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On July 20, 1999, the government of the People's Republic of China (PRC) banned Falun Gong (FG) and began a nationwide crackdown on its practitioners except in the special administrative regions of Hong Kong and Macau. Several governments, international human rights organizations and scholars consider the actions by the government persecution, and a human rights violation. Amnesty International states that the persecution is politically motivated, and a restriction of fundamental freedoms. Particular concerns have been raised over reports of torture, illegal imprisonment including forced labour, and since early 2006, allegations of systematic organ harvesting from living Falun Gong practitioners.

Whilst the crackdown has sown fears of harm among practitioners inside China, suppression by the Chinese government has helped Falun Gong's reputation in the United States, because the news generated by Falun Gong focuses attention on China's human rights record. The U.S. House of Representatives accused China of unlawful harassment of United States citizens and residents who practice Falun Gong, and passed a resolution, by a 420:0 vote, which called on China to "cease its persecution and harassment of Falun Gong practitioners in the United States".

Background

Falun Gong’s founder, Li Hongzhi, introduced the practice to the public in May 1992. For the first few years after introducing Falun Gong to the world, Li Hongzhi was granted several awards by Chinese governmental organizations to encourage him to continue promoting what was then considered by them to be a wholesome practice. Invited by Qigong organizations from each area in China, during the period from 1992 to the end of 1994, Li traveled to almost all major Chinese cities to teach the practice. In the later part of that period, there were four to five thousand people attending each seminar. Its scale was unprecedented at that time. Since 1995, Li has been teaching outside China. The practice was popularized in mainland China for seven years, mainly by word of mouth and through the Internet.

On June 17 1996, Guangming Daily, one of Chinese 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." In August, FG supporters surrounded the officies of the newspaper in protest.

At the end of May 1998, a Chinese physicist from the Chinese Academy of Science, He Zuoxiu, denounced Falun Gong in an interview on Beijing Television. The program, after showing a video of one of the practice sites, called it a "feudalistic superstition". The TV station was swamped by protest letters from Falun Gong practitioners, and some practitioners also conducted silet sit-ins in front of its offices.

On April 11, 1999, He Zuoxiu published an article in the Tianjin College of Education’s Youth Reader magazine entitled "I Do Not Agree with Youth Practicing Qigong". From April 18 to April 24, Falun Gong practitioners went to Tianjin College of Education, which published the magazine, and related governmental agencies and held protests. Some practitioners were arrested and were beaten by the police according to at least one report. He Zuoxiu, relative of Luo Gan, one of the chief taskmasters of the persecution, is said to have "become a national hero" for opposing Falun Gong.

Zhongnanhai demonstration and aftermath

Several days after the initial protests in Tianjin, on the morning of April 25 1999, allegedly more than ten thousand Falun Gong practitioners and sympathisers surrounded Zhongnanhai, where top Chinese leaders both live and work. They stayed in silence for 12 hours, reading and meditating in protest of the alleged 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.

According to some estimates, there were more than 100,000 Falun Gong practitioners in Beijing at this time, and it was reported that the practitioners' protest alarmed many senior leaders, particularly Jiang Zemin. This protest immediately brought Falun Gong and its founder, Li Hongzhi, to the attention of the central government of China, and the world. After three months, on July 20 1999, the crackdown of Falun Gong was officially started by the Chinese government and 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, Buddhism scholar at Columbia University, says, Falun Gong had "scared the hell out of them." According to reports, President Jiang Zemin in particular is worried about Falun Gong, even obsessed with it. Jiang drove around Zhongnanhai to observe the protesters through the smoked glass of his limousine. That night, he wrote to the Politburo: "I believe Marxism can triumph over Falun Gong." He has often spoken to Western envoys about the "troublesome movement."

An article published in World Journal in July 1999, asserts 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". Luo Gan, credited as the chief Communist organizer of the Zhongnanhai gathering, had wanted FG banned since 1996 but could not find any legal basis for transgression. Luo is alleged to have had the police direct them to Zhongnanhai in order to create an incident. The practitioners have said that they wanted to make a peaceful appeal at the citizens' appeal office, located at Fuyou street, near Zhongnanhai. However, 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.”

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. (See paragraph above beginning "On April 11, 1999, He Zuoxiu published an article...")

Ban and crackdown

In July 1999, the government declared the practice of Falun Gong illegal. The government had become especially concerned by reports that significant numbers of government officials, as well as military and police personnel, were practitioners. Another influence in the change in policy was the cultural memory of the 19th century Taiping Rebellion, when a religious cult had caused a civil war.

