Speech by European Friends of Falun Gong about the Chinese Communist Party’s Persecution Against the Practice

The following is a speech from non-governmental organisation European Friends of Falun Gong at a rally held by international newspaper The Epoch Times. The rally was held in Oxford on August 27th 2005. European Friends of Falun Gong is an organisation of people who don't practise Falun Gong but support freedom of belief for practitioners.

Since the persecution of Falun Gong by the Chinese government began in July 1999 the world has gradually become more and more aware of the terrible acts of torture and murder they have carried out.

In recent months however, since the publication of the ‘Nine Commentaries on the Chinese Communist Party’ by The Epoch Times in November last year, we have come to learn that the persecution is inextricably conducted by the Chinese Communist Party itself, the mechanism by which the major players in Chinese politics have gained their power and authority.

The CCP’s history is one of murder and intimidation. Party members have been involved in the killing of those outside and inside the party before and after it took control of China in 1949. Between 60 and 80 million Chinese citizens have been killed and millions more have been injured and maimed in its struggle to hold onto power in the intervening years.

The CCP has not only used violence to achieve its aims of intimidating the Chinese people into towing the party line, with the deaths in custody of nearly 3,000 people and many more languishing in prisons and labour camps with little hope of release, but it has also had at its disposal a colossal propaganda machine with which it has whipped up public opinion against any group brave enough to challenge its ideas and political philosophy. Falun Gong is one of the groups that has borne the brunt of this mighty propaganda weapon. From the moment the persecution began, the CCP has deliberately tried to deceive the Chinese nation into believing that Falun Gong goes against the national interest of China, that the followers of Falun Gong somehow represent an enemy of the state, that the principles of Truth, Compassion and Forbearance cannot sit comfortably alongside the benefits of the nation and its people.

Since 1999, the CCP has spared no efforts to worm its way into the emotions of Chinese nationalism to persecute Falun Gong. The CCP has even accused Falun Gong members of ‘colluding with hostile Western anti-China forces’.

The whole propaganda machine has deliberately misled the Chinese people into thinking that the CCP is the Chinese nation. Slogans like ‘Loving China is loving the CCP’ have been propagated to such a large extent that it is almost inevitable that a population so used to being fed with this kind of propaganda would fall in behind its lies and deceit.

The CCP tainted Falun Gong practitioners as enemies of the people right from the moment in April 1999 when 10,000 practitioners spontaneously gathered outside the Appeals Office of the State Council in Beijing, by claiming that they were ‘besieging the government’. The mindset of the rest of the Chinese nation, naturally enough after years of propaganda, meant that people generally believed the reports they read in the newspapers, and the seeds of mistrust were sown.

Since then the CCP has used this blind acceptance of what it says is the truth in order to keep the Chinese people on its side. I personally have experienced many times the signs of mistrust in Falun Gong. If you stand for five minutes in the centre of any European capital city handing out Falun Gong literature to Chinese tourists, they will look at the handouts for a second then quickly shy away, as if they fear a member of the CCP may be watching to see if they take a copy. This is the result of generations of CCP propaganda and the fear it has instilled into the Chinese people.

However there are encouraging signs that this attitude is beginning to change. After the publication of the ‘Nine Commentaries’, nearly four million Chinese people have renounced their membership of the CCP, and the number of defectors continues to increase by the day. There have been several high-profile defections by Chinese diplomats overseas, particularly in Australia, who have cited the CCP’s continued persecution of Falun Gong as one of the main reasons why they feel it would be morally wrong to continue to represent a government and a party which so blatantly persecutes a group of people who pose no threat to them whatsoever. They have come to realise, like the rest of the world, that the CCP has acted against humanity, justice and the laws of nature by persecuting Falun Gong, and that they can play their part in turning this evil and complacent attitude into a more caring, compassionate one. They were previously brainwashed by Jiang Zemin and his cohorts into believing that Falun Gong was an enemy of the state, and they just went along with it.

Now they realise, like the rest of us, that the real enemy of the state is the CCP itself. As the number of defections increases, the pressure will grow on the leaders of the CCP to change their attitude towards Falun Gong, and we in the west must do all we can to make sure that this message gets through to the rest of the Chinese people and western people as well. Eventually I am convinced that the outcry against the persecution even from within China will overcome the evil cruelty of the Chinese Communist Party and that like the example of Communism in the Soviet bloc in Eastern Europe the determination of the people will lead to the collapse of the Chinese Communist Party.

European Friends of Falun Gong
27th August 2005