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Falun Gong, (simplified Chinese: 法轮功; traditional Chinese: 法輪功; pinyin: Fǎlún Gōng; literally "Practice of the Wheel of Law") also known as Falun Dafa, (simplified Chinese: 法轮大法; traditional Chinese: 法輪大法; pinyin: Fǎlún dàfǎ; lit. "Great Law of the Wheel of Law") is a system of "mind and body cultivation" introduced by Li Hongzhi (whose surname is Li) to the public in 1992 Falun Gong has been the focus of international attention since July 20, 1999, when the government of the People's Republic of China (PRC) began a nationwide crackdown, except in the special administrative regions of Hong Kong and Macau. Several governments, international human rights organizations and scholars consider the ban a human rights violation. Particular concerns have been raised over reports of torture and illegal imprisonment of Falun Gong practitioners in China. The Chinese government claims to have banned the group for "illegal activities, advocating superstition and spreading fallacies, hoodwinking people, inciting and creating disturbances, and jeopardizing social stability." Amnesty International has stated: "All the information available indicates that the crackdown is politically motivated, with legislation being used retroactively to convict people on politically-driven charges, and new regulations introduced to further restrict fundamental freedoms."

Julia Ching from the University of Toronto, writing for the American Asian Review, has suggested it was the Zhongnanhai demonstration of April 25 that led to "fear, animosity and suppression". In addition, Jiang Zemin had received a letter from the former director of the 301 Military Hospital, "a doctor with considerable standing among the political elite", endorsing Falun Gong and advising high-level cadres to start practicing it. Jiang also found out that Li's book, Zhuan Falun, had been published by People's Liberation Navy, and that possibly seven hundred thousand Communist party members were practitioners. Ching opines that "Jiang accepts the threat of Falun Gong as an ideological one: spiritual beliefs against militant atheism and historical materialism. He wishes to purge the government and the military of such beliefs." She also says that "the accusation of Falun Gong's being an "evil cult" made previous arrests and imprisonments "constitutional." Of course, the accusation was made after the government had already started to crack down on Falun Gong . The enumeration of features of an "evil cult" was done by political officials on political premises, not by any religious authority. It was an atheistic, Communist government, handing down an executive decision by the pronouncement of an "evil cult," without an explanation of what would be its opposite: a good cult, or a good religion." Similar theories about the fundamental reasons are also supported by Elizabeth J. Perry in Critical Asian Studies, a peer-reviewed quarterly journal.

Beginning of the Conflict

On June 17 1996, Guangming Daily, one of Chinese Communist government's official newspapers, published an editorial article titled, "A Loud and Long Alarm Must Be Sounded Against Pseudo-Science," which claimed Falun Gong to promote superstition, and to be "Pseudo-Science." This is the first time the Chinese Communist government media made a critical article about the Falun Gong public.

On July 24 1996, the Chinese News Publishing Bureau, which is under the Propaganda Bureau at the Central Committee of the Chinese Communist government, issued an internal order to in all cities and provinces, prohibiting the publishing of Zhuan Falun and China Falun Gong, and other Falun Gong books due to their nature of "promoting superstition."

In the Beginning of 1997 the Chinese Public Security Ministry carried out an investigation throughout China trying to collect criminal evidence of Falun Gong as "an evil cult." But the police at all levels in China came back with the same report: "Haven't found any problem." Hence the investigation stopped.

In May 1998 Beijing TV's "Fast Forward" program aired an interview with He Zuoxiu, a member of the Chinese Academy of Science, who attacked Falun Gong as being superstitious in the same segment where a reporter from the station interviewed practitioners at an exercise site in Beijing's Yu Yuantan Park and had practitioners describe the benefits of Falun Gong. After the show aired, hundreds of Falun Gong practitioners from Beijing and Hebei province either wrote letters or directly visited the TV station to point out that He Zuoxiu's attack on Falun Gong was inaccurate.

In June 20 - 22, 1998 after Qilu Evening News published an article slandering Falun Dafa, over 1,000 Falun Gong practitioners in Jinan went to the newspaper to clarify the truth about Falun Gong.

In July 21, 1998 the 1st Bureau of the Chinese Ministry of Public Security issued Document No. 555, "Notice of the Investigation of Falun Gong," which claimed that Falun Gong was an "evil cult." The Ministry of Public Security carried out a series of investigations on Falun Gong that were known as "finding guilty first and then collecting evidence." These actions included, but were not limited to, tapping Falun Gong assistants' phones, tailing Falun Gong assistants, closing down Falun Gong practice sites, forcefully dispersing the practitioners during group exercise practice, ransacking practitioners' houses, confiscating their personal properties, and other things.

In the second half of 1998 in response to letters from people who reported the police's unjust treatment of Falun Gong practitioners, Qiao Shi, the formal chairman of the People's National Congress, led other retired senior members of the congress to perform a thorough investigation on Falun Gong that lasted several months. The investigation concluded that "Falun Gong has hundreds of benefits for the Chinese people and China, and does not have one single bad effect." The retired leaders submitted the investigation report to the Political and Legislative Affairs Committee of the Chinese Communist Party's Central Committee.

In October 20, 1998 the Chinese National Sports Bureau sent a team to Changchun and Harbin to investigate Falun Gong. After the investigation, the leader of the team confirmed Falun Gong's effects on good health and its positive role in improving social stability and spiritual civilization.

In April 11, 1999 He Zuoxiu published an article titled "Teenagers Should Not Practice Qigong" in Teenager Expo, quoting cases that had been included in a prior Beijing TV program and had already been found to be untrue.

In April 18 - 24, 1999 Falun Gong practitioners in Tianjin went to the Tianjin Teacher's College (the publisher of Teenager Expo) and other related organizations to clarify the truth about Falun Gong. Within several days, thousands of Falun Gong practitioners arrived in Tianjin to help clarify the truth.

In April 23 - 24, 1999 The Tianjin Public Security Bureau sent in 300 S.W.A.T. policemen, who used violence and excessive force to disperse Falun Gong practitioners who had gone to the Tianjin Teacher's College to clarify the truth about Falun Gong. The police arrested 45 Dafa practitioners. Some practitioners were injured by the police.