"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."

In China, where censorship is known to be draconian, sites containing dissident views, including those of Falun Gong, are targeted by the authorities.. The CPC has burned and destroyed books and other materials about Falun Gong, and blocked access to internet resources about the topic. Treatment of Falun Gong practitioners has been regarded by some in the West as a major international human rights issue affecting freedom of religion and freedom of speech.

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, it has been alleged that 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 alleges 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 claims 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 already had 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.

"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."

Minghui/Clearwisdom, a Falun Gong website, claims that over 3000 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.

Media campaign

The Communist Party of China's nation-wide crackdown 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 crackdown: "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...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".

The U.S. House of Representatives denounced '610' offices inside the China which organized brainwashing, torture, and murder; propaganda from state-controlled media. In July 2001, it passed House Concurrent Resolution 188, by a 420:0 vote, which called on China to "cease its persecution and harrassment of Falun Gong practitioners in the United States; to release from detention all Falun Gong practitioners and put an end to the practices of torture and other cruel, inhumane treatment against them and to abide by the International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights and the Universal Declaration of Human Rights"

Clearwisdom alleges that eight Falun Gong practitioners were arrested after one of the jamming incidents in Changchun city; Liu Chengjun was allegedly tortured to death after 21 months incarceration in Jilin Prison.

The Tiananmen Square self-immolation incident

On the eve of Chinese new year, January 23, 2001, 7 people attempted to set themselves on fire in Tiananmen Square. Footage was broadcast nationally in the People's Republic of China by China Central Television (CCTV). Western news organizations disseminated the story as given by Xinhua, without the possibility of verifying it independently, given the tight censorship exercised by the Chinese authorities.

According to Time, the Government's media war against Falun Gong gained significant traction following the act. The six-month campaign successfully portrayed Falun Gong as an "evil cult" which could unhinge its followers. By repeatedly broadcasting images of a girl’s burning body and interviews with the others saying they believed self-immolation would lead them to paradise, many Chinese were convinced that Falun Gong was evil. The campaign is thought to be the government's first effort to gain public support for the crackdown of Falun Gong, and is "reminiscent of communist political movements -- from the 1950-53 Korean War to the radical Cultural Revolution in the 1960s."

There is controversy as to whether the protagonists were Falun Gong practitioners in reality. The state-owned broadcaster claimed the self-immolators as Falun Gong practitioners. A Time magazine article suggests that it was possible for misguided practitioners to have taken it upon themselves to demonstrate in this manner, handing a propaganda opportunity to the Chinese authorities. Falun Gong headquarters in New York emphatically deny that these people could have been practitioners, on grounds that their teachings explicitly forbid suicide and killing. Falun Gong and some third-party commentators claim that the event was staged by the Chinese government in order to build public support for the "persecution" of the group and turn public opinion against the practice.

Alleged torture

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 allegations of torture or mistreatment of Falun Gong practitioners by the Chinese government. Falun Gong has documented 44,000 cases of alleged torture which have resulted in 2,804 deaths. Amnesty International in London believes Falun Gong deaths are not the result of formal executions, but commented that the would be impossible to independently verify because the deaths most likely occur in labor camps, where these deaths are difficult to monitor.

The United Nations Reports on China’s Persecution of Falun Gong (2004) alleges 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 the torture is to have Falun Gong practitioners renounce or denounce the practice and the founder, Li Hongzhi. Torture may be by one or more of the methods listed below:

Shocking with electricity

The use of electric batons carry voltages of up to 300 000 volts by police officers and prison guards to administer Electric shocks is reported as the most widespread form of torture used against Falun Gong practitioners.

Stress Positions

Subjects are forced to stand, sit or squat in stress positions “for many days”, and is often combined with beatings, the deprivation of food, sleep, water and use of the toilet. Sometimes, convicted prisoners watch over practitioners during this type of torture. These stress positions, if prolonged, may result in muscle spasms, nerve damage, and necrosis of the buttocks. Failure to hold the positions is said to result in being beaten, kicked, slapped, or shocked.

Branding/burning

The Falun Dafa Information Center says they have received "numerous reports" of torture in the form of branding. Reported instruments include car lighters, irons, hot metal rods (see image) or cigarettes. The FG compilation report claims that the parts of the body targeted by this form of torture include the fingers, toes, faces, nipples and vagina.

