State Terrorism Distorts Human Nature

Countless cases of persecution of Falun Dafa practitioners in China since the persecution began in 1999 have been published. On September 25th, 2004, an article on Clearwisdom.net reported the death of Falun Dafa practitioner Yang Lirong. Yang was from Dingzhou City, Hebei Province, and she was killed in 2002. To me, this case is very typical: one can clearly see how the former Chinese President Jiang Zemin and his regime has been distorting human nature through state terrorism in order to eliminate Falun Gong.

From the article mentioned above, one can see that Yang had been persecuted many times for practising Falun Dafa:

"The authorities extorted 5,000 yuan before releasing her, and the police constantly harassed her after she returned home. Her husband was worried that he could lose his job and often physically abused Yang Lirong. Yang Lirong conducted herself according to Truth-Compassion-Tolerance and treated her husband with kindness. The perpetrators later arrested her and sent her to a brainwashing class. Because she refused to give up her belief, she was sent to this class three times. Her husband grew furious and blamed Yang Lirong for the persecution. On the evening of February 8th, 2002, the perpetrators again went to Yang Lirong's home to search for Falun Gong materials. Early in the next morning, while Yang Lirong's parents were out, Yang Lirong's husband strangled her to death with his hands. She left behind their 10-year-old son."

The brutal torture and brainwashing are targeted only at Falun Dafa practitioners, yet the abuse of state apparatus, government policies, and the law to manipulate society and create terror affects the whole nation. This kind of manipulation is everywhere: from the propaganda controlling people's thoughts to the policies controlling the movement of people, from oppressive national policies to threats and brutality by local government officials and police. Living under the crush of spiritual and psychological terror for so long, people's minds have been seriously distorted. The negative psychological factors like fear, distrust, suspicion, and hatred have caused people to lose their ability to think rationally and have exhausted their courage to protect their basic human rights and dignity. Furthermore, the dark side of human nature expands rapidly, resulting in violence. The huge psychological pressure created by the state terrorism is what led Yang Lirong's husband to lose his mind and murder his wife.

Since the persecution of Falun Gong began in July of 1999, Jiang's faction has focused on the people close to practitioners (family, friends, colleagues, classmates, neighbours, etc.) to force them away from their belief. Liu Jing, an official of the central government "6-10 Office," [ an agency specifically created to persecute Falun Gong, with absolute power over each level of administration in the Party and all other political and judiciary systems] once praised China's forced labour system to an international audience. He gave an example, in which a woman sent her husband, a Falun Dafa practitioner, to a forced labour camp. I think the example only depicts the anti-human nature of the persecution.

A report by World Organization to Investigate the Persecution of Falun Gong (WOIPFG) pointed out:

"How is the required transformation rate achieved? The most common approach is to implement forcible brainwashing with a number of people attacking one person. Such a method was put forward as early as August of 1999 in the 'Notice from Two Offices,' which advocated 'the method of 'one person being responsible for one practitioner' or 'several people being responsible for one practitioner.'" The method implemented by the Changchun City Luyuan District Street Committee is known as the "six-function-as-one responsibility system," which means that "each street committee leader, each official, each community director, each police officer, family members [of a Falun Gong practitioner] and each workplace is assigned to be responsible for the transformation of one Falun Gong practitioner." This method won recognition by the CCP Central "610 Office." A record was set in the Slate Mining Co. owned by the Tonghua Iron and Steel Group in Jilin Province, where 20 people "helped to educate" one practitioner." ("The Destruction of Mind and Body Through Brainwashing" from the WOIPFG website).

In fact, this kind of "help to educate" is in fact spiritual torture and persecution.

On January 20th, 2001, right before Jiang's group staged the Tiananmen self-immolation fraud, according to the New China News Agency, the All-China Women's Federation of China launched a nationwide activity instigating women of China and 270 million families to force Falun Gong practitioners to "completely separate from Falun Gong." Beijing City, Tianjin City, Hebei Province, Anhui Province, Harbin City, Jilin Province, Shandong Province, and others organised the so-called "Million Family Promise" signature collection campaign, leading a nationwide media campaign of hate propaganda to poison the minds of millions of people.

While attacking Falun Gong with the propaganda, Jiang Zemin and his regime has at the same time been threatening and oppressing practitioners' family members. They have been fired from their jobs, deprived of their incomes, and levied with huge "fines". Money and fame are used as bait to lure others to report practitioners, encouraging their friends and colleagues to participate in the persecution. The persecutors promote discrimination against and social isolation of practitioners from their workplaces to their neighbours, and their families. The persecutors force practitioners to make choices between their belief and their families, jobs, and other social relationships. Many husbands and wives have been forced to divorce their spouses who practise Falun Gong because they could not bear the tremendous mental and psychological pressure. Such cases bring great suffering to their children and families.

Falun Gong practitioner Amy Lee was brutally persecuted in China because she refused to give up her belief. The police followed and abducted her, then stripped her of all her clothes and beat her up until she lost consciousness. They put her into a mental hospital and force-fed her there. Her husband was forced to divorce her under the huge pressure from the government. Amy's daughter was only seven years old. Amy came to the U.S. two years ago by herself because her daughter was denied a passport, and only recently have they been reunited. In 2001, Amy said during an interview with a Reuters reporter, "Innumerable families of Falun Gong practitioners have been broken apart."

Although Jiang has left his official positions as China's leader, the shadow of state terrorism still covers every Chinese person. The persecution has not come to a stop, and the tragedy of Yang Lirong and her family could happen again any time. However, I believe that one day, the Chinese people will wake up and choose their due rights and dignity. The perpetrators will then have nowhere to hide.