Commentary: To Zhao Zhizhen and Cao Yuan - Please Do Not Use the Name of Science and Truth, (Part 1)

Background: On July 14th, 2004, when Zhao Zhizhen was visiting New Haven, Connecticut, he received a summons issued in a U.S. Federal District Court. Zhao Zhizhen is the former Wuhan TV Station Director and the former Wuhan Radio Station Director in Hubei Province, China. Zhao Zhizhen is being sued for making propaganda films that incite hatred, violence and genocide against Falun Gong practitioners. According to co-counsel for the plaintiffs Dr. Terri Marsh, "The Wuhan Broadcasting and TV Bureau and TV Network Station were given primary responsibility by the former President of the Peoples Republic of China to create a climate of hatred, fear and violence against persons who practice Falun Gong in China and abroad using the same propaganda tactics deployed in Nazi Germany during the Second World War, in Rwanda, during the genocide of the Tutsi by the Hutu, and in China during the Cultural Revolution." Dr. Marsh added, "In all of these violent massacres, the target is first demonized as having inherently evil qualities, equated with demonic forces, and portrayed as criminals, murderers, and enemies of the state. In China, such tactics, and the media programs of the Defendant, additionally call for the 'transformation' of practitioners [by torture] and/or their extra judicial killing." For more information, see http://www.clearwisdom.net/emh/articles/2004/7/18/50361.html

"Caressing His Young with Deep Emotion"

My friend Wu Weibiao is a young assistant professor at the University of Chicago. Being on the faculty for three and a half years, he has published more than twenty academic papers. Recently, he won a Career Award granted by the National Science Foundation. He was born in the countryside of China. He is honest and simple--no different from most other diligent and honest Chinese youths who study in the US. What distinguishes him from other overseas young people who study in the US is that for the past five years, he has not been able to go back to his homeland to see his parents, because he practices Falun Gong.

Compared with those students who practice Falun Gong back in China, Mr. Wu is extremely lucky. Among the Falun Gong practitioners at China's Tsinghua University, at least a dozen are known to have been sentenced to prison. For example, the couple of Chu Tong and Yu Chao, one being a respected university lecturer while the other a key employee, were sentenced to nine and eleven years imprisonment, respectively. Their child Huhu should reach the age of seven this year. Ever since he was born, the number of good days he's spent with his parents adds up to less than two years. Huhu has become sensitive and silent. Young as he is, he has experienced tribulations that even an adult might not be able to endure.

Compared with a little girl by the name of Kaixin, Huhu is still lucky. Kaixin is turning four. When she was one and a half years old, that is, at the end of 2002, her mother, Ms. Luo Zhixiang, died from persecution because of practicing Falun Gong, and her father Huang Guohua, who now lives in exile abroad, was also detained and persecuted. This child has endured so much sorrow at such a young age. This young and tender heart has the sensitivity and consideration of a grownup.

Grandma asked Kaixin, "Where is mom?" Kaixin answered, "She is working in Guangzhou." Whenever grandma is not around and somebody asked, "Where's mom?" Kaixin would answer, "Mom has been murdered by bad people!" When she was asked, "Why don't you tell grandma?" Kaixin would say, "Grandma would cry, very sadly cry!"

Once Kaixin was in another Falun Gong practitioner's home and saw her mum's picture in the section "Guangzhou Falun Dafa Practitioners Persecuted to Death" in a booklet called Short Stories of Guangzhou. She calmly said it was mum as if there were nothing special about it. Then she went in the next room to play. Everybody thought she was not sensible of such a matter as death yet, and felt relieved that she had not been hurt too deeply. However, after everybody else went into another room, she once again picked up the booklet and looked at her mum's picture with deep emotion, with tears silently streaming down her face.

Tragedies such as this are abundant. Why did they happen? It is simply because these are Falun Gong practitioners. That these innocent Chinese citizens and their children have a bad reputation is precisely because their faith had been defamed as an "evil cult" by Zhao Zhizhen and other followers of Jiang, even though this faith teaches people to be good people, and even though people having this faith have indeed shown that they are good people.

Recently, Zhao Zhizhen wrote an article in the name of truth and science. Cao Yuan also had a commentary published lately. Both writings commented on the incident of Zhao's being sued in the US for getting involved in instigating hate. I only learned about these two articles this weekend, so I'm voluntarily writing a reply, hoping Zhao Zhizhen and Cao Yuan will see it.

Zhao's article and Cao's article both mentioned at the beginning Zhao's reunion with his daughter in the US. Zhao's article says, "At this moment, parents' hearts are probably similar and interlinked." Cao's article used a poetic phrase, "caressing his young with deep emotion." I myself also have children, and I clearly know how happy it is to be with them. But Zhao Zhizhen and Cao Yuan didn't realize that when Zhao was "caressing his young with deep emotion," that Wu Weibiao, who is also an overseas student in the US, couldn't reunite with his parents, that Huhu's parents are in prison, and little Kaixin will never see her mom again.