Of these protests, an Asiaweek article reported: “What Falungong does do is besiege opponents, literally. Li Hongzhi's demand that followers 'promote the law' and 'protect the law' seems to foster intolerance of criticism. Believers encircled media organizations in China 77 times over the past few years (and once in Hong Kong) over what they said was unfair coverage.” In one of his articles entitled “Digging Out the Roots,” Li Hongzhi discussed the motivations behind the false and damaging media reports, and suggested how practitioners might respond to them:

Recently, a few scoundrels from literary, scientific, and qigong circles, who have been hoping to become famous through opposing qigong, have been constantly causing trouble, as though the last thing they want to see is a peaceful world. Some newspapers, radio stations and TV stations in various parts of the country have directly resorted to these propaganda tools to harm our Dafa, having a very bad impact on the public. This was deliberately harming Dafa and cannot be ignored. Under these very special circumstances, Dafa disciples in Beijing adopted a special approach to ask those people to stop harming Dafa—this actually was not wrong. This was done when there was no other way (other regions should not copy their approach). But when students voluntarily approach those uninformed and irresponsible media agencies and explain to them our true situation, this should not be considered wrong.

What I would like to tell you is not whether this incident itself was right or wrong. Instead, I want to point out that this event has exposed some people. They still have not fundamentally changed their human notions, and they still perceive problems with the human mentality wherein human beings protect human beings. I have said that Dafa absolutely should not get involved in politics. The purpose of this event itself was to help the media understand our actual situation and learn about us positively so that they would not drag us into politics. Speaking from another perspective, Dafa can teach the human heart to be good and it can stabilize society. But you must be clear that Dafa certainly is not taught for these purposes, but rather for cultivation practice.

Dafa has created a way of existence for the lowest level, mankind. Then, among various types of human behavior within the human form of existence at this level, which include collectively presenting facts to someone, and so forth, aren’t these one of the numerous forms of existence that Dafa gives to mankind at the lowest level? It is just that when humans do things, good and evil coexist. Thus, there are struggles and politics. Under extremely special circumstances, however, Dafa disciples adopted that approach from the Fa at the lowest level, and they completely applied their good side. Wasn’t this an act that harmonized the Fa at the level of mankind? Except under special extreme circumstances, this type of approach is not to be adopted.

This article was written one month after the group had held a protest against the Beijing TV station; the “special approach” refers to the protest. On May 27, 1998 — twelve days after the China Central TV, China's largest network, had aired a positive coverage of the group — the local Beijing TV station broadcast a program in which a professor of China's Academy of Science disparaged the group, calling it a "cult." Under pressure, the TV station fired the 24-year-old reporter involved and broadcast a favorable report about the group a few days later.

In Switzerland, 1998, Li Hongzhi said: "Not so long ago, when a television station broadcast a groundless report on us and we went to meet with them, everyone talked to them rationally and with goodwill. A lot of people went there that time, but having a large number of people didn’t necessarily make it a bad incident. The attitude and approach that people adopt can be good or bad. They explained things with reason and in an entirely kind way. They didn’t get involved in the nation’s political issues, nor did they damage public property. Everyone managed to act like a cultivator and explain our reasoning. People were moved because they had never met people like that."

Zhongnanhai demonstration and aftermath

On the morning of April 25 1999, more than ten thousand Falun Gong practitioners and/or supporters were directed by police to surround Zhongnanhai, where top Chinese leaders both live and work. They stayed in silence for 12 hours, reading and meditating, in protest of the mass arrests and beatings of practitioners in Tianjin city, at the same time seeking legal status and protection of the practice. Premier Zhu Rongji met with some representatives of the practitioners and after the arrested practitioners were released, the protesters dispersed. Nevertheless, it was reported that Falun Gong practitioners organizing a protest alarmed many senior leaders, particularly Jiang Zemin. According to some estimates, at this time there were more than 100,000 Falun Gong practitioners in Beijing. This protest immediately brought Falun Gong and its founder, Li Hongzhi, to the attention of the central government of China, as well as to that of the world. After three months, on July 20 1999, the persecution of Falun Gong was officially started by the Chinese government, which again attracted a great deal of media attention around the world.

National Review wrote in September 1999: "After April 25, the government went into a panic. As Robert Thurman, the renowned Buddhism scholar at Columbia University, says, Falun Gong had "scared the hell out of them." So the regime "went nuts," revealing its weakness and self-doubt for all the world to see. According to reports, President Jiang Zemin in particular is worried about Falun Gong, even obsessed with it. On the fateful day, he asked to be driven around the Zhongnanhai in his limousine, to stare at the throng through tinted windows. That night, seemingly in the grip of a spiritual crisis, he wrote to the Politburo: "I believe Marxism can triumph over Falun Gong." He mutters incessantly to Western envoys about the troublesome movement."

Julia Ching refers to an article that was published in World Journal in July 1999, stating that the Zhongnanhai demonstrations might have been organized in part by the government "to help trump up charges against Falun Gong which it had observed and monitored for years through its infiltrators. It even gives the name of a high official, Gan, as being the chief Communist organizer of the Zhongnanhai gathering. As secretary general of the State Council, had been investigating Falun Gong and had wanted it banned since 1996 but could not find any legal basis for transgression. In that case, it is not certain where the Falun followers intended first to make their petition, but had the police direct them to Zhongnanhai, in order to create an incident with which they afterwards could be charged." The practitioners have said that they wanted to make a peaceful appeal at the citizens' appeal office, located at Fuyou street, near Zhongnanhai.

On June 10, 1999, the government established the "6-10" office, an extra-constitutional body, to facilitate the crackdown. Most political analysts believe that this was the direct result of events that occurred in April 1999.

"By unleashing a Mao-style movement , Jiang is forcing senior cadres to pledge allegiance to his line," a Communist Party veteran later told CNN's Willy Lam. "This will boost Jiang's authority-and may give him enough momentum to enable him to dictate events at the pivotal 16th Communist Party congress next year."

The Minghui/Clearwisdom website claims that over 3000 Falun Gong practitioners have verifiably died through torture or beating while in police or government custody.

These events also saw He Zuoxiu accuse some Falun Gong practitioners of harassment because of the articles he wrote, publishing a book entitled How Falun Gong Harassed Me and My Family. He Zuoxiu is a relative of Luo Gan, one of the chief perpetrators of the persecution, and he is said to have "become a national hero" for opposing Falun Gong. Noah Porter therefore uspects He Zuoxiu of politically motivated careerism (e.g. , p99).

On May 2, 1999 in Sydney, Australia in an interview with western media Li denied that the Zhongnanhai protest was organized by anyone. He stated: “there was no organization and no formalities, one person would trigger another person's heart, and that's why everyone came.…No one mobilized them, no one told them.”

The media war

The Communist Party of China's nation-wide persecution of Falun Gong began on July 20, 1999. The state-controlled media was used to label the practice an "evil cult" spreading superstition to deceive people. Jiang, the former leader of the CPC, condemned the group in the state-controlled media, stating a position the Chinese government promotes to this day.

