Xiuqing and her daughter Qin Hailong, who were tortured in a labor camp. The women’s statements show that “they were beaten with electric batons, among other things, punched and kicked all over their bodies and thrown to the ground with such violence that they could hardly breathe”.
The officers had already inflicted cuts on the Falun Gong adherent during his arrest. During his four-year sentence, he was tortured with sleep deprivation. Amnesty International regularly receives reports of deaths in custody. The “” puts the total number of torture deaths since the beginning of the persecution at over 4,000 people.
Systematic organ harvesting in China
The association estimates the number of those who lost their lives as a result of organ harvesting to be considerably higher. “The organ harvesting from living Falun Gong practitioners is a systematic crime by the Chinese Communist government,” according to the Coalition to Investigate the Persecution of Falun Gong. With the onset of the persecution, the country’s organ transplant industry has grown explosively.
China has an enormous donor pool of living organs. Transplant clinics still advertise that they can procure any organ they need within a few days and that they have several living organs available for each operation.
An investigation by the China Tribunal has confirmed allegations of organ harvesting. This is an independent panel of lawyers and experts charged with investigating possible transplant abuse. The news agency “” reported on the shocking results in 2019. There is “no question” that organ harvesting from prisoners took place “on a large scale by state-supported or recognized organizations and individuals.”
China denies organ harvesting
The Falun Gong followers are “probably the primary group for organ harvesting”. The Tribunal’s President, Sir Geoffrey Nice, stressed that “a great many people have died indescribably horrid deaths without cause”. The Chinese government has denied all allegations, referring to a new law from 2015. This states that transplant organs may only be removed on a voluntary basis and no longer from prisoners sentenced to death. However, several human rights organizations and activists cited by the US government in its “” point out that the Chinese government is falsifying information on organ donation and organ transplantation.
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Chinese director Leon Lee, who has lived in Canada for more than 15 years, only found out about the persecution and organ harvesting from Falun Gong practitioners after he left his homeland. It opened his eyes to China’s tight control over information flow, he told the . To draw more attention to the issue, Lee has made a semi-biographical feature film about the Chinese government’s crackdown on a Falun Gong practitioner. The strip is currently in Canadian cinemas. In the near future, the film will also be shown in Germany.
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Source: Stern
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