"The Biting and Tearing of a Wolf Pack"

Cao's article, after using the phrase "caressing his young with deep emotion," used the phrase "the biting and tearing of a wolf pack" to describe the lawsuit of Falun Gong practitioners against Zhao. I'd like to explain to Cao Yuan and Zhao Zhizhen the meaning of "biting and tearing of a wolf pack." Journalist Ian Johnson of the Washington Post won a Pulitzer Prize for his report on the situation of Falun Gong in mainland China. Ian Johnson published a report on April 20th, 2000 entitled "A Deadly Exercise: Practicing Falun Gong Was a Right Ms. Chen Said, to Her Last Day." The report said at the beginning,

"The day before Chen Zixiu died, her captors again demanded that she renounce her faith in Falun Dafa. Barely conscious after repeated jolts from a cattle prod, the 58-year-old stubbornly shook her head."

"Enraged, the local officials ordered Ms. Chen to run barefoot in the snow."

"Two days of torture had left her legs bruised and her short black hair matted with pus and blood, said cellmates and other prisoners who witnessed the incident.

She crawled outside, vomited and collapsed. She never regained consciousness, and died on Feb. 21."

I'd also like to ask Zhao Zhizhen and Cao Yuan to take a look at these photos:

Gao Rongrong, Financial Department, Luxun Academy of Fine Arts in Shenyang.	Gao Rongrong was tortured on May 7th, 2004. Her face was covered with electric burns. The photo was taken ten days after the torture.

In the picture is an innocent, weak woman. Because she refused to be "transformed," refused to give up her belief against her will, she was disfigured by electric batons in a forced labor camp.

Atrocities such as this happen frequently in China. To instigate the "biting and tearing of a wolf pack," the so-called "anti-cult associations" across the country established by the Chinese Communist Party (CCP) are still defaming Falun Gong, and Zhao Zhizhen is a member of such an evil association.

"Association Formed Voluntarily"

Zhao Zhizhen said, "The Chinese Anti-Cult Association of which I have the good luck to be a standing secretary, is formed voluntarily by extremely successful and highly respected experts and scholars from various arenas."

Now, I don't know much about the "extreme success" of the "experts and scholars from various arenas," but I do know the "extreme success" of He Zuoxiu, who is a member of the Chinese Academy of Sciences. Although this CAS member is called a "physicist," he doesn't have any achievements in physics that are worth mentioning. If a member of the Academy of Science has no admirable academic achievements, this indeed is academic corruption. This member of the CAS frequently quoted Mao Zedong's words during the Mao Zedong era, and quoted Jiang Zemin's words during the Jiang Zemin era. Now that the Hu Jintao era has begun, he has started to quote Hu's words a lot. This may be the academic legacy this "physicist" leaves to later generations.

As to "extremely successful and highly respected experts and scholars from various arenas" "voluntarily" forming an association, I can only ask: In China, how many things are "voluntary?" In mainland China, experts and scholars practicing Falun Gong are not few. If they "voluntarily" form an association to safeguard their freedom of belief, they would be thrown into jail. In mainland China, so many people wish to "voluntarily" form an association, but do they have this right?

In May 2000, young intellectuals Jin Haike, Xu Wei and Zhang Honghai, etc. set up the "New Youth Association." They studied social issues together, discussed political reform of Mainland China, especially the issue of democratic reform in the countryside. They went to many rural areas to conduct investigations and wrote a few articles that reflected the escalated conflicts in the countryside. They organized free training in Beijing of teachers from schools for the children of peasant workers. They volunteered to teach for free at such schools and donated teaching tools. Through student groups in various universities they teamed up university students to go to the countryside and conduct social investigations. They also frequently published articles on the Internet. At the beginning of 2001, they were arrested. Two years later, on May 28, 2003, the Beijing First Intermediate Court conducted the trial. All four arrested were convicted of subversion. Jin Haike was sentenced to ten years of imprisonment.

This is the reality in China. While these "extremely successful and highly respected experts and scholars from various arenas voluntarily form" "an association," the youths from New Youth Association who were concerned with the future of the country and the people were sentenced to long prison terms, Falun Gong practitioners were put into jail for practising the Falun Gong exercises together, followers of underground Christian churches were also captured and persecuted by the police in the name of "evil cult" for praying together.

When this association "formed voluntarily by extremely successful and highly respected experts and scholars from various arenas" criticizes Falun Gong, practitioners of Falun Gong are deprived of any right to speak. They are subjected to brutal torture in the dark prisons and labor camps. They are abducted to mental hospitals to be treated as psychotics and injected with toxic drugs. They are abducted to the "training classes" and "transformation classes" throughout the country to be subjected to brainwashing and torture, to be forced to denigrate their own faith against their will.

Under the situation where the Chinese Communist Party completely deprives the people of their right to form associations, Zhao Zhizhen and his kind can "voluntarily form an association" on the mainland. What's the difference between that and the organizations set up by the Chinese Communist Party itself? Isn't this "evil association" obviously putting on a facade for the political movement of persecuting Falun Gong by the communist party?

January 31, 2005

To be continued...