Elizabeth J. Perry, writing for Critical Asian Studies, has described Beijing's use of media in the beginnings stages of the persecution: "For weeks after the campaign began, each night pictures were broadcast of huge piles of Falun Gong materials that had been either voluntarily turned over by practitioners or confiscated in police raids on bookstores and publishing houses. (Interestingly, the People’s Liberation Army Press was responsible for a number of Falun Gong publications.) Some were disposed of in gigantic bonfires, others were recycled. Relatives of Falun Gong victims testified about the terrible tragedies that had befallen their loved ones. Former adherents also began to come forward to explain how they had been hoodwinked by Li Hongzhi and to express regret at their gullibility. Physical education teachers pointed to healthy alternatives to Falun Gong in the form of badminton, ballroom dancing, bowling, and the like. Happy pictures of those who had kicked the Falun Gong habit and were now pursuing more benign varieties of exercise began to flood the evening news. The basic patterns of the government’s offensive were familiar from decades of previous such mobilized suppression efforts, from the anti-rightist campaign of the 1950s to the anti-spiritual pollution campaigns of the 1980s."

The CPC claims that the practice has exploited spiritual cultivation to engage its practitioners in seditious politics. They also allege that manipulation via their "lies and fallacies", Falun Gong "caused needless deaths of large numbers of practitioners". "Over 1,000 practitioners died because they followed Li's teachings and refused to seek medical treatment for their illnesses. Several hundred practitioners committed self-mutilation or suicide. Over 30 innocent people were killed by mentally deranged practitioners of "Falun Gong".

House Concurrent Resolution 188 unanimously Passed, by a vote of 420-0, by the United States Congress states:

"Falun Gong is a peaceful and nonviolent form of personal belief and practice with millions of adherents in the People's Republic of China and elsewhere"

"Jiang Zemin's regime has created notorious government '610' offices throughout the People's Republic of China with the special task of overseeing the persecution of Falun Gong members through organized brainwashing, torture, and murder;"

"Propaganda from state-controlled media in the People's Republic of China has inundated the public in an attempt to breed hatred and discrimination."

In China, the CPC has blocked access to certain sites on the Internet (including this article, see History_of_Wikipedia#Access_in_Mainland_China), all Falun Gong Websites and burned Falun Gong's books and materials. In addition, some junk mail filters are targeting emails related to the Falun Gong spiritual practice and other dissidents.

On the other hand, there have been incidents in which China's state-owned television networks were jammed with reports on the persecution of Falun Gong. In addition, a syndicated Chinese language newspaper with worldwide circulation, The Epoch Times, is accused of having a pro-Falun Gong platform, mainly because it has been the mouthpiece of much of Falun Gong's claims of suppression and torture, but also partly because it has published articles suggesting a declining state in the CPC. These articles include Nine Commentaries on the Communist Party of China(jiuping), New Zealand to Celebrate 7 Million Renouncing Communist Party of China, and others .

According to ClearWisdom.net, eight Falun Gong practitioners were arrested after one of the jamming incidents in Changchun city, including Liu Chengjun, who was allegedly tortured to death after 21 months incarceration in Jilin Prison.

The Tiananmen Square self-immolation incident

The Tiananmen Square self-immolation incident was an incident occurring on January 23, 2001, in Tiananmen Square, Beijing in which six people engaged in self-immolation. The Communist Party government and media claimed the people to be Falun Gong practitioners; the survivors, too, stating in the presence of state-run media that they were Falun Gong practitioners. Falun Gong denied that those people could have been practitioners, citing parts of the teachings which forbid suicide and killing, at the same time claiming the event was staged by the Chinese government to deceive the public and escalate the persecution. Some third-party commentators have affirmed this version of events, stating that the incident was staged by the government in order to turn public opinion against the practice and to justify and escalate its persecution.

Torture Methods

Falun Gong related websites, independent organisations monitoring the treatment of Falun Gong by the Chinese government, as well as human rights organisations and other NGOs, have published reports of alleged torture or mistreatment of Falun Gong practitioners by the Chinese government. Along with firsthand accounts of alleged torture or mistreatment, some publications contain compilations of the alleged torture methods used against Falun Gong practitioners. The United Nations Reports on China’s Persecution of Falun Gong (2004) lists 31 different forms of torture, with multiple variations on each type, while Falun Gong sources have suggested that up to 100 different forms of torture are in use. The main purpose of torture is to have suspected Falun Gong practitioners sign "repentance statements" or statements denouncing the practice, and to have them stop practicing Falun Gong. One variation of some of the torture methods reported as most common are listed below, with some of the similar methods being combined.

Shocking with electricity

The use of electric batons by police officers and prison guards is reported as the most widespread form of torture used against Falun Gong practitioners. The Falun Dafa Information Center claims that the batons carry voltages of up to 300 000 volts, and are used to shock the sensitive areas of practitioners' bodies, such as mouths, centers of the palms, bottoms of the feet, as well as breasts and genitals. Often more than one baton is applied at one time. Police are reported to use homemade versions of these devices, which are more powerful: “The skin will break open and bleed in every place that receives a shock from this device.”

Forced to stand, sit or squat for a long time

These are listed in the UN report as three different forms of torture, and each have their own variations. This form of torture is reported to last “for many days”, and is often accompanied by the deprivation of food, sleep, water and use of the toilet. Sometimes, convicted prisoners watch over practitioners during this type of torture. Failure to hold the positions is said to result in being beaten, shocked with electric batons, kicked or slapped. The sitting and squatting forms may result in necrosis in the buttocks, muscle spasms and nerve damage.

Burning

The Falun Dafa Information Center says they have received “numerous reports” of torture in the form of burning. Reported instruments include car lighters, irons, hot metal rods (see image) or cigarettes. The UN report states that the parts of the body targeted by this form of torture include the fingers, toes, faces, nipples and vagina. In some cases, this form of torture is reported to have been used to induce practitioners to state that they will stop practicing Falun Gong. In the case of Wang Huajun, Hubei Province, after being seized for speaking publicly about the Chinese government's alleged persecution of Falun Gong, she was "beaten viciously" by police, and later on the verge of death "...dragged outside of the city hall, drenched in gasoline, and set ablaze."