Wang Huajun, Hubei Province, who was seized for allegedly speaking publicly about the Chinese government's persecution of Falun Gong, was allegedly "beaten viciously" by police. Later, on the verge of death, she was "...dragged outside of the city hall, drenched in gasoline, and set ablaze."

Force-feeding

The Falun Dafa information center asserts that force-feeding torture is the number one cause of deaths, with over 10% of all confirmed deaths of Falun Gong practitioners in custody being of this cause.

Chinaview, an independent website focused on human rights abuses in China, reveals that the Gaoyang Forced Labour Camp was the first to begin force-feeding Falun Gong practitioners with human urine and excrement in the summer of 2003, 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 abuse among the forms of torture Falun Gong practitioners are subject to. Falun Gong claim that many incidents of torture involve sexual assault or rape. It 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." Gao Zhisheng, a Beijing-based human rights lawyer, in his third open letter to the Beijing leadership stated his shock of the "unbelievable brutality, ...the immoral acts ...of 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."

The compilation report alleges female-specific assault 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. This torture causes permanent psychological and physical damage on the practitioners in question, and report concludes that "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 FG compilation 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 or tied-up and hung up for prolonged periods; various forms of solitary confinement in a small cells or cages, 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 FG compilation report states this is a “routine” form of torture); forced exposure to extreme weather; various types of deprivation of physiological needs.

Use of psychiatry and claims of abuse

The Chinese government admits a sharp increase in instances of Falun Gong practitioners being detained in psychiatric facilities following the onset of the persecution, 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. The Chinese government claim that the government’s actions against Falun Gong are carried out in accordance with Chinese law. In the years following the onset of the persecution, state-media reported that “The cult has led to more than 650 cases of psychological disorder, with 11 practitioners becoming homicides and 144 others physically disabled.”. Falun Gong states that an estimated 1,000 healthy 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.” Some independent writers seek to corroborate the claims of Falun Gong while others dismiss them.

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.”

"Political abuse" of psychiatry

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.”

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 of Munro’s reports.

Lu and Galli state that Jiang Zemin has reversed the declining trend of using mental hospitals as places of government-directed torture in China, as part of a comprehensive and brutal campaign to eradicate Falun Gong. They draw comparison with political abuse of psychiatry by the Soviet Union aimed at political dissenters and nonconformists, but noted that Falun Gong practitioners were "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?”

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.

Legitimate use of psychiatry and “Qigong psychosis”

Some third party commentators attempt to sympathise with the Chinese government's perspective and actions. The term "Qi Gong-Induced Psychosis" was included in the Diagnostic and Statistical Manual, of the American Psychiatric Association in the late 1990s. The psychosis is described as a culturally bound disorder with painful psychosomatic symptoms. Dr. Arthur Kleinman and Dr. Sing Lee from Harvard Medical School, researchers on various psychiatric topics in China, suggest 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 claim both to have had experience with patients suffering from the condition. "Many kinds of qigong 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.

Lee and Kleinman state that much of arguing the political abuse of psychiatry in China is based on unconfirmed allegations entirely on indirect accounts and unconfirmed reports from sources that are clearly biased, such human rights groups with their own axes to grind, and others from the "Falun Gong religious cult, which.. is engaged in a nasty political struggle with the Chinese state.” And that "Munro has based his essay." 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 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 supression of the Falun Gong in the secure Ankang hospitals (mental hospital).”

Munro's response

In his response to Lee and Kleinman, Munro responds by saying that the overwhelming majority of the evidence presented consisted 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, and were in no way “indirect,” “unconfirmed,” or “clearly biased”, and that Lee and Kleinman themselves “cite this same scholarly psychiatric literature from China in their own published work.” He contends further that they fail to make any substantive rebuttal of the principal evidence from the copious documentation drawn from several decades worth of the country’s own professional literature on psychiatry and the law. He says that on this “they are disappointingly silent” suggesting that they instead “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.'” Finally he opines that since they have not addressed his principle evidence, “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.”

Allegations of organ harvesting

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In December 2005, Chinese officials reportedly confirmed that organs for transplant were obtained mainly from executed prisoners, and that steps were being taken to prevent abuse.

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."

