165,000 Solemn Declarations -- A Testament of the Cruelty and Failure of the Persecution Against Falun Gong

As of the 7th January, 2005 over 164,700 people have published solemn declarations on the Minghui website (the Chinese version of the Falun Gong website, Clearwisdom.net) since 2001. They have solemnly declared to void any and all of their wrongful words and misdeeds that said or did under coercion, and they have expressed their determination in starting to practise Falun Dafa again. On average, there have been about 113 people making such declarations every day. The total number is still climbing. This not only indicates the extensive scope and unprecedented cruelty of the persecution, but also testifies to the miserable failure of the persecution of Falun Gong.

A report by the Washington Post in 2001 documented that Jiang Zemin had his regime have systematically resorted to violence, high-pressure propaganda and brainwashing in its methodical attempt to eradicate Falun Gong. In January of 2001, Beijing's section of an agency known as the 6-10 Office which has being specifically created to persecute Falun Gong, with absolute power over each level of administration in the Party and all other political and judiciary systems ordered all neighbourhood committees, state institutions and companies to begin conducting intensive brainwashing sessions without sparing a single Falun Gong follower. The World Organisation to Investigate the Persecution of Falun Gong (WOIPFG) reported that in December of 2001, Jiang Zemin allocated a lump sum of 4.2 billion yuan (the Chinese currency; 500 yuan is equal to the average monthly income of an urban worker in China) to build brainwashing centres aimed at "transforming" Falun Gong practitioners. If the funding was calculated at 4,000 yuan per person, the number of Falun Gong practitioners on the list would reach over 1 million.

The three approaches of violence, high-pressure propaganda and brainwashing have been widely adopted in state-run organisations, schools, companies, detention centres, labour camps, prisons and various levels of local authorities. The cruelty and deviousness is beyond what many people could imagine. According to information from within the labour camps, Falun Gong practitioners were forced to watch anti-Falun Gong programs in a completely isolated environment, while at the same time facing mental and physical torture and being threatened with implications to their families, work, education and careers. The perpetrators took turns in the daily indoctrination and physical abuse while depriving practitioners of sleep. Some practitioners could not stand the extreme mental and physical pressure, which was beyond the limit of what an ordinary person could endure, and made promises that were against their will. Many were even killed.

Yu Yuejin, among the thirty-two Falun Dafa students who signed their names in a letter to Minghui at the beginning of 2005, made the following statement:

"We have been subjected to extended periods of hard labour. Under the torture of electric batons, being cuffed to a steel chair, big hand up, dead person's bed, confinement in a solitary compartment, deprivation of sleep, and squatting on the ground for extended periods of time without any movement (see http://www.clearwisdom.net/emh/articles/2001/11/24/16156.html for torture related information) in addition to mental abuse, we wrote the Three Statements. We hereby solemnly declare that whatever words we said or wrote against Falun Dafa are annulled. We do not acknowledge anything we wrote under cruel torture."

In November of 2004, a female Falun Dafa student wrote in her solemn declaration, "In September of 2001, I was abducted to a forced labour camp. Under that suffocating environment, I was forced to watch terrifying videos and go through brainwashing besides being deprived of sleep and subjected to physical abuse. Over a dozen or so collaborators took turns in indoctrinating me with devious theories. Under such high pressure, I lost my own judgement and consented to their devious teachings and wrote the Three Statements.... All this was done irrationally and passively, and it was done against my will. I hereby solemnly declare that all I said and wrote that were in violation of Falun Dafa are nullified."

Another practitioner told us that he was thrown into the so-called "hard-to-reform class" assembled by the prison authorities, where incessant torture against Falun Dafa practitioners was conducted. Practitioners were deprived of sleep for days, and he was coerced to sign the Three Statements among other documents renouncing Falun Gong to defame Falun Dafa and its founder. He said, "I hereby declare the annulment of what I said, wrote, or did under violence and high pressure."

There are numerous similar cases. Solemn declarations from Falun Gong practitioners in China are pouring into Minghui each day. For a person with belief, the misery he suffers through brainwashing exceeds even that from the death of the physical body.

The Washington Post reported in one such case about Alex Hsu, a university student majoring in computer science in Beijing. After he was abducted to the brainwashing centre, he signed the statement renouncing Falun Gong. On his way back to the campus, he started to cry. He told the reporter from the Post, "I never believed what I was writing. It was very painful. They forced us to lie. We knew Falun Gong is good, but they forced us to say it was evil." According to the same report, Hsu had since dropped out of school and gone into hiding because he wanted to continue practising Falun Gong.

Immeasurable blood, tears, pain and injury are behind each and every such declaration. Through these declarations, people could see more clearly how shameless, cruel and wicked these "transformations" are.

From these 160,000 plus statements, we can also see other facets of the persecution, how many Falun Gong students have been hurt, how many families ruined, and how much of the nation's wealth has been wasted. Given the tight Internet blockade by the Chinese authorities and the limited technical background and difficult circumstances of Falun Gong students, the actual number who made declarations would have been much higher, which further reveals the extensive scope and depth of the persecution.

The declarations have also shown that as soon as Falun Gong students were let out of those gruesome facilities and exposed to free information, they were soon awakened and realised their mistakes. All the attempts and persecution are of no avail. Coercive measures such as high pressure, exorbitant fines, dismissal from work, unlawful custody, cruel torture or even murder cannot, at all, change the belief in "Truthfulness-Benevolence-Forbearance" held by so many Falun Gong students.

In November of 2003, some organisations in Jilin Province were passed on a secret official document from "higher authorities" planning to persecute Falun Gong students still under employment. The plans included: Party members were to be expelled from the Party, teachers were to be deprived of teaching responsibilities, workers were to have their contracts terminated, all to be disqualified from receiving technical or administrative titles, none to be allowed to enrol in master's or doctorate degree programs, etc. The document demanded a "transformation" rate of 50% to 70% by the end of 2003 and as high as 95% by 2005. However, these 160,000 plus declarations have more than proved how ridiculous such plans to transform Falun Gong practitioners really are.