Force-Feeding

The Falun Dafa information center states that over 10% of all confirmed deaths of Falun Gong practitioners in custody are a result of force feeding torture, and provides a list of the purported confirmed deaths. The UN report claims that it is the number one cause of deaths. Both Faluninfo and the UN report contextualize this activity not as an attempt by police officers to nourish practitioners who have used hunger strikes as a form of protest, but as a form of either punishment or torture. The UN report states that the purpose is “…to punish practitioners and to cause so much pain that they will renounce Falun Gong practice. To that end, the police have used many different means to cause excruciating pain and injury…” Some examples given are: the insertion and withdrawing of feeding tubes in a violent way which leads to death through puncturing the lungs; leaving the feeding tubes in the stomach for prolonged periods; knocking out teeth to enable force-feeding, including use of pliers and crowbars, or boaring holes in the side of the mouth; force-feeding of either salt water, vinegar, straight alcohol, hot pepper oil, boiling water, or urine and feces.

Chinaview, an independent website focused on human rights abuses in China, states that in the Summer of 2003 the Gaoyang Forced Labour Camp was the first to begin force-feeding Falun Gong practitioners with human urine and excrement, and that “…the Chinese government awarded them for this innovation, and sent labour camp staff from around the country to learn this procedure.”

Sexual Abuses

Amnesty International's "Falun Gong Persecution Factsheet" lists sexual abuses as one of the forms of torture Falun Gong practitioners are subject to. Further details are provided in the UN report and on Falun Gong related websites. One article on Clear Harmony, a Falun Gong website, states that in June 2000 "...eighteen Falun Gong women being held at the Masanjia Labour Camp in Liaoning province were stripped naked and thrown into prison cells with violent male criminals, who were encouraged to rape and abuse the women." The article later asserts that of the over 44,000 documented cases of torture and severe abuse of Falun Gong practitioners in China, many have involved sexual abuse or rape. Gao Zhisheng, a prominent Beijing-based human rights lawyer, in his third open letter to the Beijing leadership stated that:

“Among the true accounts of unbelievable brutality, among the records of the government's inhuman torture of its own people, the immoral acts that shocked my soul the most were the lewd yet routine practice of attacking women's genitals by 6-10 Office staff and the police. Almost every woman's genitals and breasts or every man's genitals have been sexually assaulted during the persecution in a most vulgar fashion. Almost all who have been persecuted, be they male or female, were first stripped naked before any torture. No language or words could describe or re-create our government's vulgarity and immorality in this respect. Who with a warm body could afford to stay silent when faced with such truths?”

The UN report provides a list of some of the alleged, female-specific, and sexual violations, including rape and gang rape—sometimes by police officers directly, sometimes by throwing female Falun Gong practitioners into prison cells—forced abortion, pinching or biting off of nipples, sticking needles through the nipples, electric baton shock of nipples and vaginas, rape with bottles or batons, burning the vagina with a cigar, inserting and rotating brushes inside the vagina and inserting hot pepper paste into the vagina. The section concludes with the statement that “This torture has often inflicted permanent psychological and physical damage on the practitioners in question, and on more than one occasion the practitioners have later died under mysterious circumstances.”

Miscellaneous

Some of the other forms of reported torture mentioned in the UN report, human rights websites, or Falun Gong related websites employed to have Falun Gong practitioners renounce the practice, include: suffocation with plastic bags, buckets, or thick, soaked paper; ramming bamboo sticks through the fingernails; beating the buttocks with boards up to hundreds of times; exposure to hemp plants; being hand-cuffed and hung up for prolonged periods; being tied-up and hung up for prolonged periods; various forms of solitary confinement including being locked in a small cell or cage, tied to a board, or put in a water dungeon, all for prolonged periods of time; having icy or boiling water poured over the head (the UN report states this is a “routine” form of torture); forced to stay in extreme weather; various types of deprivation of physiological needs, as well as beatings.

Psychiatric Abuses

The Chinese government admits a sharp increase in instances of Falun Gong practitioners being detained in psychiatric facilities, attributing the causes to the alleged harmful effects of Falun Gong practice, at the same time maintaining that all remedial actions have been taken in accordance with the law. Falun Gong sources claim that there are illegal, systematic and widespread abuses of mentally healthy Falun Gong practitioners in psychiatric custody. Some independent writers seek to corroborate the claims of Falun Gong while others dismiss them. A noted writer on the alleged psychiatric abuses of the Chinese government is Robin Munro. Sunny Y. Lu and Viviana B. Galli write in the The Journal of the American Academy of Psychiatry and the Law that Munro “…first drew sustained, worldwide attention to the abuses of forensic psychiatry in China in general and of Falun Gong practitioners in particular.” Some third-party commentators, such as Sing Lee and Arthur Kleinman have expressed skepticism and criticism towards Munro’s reports. Lee and Kleinman suggest that Munro may be biased and his sources flawed, and that the profession of psychiatry in China is not severely compromised by the Chinese government's alleged regime of repression, as Munro suggests. Munro responded to these criticisms in the same journal, saying "...nowhere in their critique of my allegations of political psychiatric abuse in China do Lee and Kleinman even attempt to make any substantive rebuttal of the principal evidence I present..."

With regard to allegations of psychiatric abuses of Falun Gong practitioners, the Chinese government has stated that the government’s actions against Falun Gong are carried out in accordance with Chinese law. The Chinese government refers to Falun Gong as a cult, and reports that “The cult has led to more than 650 cases of psychological disorder, with 11 practitioners becoming homicides and 144 others physically disabled.” Ji Shi in his book Li Hongzhi and his “Falun Gong”—Deceiving the Public and Ruining Lives, writes that “According to doctors at the Beijing University of Medical Science, since 1992 the number of patients with psychiatric disorders caused by practicing “Falun Gong” has increased markedly, accounting for 10.2 percent of all patients suffering from mental disorders caused by practicing various ‘’qigong’’ exercises. In the first half of this year the number rose further, accounting for 42.1 percent.”

A report from the Falun Dafa Information Center states that an estimated 1,000 Falun Gong practitioners have been forcefully detained in mental hospitals, with reports of psychological abuses, administration of sedatives or anti-psychotic drugs and torture by electrocution, force-feeding, beating or starvation. It is claimed that practitioners are admitted because they refuse to give up Falun Gong, “...went to the government to appeal for an end to the persecution of Falun Gong, or because they refused to defame Falun Gong's founder, Li Hongzhi, as the authorities demanded.”

In his article "Judicial Psychiatry in China and its Political Abuses" published in the Colombia Journal of Asian Law, Munro attempts to contextualize the alleges abuses of Falun Gong practitioners in a history of politicization of the psychiatric profession by the Chinese government since the 1950’s. He suggests that many outside observers find the Chinese government’s “…continuing campaign against the Falun Gong to be closely reminiscent of the kinds of extreme and unbridled political campaigns waged by the Party during the Cultural Revolution.” And that “Since the latter part of 1999… it has become abundantly clear that religious sectarians also now also form a major target of politically repressive psychiatry in China.” He later adds more specifically that “The most distinctive aspect of the government’s protracted campaign to crush the Falun Gong, aside from its sheer scope and brutality, has been the flood of reports… indicating that large numbers of the group’s detained practitioners were being forcibly sent to mental hospitals by the security authorities.”

