France: Media Coverage of Jiang's Persecution Exported from China to Paris

On January 22nd 2004, a journalist working for Yahoo France conducted a long interview with two French Falun Gong practitioners about the pressure exerted by the Chinese regime on French authorities, forcing them to exclude Falun Gong from the Chinese New Year Parade in Paris. The journalist took the opportunity to say that Falun Gong is a peaceful method, and that the main person responsible for the persecution in China is former leader Jiang Zemin, who is now being sued for genocide in several European countries.

A week later on January 29th, France’s national Christian newspaper La Vie published an illustrated article entitled "The Price of Silence". The journalist explained that before the Chinese New Year celebration activities took place, France signed contracts with China on the exclusive condition that human rights should not be mentioned. In Paris, this took the form of trying to silence Falun Gong during the Chinese New Year. The journalist mentioned that the Chinese regime’s parade took place on the Champs Elysées whilst practitioners of the "spiritual School of Falun Gong" are still locked in labour camps or laogai, the "Chinese goulag".