In July 2006, David Kilgour, a former Canadian Cabinet minister, and David Matas, both human rights lawyers, conducted an investigation in response to a request by the Coalition to Investigate the Persecution of the Falun Gong in China (CIPFG), a U.S.-based, front organization of the Falun Dafa Association founded in April 2006. They released a report about allegations of organ harvesting from Falun Gong practitioners which claimed China was secretly mass-murdering Falun Gong practitioners in order to harvest their organs. After being killed and having their organs removed, the report alleged, the victim's body would be incinerated to destroy the evidence. This report has been the subject of controversy and has been disputed by fellow anti-Chinese government activist Harry Wu. A congressional investigative report states that the Kilgour report relied largely upon making logical inferences,without bringing forth new or independently-obtained testimony. Amnesty International has stated that claims of systematic organ harvesting of Falun Gong practitioners cannot be confirmed or denied.

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 allegations and recommendations for action in response to their findings.

Response from Falun Gong

Falun Gong groups outside of China responded to the crackdown by making films such as the anti-CCP "Nine Commentaries on the Communist Party" and initiating a world-wide "Three Renouncements" Campaign. The Three Renouncements campaign was hosted by the Falun Gong funded The Epoch Times and began on 3rd Dec, 2004 and had allegedly caused over 22 million members of the Communist Party of China and its subordinating organizations (the Communist Youth League and the Young Pioneers of China) to resign as of 21st May, 2007, according to Epoch Times' tally. Due to its anonymous nature, the figure cannot be verified.

The link between the Three Renouncements and Falun Gong is disputed, since the existance of Buddha and the Christian God is not mentioned in Falun Gong teachings. However, Fei Liangyong, Chairman of the Democratic China Front and senior member of Chinese Free Culture Movement, explicitly mentioned that the Three Renouncements campaign was indeed initiated by Falun Gong via its associated media in his speeches and his various interviews with Falun Gong related media such as Mingjian (明见网,"Clear View Network") and Huiyuan (慧园, "Wisdom Garden").

Legal action

Since 2001, there have been in excess of 70 legal cases launched by FG, its practitioners or sympathisers against the Government of the People's Republic of China, its leaders, and other officers or individuals whom are alleged to have taken part in human rights abuses against Falun Gong practitioners. The cases have been met with varying degrees of success.