Lu and Galli in their study entitled "Psychiatric Abuse of Falun Gong practitioners in China" give a similar portrayal of the alleged psychiatric abuses by the Chinese government:

Using mental hospitals as places of government-directed torture in China had been in a steady decline in the 1990s, but the government of Jiang Zemin resurrected this practice as part of a comprehensive and brutal campaign to “eradicate” Falun Gong. The political abuse of psychiatry by the Soviet Union was aimed at political dissenters and nonconformists, but Falun Gong practitioners are neither political nor nonconformists.”

Munro describes some of the common abuses detained practitioners are reported to receive, such as being drugged with various unknown kinds of medication, kept in dark rooms for prolonged periods of time, subjected to electro-convulsive therapy or painful forms of electrical acupuncture treatment, denial of adequate food and water, restricted access to toilet facilities, and forced confessional statements renouncing belief in Falun Gong (as a condition of eventual release, followed by fines of several thousand yuan for their stay). Lu and Galli include in their list of alleged abuses: medications forcefully administered through nasogastric tubes as a form of torture or punishment, increases in medication dosages of up to five or six times, and physical torture including binding tightly with ropes in very painful positions. They also go on to describe some of the effects of this treatment, including the toxic effects of various drugs, chemicals or other unknown substances: loss of memory, migraines, extreme weakness, protrusion of the tongue, rigidity, loss of consciousness, vomiting, nausea and seizures. They write that medical staff are reported to deal with practitioners violently, reported comments including phrases such as “Aren’t you practicing Falun Gong? Let us see, which is stronger, Falun Gong or our medicines?”

Munro gives an account of the case of Tan Guihua, a 42 year old female from Shandong Province:

On September 12, 1999, Tan went home after appealing in Beijing for the Falun Gong. Before she could sit down, some officers from her work unit and the Politics and Law Commission broke into her home and took her to the mental hospital.

The officers dragged her into the mental hospital by force. By then, they had already prepared a big dose of injection and planned to give her the shot as soon as she arrived. Tan refused to take the injection. A tall nurse then went out and brought back eight mental patients. They pressed her down and gave her the injection. In only a few seconds, she began to feel faint and sick. Her heart started to beat extremely fast. She had to press her head against the wall and hold the ground firmly with both hands. While in great pain, she bit down tightly on the comforter in her mouth and tried not to make any noise. Her mouth bled from the biting. She then lost consciousness. She did not feel better until the effects of the drug gradually abated.

Later, a female doctor asked Tan daily whether she would continue to practice Falun Gong. Tan said "yes," and the doctor then shocked her with electrical needles. She was shocked in this way altogether seven times. Meanwhile, she had been force-fed medicines and given injections three times a day. She spent two months in the hospital like this.

Later, the female doctor asked a nurse named Ma to give her another kind of injection. It was said to be some kind of imported medicine, and the drug effect would last for over one month. After that injection, Tan's period stopped coming. Her eyeballs couldn't move and she became slow in reacting to things. A few days later, they added another medicine to the injection. After this shot, Tan shook all over violently and couldn't even hold the bowl. She was tortured like this for 20 days. When her family members finally picked her up, she was all muddleheaded and could not see things clearly. Her mind was totally blank and could not recall things for a long period. Her whole body was puffy. Her eyes looked dull. Her reactions became slow, and it took a long time for her to say a single word.

Lu and Galli write that not long after the crackdown began, government agents, police, and sometimes family members of practitioners began forcing mentally healthy Falun Gong practitioners into psychiatric facilities. With no formal legal procedures for commitment, local police officers and members of the 610 office have the power to arbitrarily commit Falun Gong practitioners to psychiatric institutions--while lengths of detention may range from days to years. Lu and Galli state that “The perversion of mental health facilities for the purpose of the torture of Falun Gong practitioners is widespread.” Lu and Galli claim that the targets come from all tiers of society, including physicians, nurses, judges, military personnel, police officers and school teachers, and that diagnoses range from obsessive-compulsive disorder, “mental problems induced by superstition”, “qigong-induced mental disorder”, or as Munro points out, the revised “hyperdiagnosis” of “evil cult-induced mental disorder” (xie-jiao suo zhi jingshen zhang’ai)--which he describes as a throwback to the model found in Soviet forensic psychiatry. Munro describes this as a “politically opportunistic new diagnosis,” with the Chinese government effectively issuing the “health warning”: “Spiritual or religious beliefs banned on political grounds can drive people mad.”

Lu and Galli write that in cases where hospitals know that the persons to be committed do not have any mental illness and therefore express reluctance to admit them, the government, through police pressure, often forces them to commit the practitioners. These involuntary commitments are because the individuals practice Falun Gong, pass out flyers against the government suppression, otherwise appeal to the government, refuse to renounce Falun Gong, or write petition letters. It is also claimed that the Chinese government uses extreme measures to prevent any investigation of the alleged psychiatric abuses. Lu and Galli cite: threats or bribes towards family members, summary cremation of victims' bodies, detainment of anyone else who knows the truth or will talk about it to western media, censorship of the internet, restricted access for western media, blocking attempts at investigations by international organizations such as Amnesty International, and detaining, harassing, deporting or revoking the licenses of journalists.

Dr. Arthur Kleinman and Dr. Sing Lee from Harvard Medical School, long-time researchers on various psychiatric topics in China since 1978, both have had experience with patients suffering from “Qigong-induced mental disorder”. Partly in response to Munro’s suggestion that the term “qigong-induced mental disorder” may be in part a politicized, misused term to advance the Chinese government’s regime of suppression, they state that “In the scientific community, controlled phenomenologic, treatment, and outcome studies have been published in the past two decades that support the disease validity of qigong-related mental disorder…” And, go on to state that in international psychiatry this illness would be recognized as “…a specific type of brief reactive psychosis or as the precipitation of an underlying mental illness, such as schizophrenia, bipolar disorder, or posttraumatic stress disorder.”

Lee and Kleinman state that “…Falun Gong is one of many kinds of qigong that share certain similarities, such as the attainment of a trance state, patterned bodily posture or movement…”, the practice of which could induce mental illnesses in some of its practitioners. As part of Lee’s research in China in 1997 she reports interviewing a 54-year-old housewife who had practiced Falun Gong for two years. Before recounting the case directly, Lee narrates that “…the trance state and the spontaneous bodily movement that the practice brought about enthralled her.”—notwithstanding that the references to a “trance state” and “spontaneous bodily movement” are not consistent with the teachings of Falun Gong which state “…You cannot be in a trance or lose yourself when practicing…” and that “Your Main Consciousness should govern you at all times as you do the exercises.”