• 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
• 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. (23 March 2000) The crackdown on Falun Gong and other so-called heretical organizations, Amnesty International
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3. United Nations (February 4, 2004) Press Release HR/CN/1073, retrieved September 12, 2006
4. Don Lattin, Falun Gong Derided as Authoritarian Sect by Anti-Cult Experts in Seattle, San Francisco Chronicle, April 29, 2000
5. "House Measure Calls on China to Stop Persecuting Falun Gong". USinfo.state.gov. 2002-07-24. Retrieved 2007-08-16. {{cite web}}: Check date values in: |date= (help)
6. http://clearwisdom.net/emh/articles/2004/8/27/chronicle.html A Chronicle of Major Events of Falun Dafa
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8. ^ Reid, Graham (Apr 29-May 5, 2006) "Nothing left to lose", New Zealand Listener, retreived July 6, 2006
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11. National Review, 27. September 1999, Vol. 51 Issue 18, p. 26
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16. Critical Asian Studies 33:2 (2001), pp. 170-171
17. American Asian Review, Vol. XIX, no. 4, Winter 2001, pp. 12-13
18. ibid., p. 9
19. ibid., p. 9
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22. Critical Asian Studies 33:2 (2001), p. 173
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30. ^ Sunderland, Judith. (2002). From the Household to the Factory: China's campaign against Falungong. Human Rights Watch. ISBN 1564322696
31. teachings on "The Issue of Killing" from [Zhuan Falun, Falun Dafa
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34. ^ The United Nations Reports on China’s Persecution of Falun Gong (2004) (PDF), The Falun Gong Human Rights Working Group, 2004 Note: Page 7 of this book describes it as a compilation of excerpts from the 2004 annual reports of the United Nations Human Rights Commission’s Special Rapporteurs, documenting cases of human rights violations committed by the Chinese government against Falun Gong practitioners. The document is compiled and published by the Falun Gong Human Rights Working Group (FLGHRWG). FLGHRWG also wrote the introduction.
35. "Norway: Practitioners hold an Anti-Torture Exhibition and Receive Positive Media Coverage (Photos)". Falun Dafa Clearwisdom.net. 2004-08-04. Retrieved 2007-02-12.
36. "Torture Methods / Burning". Falun Dafa Information Center.net. Retrieved 2007-02-12.
37. "Torture Methods / Burning". Falun Dafa Information Center.net. Retrieved 2007-02-12.
38. Ibid.
39. "Force Feeding: A Form of Torture". Falun Dafa Information Center. Retrieved 2007-03-08.
40. "Torture Methods 05 / Force-Feeding". Chinaview. Retrieved 2007-03-08.
41. "FALUN GONG PERSECUTION FACTSHEET". Amnesty International. Retrieved 2007-03-08.
42. "EFGIC Press Release: Two Falun Gong Women Raped Amid UN Rapporteur Visit". European Falun Gong Information Centre. Retrieved 2007-03-08.
43. "Gao Zhisheng's third open letter to Chinese leaders". Coalition to Investigate the Persecution of Falun Gong in China. Retrieved 2007-03-08.
44. China Refutes Western Accusations against Falun Gong Crackdown, People's Daily, 2000 {{citation}}: Unknown parameter |accessed= ignored (help)
45. Falun Gong Practitioners Tortured in Mental Hospitals Throughout China (PDF), Falun Dafa Information Center {{citation}}: Unknown parameter |accessed= ignored (help)
46. Ji Shi, “Li Hongzhi and His "Falun Gong" - Deceiving the Public and Ruining Lives”, New Star Publishers, Beijing 1999, p 12
47. 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
48. Ibid., Munro, 2002, p 109
49. Ibid., Munro, 2002, p 106
50. 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
51. Ibid., Munro, 2002, p 107
52. Ibid., Lu and Galli, 2002, p. 128
53. Ibid., Lu and Galli, 2002, p 126
54. Ibid., Munro, 2002, p 105
55. Ibid., Lu and Galli, 2002, p 128
56. Anthony Spaeth, Master Li's Brave New Age, TIME ASIA, May 10, 1999, Vol. 153 No. 18
57. 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
58. 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)
59. Ibid., Li Hongzhi, 2001, p 49
60. Ibid., Lee and Kleinman, 2002, p 120
61. Lee and Kleinman, 2002, p 122
62. Ibid., Lee and Kleinman, 2002, p 124
63. Ibid., Lee and Kleinman, 2002, p 124
64. Ibid., Lee and Kleinman, 2002, p 124
65. Stone, Allan. The China Psychiatry Crisis: Following Up on the Plight of the Falun Gong. . accessed September 19, 2007
66. "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. 2002. {{cite journal}}: Check date values in: |date= (help)
67. Ibid., Munro, 2002, p 269
68. Ibid., Munro, 2002, p 270
69. Ibid., Munro, 2002, p 270
70. ^ Thomas Lum, Congressional Research Report #RL33437, Congressional Research Service, August 11 2006
71. Gertz, Bill (March 24 2006) "China harvesting inmates' organs, journalist says", Washington Times, retrieved July 6 2006
72. "China negatives Falun Gong allegations of organ harvesting" (March 28 2006) Pravda, retrieved July 8 2006
73. China harvesting Falun Gong organs, report alleges
74. Harry Wu challenges Falun Gong organ harvesting claims, South China Morning Post, September 8, 2006
75. http://www.OrganHarvestInvestigation.net/
76. "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.
77. 明见(Mingjian) (April 8, 2007)费良勇：在中国自由文化运动2007年特别精神信仰奖颁奖典礼上的演讲 retrieved May 21, 2007
78. Legal Actions in Chronological Order, Justice for Falun Gong, Retrieved 2007-08-16

External links

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• Brutal Persecution a photo collection of the supression 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
• SOS! URGENT Rescue Falun Gong Practitioners persecuted in china - from YouTube
• 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

• Association for Asian Research - China genocide suit on U.S. Supreme Court steps
• CNN - Falun Gong sues ex-president Jiang
• Daily Times - Genocide lawsuit filed against Jiang Zemin
• Falun Gong files case against Jiang Zemin in Spain
• US State Department finding - no evidence of concentration camp
• Credibility of Falun Gong's concentration camp claim
• US 9th Circuit Court reverse the Board of Immigration Appeals order of removal of a woman
• Jiang Zemin and the CPC to persecution by Epoch Times
• Falun Gong practitioner's video about the Chinese govt. persecution
• Memorial site for practitioners deaths
• Global Mission to Rescue Persecuted Falun Dafa Practitioners - Includes searchable database of persecution cases.
• World Organization to Investigate the suppression of Falun Gong (WOIPFG)
• Arrest and imprisonment of U.S. Citizen Charles Lee in China
• 2001 Wall Street Journal - Pulitzer Prize winning article on the suppression of Falun Gong by Ian Johnson

• Accuracy disputes from July 2007
• Falun Gong
• Political repression in the People's Republic of China
• Religious persecution