Despite this, Lee recounts that the patient started to find that her body moved in ways that were no longer under her control, and that:

“She thought that these movements “talked” to her, sometimes by writing through her hand, telling her that continuous practice of Falun Gong could transform her into a Buddha. That she was plump and had long earlobes, resembling the popular appearance of a Buddha, convinced her that this possibility was real. In due course, however, she was frightened because the movements began to tell her to die by not eating and by taking an overdose of pills. She believed she was possessed by a shapeless fox spirit a thousand years old that required her body to turn into a real Buddha. She became an insomniac, restless, and distressed. Her distraught family members took her to a psychiatric hospital where she initially resisted treatment because she did not think that she was mentally ill but was only having a paranormal experience… Subsequently, she stayed in the hospital for one month and gradually recovered with antipsychotic drug treatment. She accepted the advice of her doctor that she had a sensitive disposition that was not suited for practicing qigong and stopped the Falun Gong altogether. She knew of many middle-aged people who practiced and derived benefit from Falun Gong for health reasons and loneliness after retirement. But she also heard about some who died by self-induced starvation or suicide as they attempted to ascend to the Falun heaven.”

In responding to Munro’s report, Lee and Kleinman state that “Much of his argument about the political abuse of psychiatry in China is based on unconfirmed allegations, many from human rights groups with their own axes to grind, and others from the Falun Gong religious cult, which, whatever we think of it, we must remember is engaged in a nasty political struggle with the Chinese state.” And that "Munro has based his essay entirely on indirect accounts and unconfirmed reports from sources that are clearly biased." They express their dissatisfaction that “We are not convinced by Munro’s argument that the Chinese government uses mental hospitals rather than the much cheaper regular prisons to detain Falun Gong practitioners because of the need for ‘self-justificatory vanity’ and ‘international prestige’” and also reject the assertion of both Munro and Lu & Galli that the modern Chinese psychiatric profession has become implicated in the Communist Party’s political agenda, citing personal anecdotes that “...during informal discussions regarding the Falun Gong, a number of Chinese psychiatrists whom we know of have expressed strongly the view that professional practice and politics should be separated, a phenomenon that was barely possible during the Maoist era.” They also caution Munro against “…creating a witch hunt that attributed to the profession as a whole the misuses and abuses of what may well turn out to be only a small number of practitioners.”

In his response to Lee and Kleinman, Munro responds to the claim that he “…based his essay entirely on indirect accounts and unconfirmed reports from sources that are clearly biased”, by saying:

“The overwhelming majority of the evidence I have publicly presented on this question to date consists of facts, commentary, and survey material written and compiled by Chinese psychiatrists and law-enforcement officers themselves, all of it published in China’s officially authorized professional literature over the past few decades. In what plausible sense can such material credibly be characterized as “indirect,” “unconfirmed,” and “clearly biased”? (Lee and Kleinman regularly cite this same scholarly psychiatric literature from China in their own published work.) Above all, nowhere in their critique of my allegations of political psychiatric abuse in China do Lee and Kleinman even attempt to make any substantive rebuttal of the principal evidence I present—namely, the copious documentation drawn from several decades worth of the country’s own professional literature on psychiatry and the law. On all this, they are disappointingly silent. Instead, they rhetorically conflate this formidable body of evidence with the small quantity of unconfirmed Falun Gong material and then misleadingly dismiss both as being “indirect, unconfirmed, and biased.” Because they have chosen not to address the principal evidence I presented, one must assume that they simply have no answer to it.”

He says that the four Falun Gong case notes were selected on the basis of their typicality “…from among several hundred such accounts that have so far been compiled and published by the Falun Gong’s human rights monitoring units.” And that “According to the latter’s extensive network of informants in China, already more than 300 Falun Gong detainees have died in police custody nationwide since July 1999, three of them in forced psychiatric detention and all reportedly as a direct consequence of police brutality… Independent investigations by foreign journalists based in Beijing… have confirmed the Falun Gong’s version of events in the cases that have been examined.”

Munro finishes his response to the question of the quality of the evidence he presented by saying that “…more fair-minded readers will conclude that the more than 100 pages of closely documented evidence of the systematic, decades-long political misuse of psychiatry by the Chinese authorities that directly preceded this short section on the Falun Gong cases… transfer the burden of proof squarely back onto the Chinese authorities, if they want to convince their own citizens and the outside world that the appalling accounts of extreme physical and psychological ill treatment supplied by detained Falun Gong practitioners since the crackdown began in mid-1999 are either false or substantially inaccurate.”

In February 2005, a World Psychiatric Association delegation visited China to investigate the allegation. Dr. Alan Stone, professor of law and psychiatry at Harvard, a former president of the American Psychiatric Association and recipient of a Guggenheim Fellowship to study the international political abuse of psychiatry, later published his findings as a member of the delegation. He states: “The lack of qualified psychiatrists, the divergent standards of training, the intense economic pressures, and the absence of central government control and command regulation all suggest a quite different situation than that which existed in the Soviet Union. If Falun Gong practitioners have been misdiagnosed and mistreated in psychiatric hospitals across China (and there is no doubt in my mind that they have been) it is not because orders came down from the Ministry of Health or Security in Beijing. Nor is there any evidence that an influential group of forensic psychiatrists carried out this psychiatric persecution of the Falun Gong in the secure Ankang hospitals (mental hospital).”

Allegations of organ harvesting

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On March 10, 2006 the Falun Gong news paper Epoch Times reported a "heinous crime": six thousand practitioners were killed in a secret concentration camp in Sujiatun District, Shenyang City. “No detainees have managed to leave the concentration camp alive… internal organs are all removed from the bodies and sold,” said Mr. R, an anonymous person who broke the story to Epoch Times.

The story developed further on March 17 when another anonymous person whose family members were allegedly involved in removing organs from Falun Gong practitioners gave further details that were published in the Epoch Times. According to this anonymous source, the concentration camp is located in the Liaoning Provincial Thrombosis Hospital of Integrated Chinese and Western Medicine where she once worked. Since 2001, according to this source, the hospital has detained practitioners in a huge system of secret underground chambers. Then she made a horrifying accusation that topped all others ever made by the group: “Many Falun Gong practitioners were still alive when their organs were taken. After their organs were cut out, some of these people were thrown directly into the crematorium to be burnt, thus leaving no evidence.” Claiming no connection with the Falun Gong, she said she had to speak up to save those still alive there. Similar claims were made by Mr. R.

On 12 March2006, Harry Wu, the Executive Director of the Laogai Research Foundation and the China Information Center located in Washington, D.C. released a report stating that:"I arranged for people inside China to visit the Sujiatun scene. From March 12, the investigators canvassed the entire Sujiatun area. On March 17, the investigators visited two military barracks in Sujiatun. On March 27, the investigators secretly visited the Chinese Medical Blood Clotting Treatment Center in Sujiatun. On March 29, the investigators went to the Kongjiashan prison near Sujiatun. None of the aforementioned investigations revealed any trace of the concentration camp. The investigators provided me with photographs and written reports on their investigation and results on March 15, 17, 27, 29, 30 and April 4."

The Washington Times covered the allegations on 24 March 2006 in an article by Bill Gertz. According to the article, Jin Zhong (a pseudonym for the journalist who fled China recently) said he first learned of the harvesting operation between October and December. Mr Jin, who in the past has been a contributor to a Japanese news agency, calls Sujiatun "a murder sponsored by a state". Jin came across the underground detention center while researching the Chinese government's response to SARS. The article claims that several other hospital workers have also revealed details about the prisoner organ harvesting. Jin Zhong has had to hide his true identity after being threatened by Chinese government agents. He was arrested twice for his reporting and recently fled to the United States, where he hopes to seek political asylum. Jin also professes that the bodies of prisoners were burned in the boiler room of the hospital and that boiler room workers had taken jewelry and watches from the dead and sold them.

After more then two weeks, on 28 March, Chinese Foreign Ministry Spokesman Qin Gang stated: "This absurd lie is not worth refuting and no one will buy it." He also urged reporters to go to Shenyang's Sujiatun district to look into the claims.

On 30 March, Falun Gong's Epoch Times reported a new informant, identifying himself as a veteran military doctor in Shenyang military zone, has told about a system of similar concentration camps in China. The informant claims: "The reports from outside China about Sujiatun Concentration Camp imprisoning Falun Gong practitioners are true, although some of the details are incorrect." He says that more than 10,000 people were detained in Sujiatun in early 2005, but now the number of detainees is maintained at 600-750. Many detainees have been transferred to other camps, especially after the news on Sujiatun was publicized. The informant also asserts that the hospital in Sujiatun is only one of 36 similar camps all over China. Jilin camp, codenamed 672-S, holds over 120,000 people, not only Falun Gong practitioners. Specially dispatched freight trains can transfer 5,000-7,000 people in one night, and everyone on the trains is handcuffed to specially designed handrails on top of the ceiling, claims the informant.

On 30 March, Reuters released an article entitled "U.N. envoy looks at Falun Gong torture allegations". According to the report, the United Nations torture investigator Manfred Nowak shall be looking into the Sujiatun case. "I am presently in the process of investigating as far as I can these allegations ... If I come to the conclusion that it is a serious and well-founded allegation, then I will officially submit it to attention of the Chinese government," he told a news briefing.

On April 13, 2006, an official from the hospital gave the following statement: “the hospital is lacking the required facilities to conduct organ transplants and has no basement to house the Falun Gong practitioners.”

This hospital—the Liaoning Thrombus Medical Treatment Center—is partly owned by a Malaysian company, Country Heights Health Sanctuary, therefore subject to over sight beyond local Chinese government officials. During an official visit to China in September, 2004 the Minister of Health of Malaysia visited the hospital and reported nothing unusual.

On April 14, 2006 the U.S. State Department reported the findings of its investigation. The report states that: "U.S. representatives have found no evidence to support allegations that a site in northeast China has been used as a concentration camp to jail Falun Gong practitioners and harvest their organs." According to the report stuff from U.S. embassy in Beijing and the U.S. consulate in Shenyang have visited the area and the specific site on two separate occasions and that "the officers were allowed to tour the entire facility and grounds and found no evidence that the site is being used for any function other than as a normal public hospital."

On July 6, 2006 Canadian David Matas and David Kilgour issued their report “Report into allegations of organ harvesting of Falun Gong practitioners in China”. In this report they claim to have found “credible evidence that the organs of Falun Gong adherents in China are being harvested for paid transplants.” This report has been the subject of controversy and has been disputed by fellow anti-Chinese government activist Harry Wu.

On January 31, 2007, following travels to approximately thirty national capitals to raise awareness about the issue, Matas and Kilgour released a revised version of their report, now called "BLOODY HARVEST". The revised report adds new evidence and recommendations for action in response to their findings.

Related legal cases

• An Overview of Legal Cases Filed by Falun Gong Practitioners Around the World

• Falun Gong files case against Jiang Zemin in Spain

• French court asks China to investigate as part of Falun Gong lawsuits

• Legal Actions in Chronological Order

• Global Coalition to bring Jiang to Justice

• United States Supreme Court denies Falun Gong's petition against Jiang Zemin (Case 04-1070, PDF File)

• Belgium throws out Falun Gong case against Jiang Zemin

• Falun Gong supporters fail in legal action against Chinese minister

References

1. Amnesty International: The crackdown on Falun Gong and other so-called heretical organizations (23 March 2000)
2. Falun Dafa Information Center: U.S. Congress Unanimously Passes Resolution Calling on Jiang Zemin Regime to Cease Persecution of Falun Gong
3. United Nations (February 4, 2004) [http://www.un.org/News/Press/docs/2004/hrcn1073.doc.htm Press Release HR/CN/1073], retrieved September 12, 2006
4. "China Bans Falun Gong", (July 22, 1999) People's Daily Online, retrieved June 14, 2006
5. Amnesty International: The crackdown on Falun Gong and other so-called heretical organizations (23 March 2000)
6. American Asian Review, Vol. XIX, no. 4, Winter 2001, p. 12
7. Critical Asian Studies 33:2 (2001), pp. 170-171
8. American Asian Review, Vol. XIX, no. 4, Winter 2001, pp. 12-13
9. ibid., p. 9
10. Critical Asian Studies 33:2 (2001)
11. ^ http://clearwisdom.net/emh/articles/2004/8/27/chronicle.html A Chronicle of Major Events of Falun Dafa
12. Asiaweek Article
13. From "Digging Out the Roots", by Li Hongzhi, July 6, 1998
15. Teaching the Fa at the Conference in Switzerland, by Li Hongzhi, September 4–5, 1998, Geneva
16. Smith, Chrandra D. (March 11 2003) "Chinese Persecution of Falun Gong", Rutgers J. of L. & Relig. New Dev.66, retrieved July 14 2006
17. ^ Cite error: The named reference ReidG was invoked but never defined (see the help page).
18. National Review, 27. September 1999, Vol. 51 Issue 18, p. 26
19. World Journal, American edition, June 20, 1999
20. American Asian Review, Vol. XIX, no. 4, Winter 2001, p. 12
21. Morais, Richard C. (February 9 2006)"China's Fight With Falun Gong", Forbes, retrieved July 7 2006
22. Minghui/Clearwisdom, , retrieved February 5 2007
23. Critical Asian Studies 33:2 (2001), p. 173
24. http://www.china-embassy.org/eng/zt/ppflg/t263446.htm
25. U.S. Congress (July 24 2002) "H.CON.RES.188 for the 107th Congress (2nd Session)", Library of Congress, retrieved July 31 2006
26. On Killing, from Zhuan Falun
27. The United Nations Reports on China’s Persecution of Falun Gong (2004) (PDF), The Falun Gong Human Rights Working Group, 2004 {{citation}}: |first= missing |last= (help)
28. "Norway: Practitioners hold an Anti-Torture Exhibition and Receive Positive Media Coverage (Photos)". Falun Dafa Clearwisdom.net. 2004-08-04. Retrieved 2007-02-12.
29. "Torture Methods / Burning". Falun Dafa Information Center.net. Retrieved 2007-02-12.
30. "Torture Methods / Electric Shock". Falun Dafa Information Center.net. Retrieved 2007-02-12.
31. "Torture Methods / Burning". Falun Dafa Information Center.net. Retrieved 2007-02-12.
32. Ibid.
33. "Force Feeding: A Form of Torture". Falun Dafa Information Center. Retrieved 2007-03-08.
34. "Falun Gong Woman Dies from Force Feeding Torture". Falun Dafa Information Center. Retrieved 2007-03-08.
35. "Torture Methods 05 / Force-Feeding". Chinaview. Retrieved 2007-03-08.
36. "FALUN GONG PERSECUTION FACTSHEET". Amnesty International. Retrieved 2007-03-08.
37. "EFGIC Press Release: Two Falun Gong Women Raped Amid UN Rapporteur Visit". European Falun Gong Information Centre. Retrieved 2007-03-08.
38. "Gao Zhisheng's third open letter to Chinese leaders". Coalition to Investigate the Persecution of Falun Gong in China. Retrieved 2007-03-08.
39. The United Nations Reports on China’s Persecution of Falun Gong (2004) (PDF), The Falun Gong Human Rights Working Group, 2004 {{citation}}: |first= missing |last= (help)
40. China Refutes Western Accusations against Falun Gong Crackdown, People's Daily, 2000 {{citation}}: Unknown parameter |accessed= ignored (help)
41. Ji Shi, “Li Hongzhi and His "Falun Gong" - Deceiving the Public and Ruining Lives”, New Star Publishers, Beijing 1999, p 12
42. Falun Gong Practitioners Tortured in Mental Hospitals Throughout China (PDF), Falun Dafa Information Center {{citation}}: Unknown parameter |accessed= ignored (help)
43. Robin J. Munro, “Political Psychiatry in Post-Mao China and its Origins in the Cultural Revolution”, MA J Am Acad Psychiatry Law, 30:97–106, 2002. p 109
44. Ibid., Munro, 2002, p 109
45. Ibid., Munro, 2002, p 106
46. Sunny Y. Lu, MD, PhD, and Viviana B. Galli, MD, “Psychiatric Abuse of Falun Gong Practitioners in China”, J Am Acad Psychiatry Law, 30:126–30, 2002, p 124
47. Ibid., Munro, 2002, p 107
48. Ibid., Lu and Galli, 2002, p. 128
49. Ibid., Munro, 2002, p 110
50. Ibid., Lu and Galli, 2002, p 126
51. Ibid., Munro, 2002, p 105
52. Ibid., Lu and Galli, 2002, p 128
53. Sing Lee, MB, BS, and Arthur Kleinman, MD, “Psychiatry in its Political and Professional Contexts: A Response to Robin Munro”, J Am Acad Psychiatry Law, 30:120–5, 2002, p 122
54. Li Hongzhi (Updated April 2001), Falun Gong (PDF), falundafa.org {{citation}}: Check date values in: |year= (help); Unknown parameter |accessed= ignored (help)CS1 maint: year (link)
55. Ibid., Li Hongzhi, 2001, p 49
56. Ibid., Lee and Kleinman, 2002, p 123
57. Ibid., Lee and Kleinman, 2002, p 120
58. Lee and Kleinman, 2002, p 122
59. Ibid., Lee and Kleinman, 2002, p 124
60. Ibid., Lee and Kleinman, 2002, p 124
61. Ibid., Lee and Kleinman, 2002, p 124
62. Munro, Robin (2002). "On the Psychiatric Abuse of Falun Gong and Other Dissenters in China: A Reply to Stone, Hickling, Kleinman, and Lee" (PDF). The Journal of the American Academy of Psychiatry and the Law. 30 (2): 266–274. {{cite journal}}: Check date values in: |date= (help)
63. Ibid., Munro, 2002, p 269
64. Ibid., Munro, 2002, p 270
65. Ibid., Munro, 2002, p 270
66. Gertz, Bill (March 24 2006) "China harvesting inmates' organs, journalist says", Washington Times, retrieved July 6 2006
67. "China negatives Falun Gong allegations of organ harvesting" (March 28 2006) Pravda, retrieved July 8 2006
68. http://www.OrganHarvestInvestigation.net/
69. "New Evidence in Matas/Kilgour Revised Report on Organ Harvest of Falun Gong Practitioners in China" (Press release). Kilgour, David; Matas, David. 2007-02-02. Retrieved 2007-06-10.

External links

• Brutal Persecution a photo collection of the evidence of the persecution from ClearWisdom.net
• Falun Dafa Information Center
• On the Collusion of Jiang Zemin and the Chinese Communist Party to Persecute Falun Gong or see here the video documentary
• China syndrome: the persecution of Falun Gong
• Stepped-Up Crackdown - China's persecution of the Falun Gong - Brief Article
• World Organization to Investigate the Persecution of Falun Gong
• Resolution Urges China to Cease Persecution of Falun Gong
• Poisonous Deceit ISBN 0-9731181-0-5 © 2002, Deep Six Publishing
• 2001 Pulitzer Prize Article (section 1): A Deadly Exercise: Practicing Falun Gong Was a Right, Ms. Chen Said, to Her Last Day,
• 2001 Pulitzer Prize Article (section 10): Death Trap: How One Chinese City Resorted to Atrocities To Control Falun Dafa

• Falun Gong
• Political repression in the People's Republic of China
• Religious persecution