For the fifth time in the past three months, the broadcast signal from a large cable television network in a major Chinese city was overridden as Falun Gong appeals directly to the people via cable television network On this occasion, programmes exposing the human rights violations carried out under Jiang Zemin's orders and presenting positive views about Falun Gong were broadcast for up to 75 minutes.
On the evening of April 21, 2002, videos documenting the truth about Jiang Zemin's persecution of Falun Gong went on the air in a residential area of Harbin City, the capital of Heilongjiang Province, in China's industrial Northeast. Similar unexpected programming became the primetime feature in areas of another major city in Heilongjiang Province the day before.
Preliminary reports from the Province say that Lou Gan (appointed by Jiang Zemin to oversee the state-ordered extermination of Falun Gong) has already visited Harbin City and given local authorities an order in the sinister form of a quota to arrest 6,000 practitioners by the end of June. Jailed convicts are reportedly being turned loose on the street to free up prison space for the anticipated internment of Falun Gong practitioners. Sources also report that pressure from Beijing is so intense that police have been encouraged to drop all other investigations and focus on Falun Gong alone.
Harbin City residents have been "advised" to turn off their televisions in the event of any "interruptions" in the cable signal.
These broadcasts are the latest avenue used by Chinese citizens in their rapidly evolving efforts to expose the lies of Jiang Zemin's anti-Falun Gong propaganda as well as reveal the regime's persecution of those who practise or are sympathetic tothose who do.
Beyond Tiananmen Square
Since Jiang Zemin banned Falun Gong nearly three years ago, Chinese citizens have made peaceful appeals in Tiananmen Square, mostly carrying banners that read "Falun Gong is good" or "Truth, Compassion, Forbearance," the principles espoused by the spiritual practice. During the first few months, these appeals were widely covered by foreign media in Beijing. By mid-2000, however, day-to-day media coverage dwindled, with interest rekindled only on special holidays or more recently, during demonstrations by foreigners including westerners.
Still, despite those arrested on the square often being beaten, sent to labor camps or even tortured to death (186 people are known to have been killed by police after being arrested while making a peaceful appeal on Tiananmen Square) the public appeals by Chinese citizens have continued until this day. As one souvenir vendor on Tiananmen Square told AFP on April 25, 2002, "Falun Gong...they come here to protest every day."
As the media spotlight on Tiananmen Square has dimmed, however, appeals beyond Tiananmen Square have grown and evolved throughout the country, to give people more information about the nature of Falun Gong, the persecution unleashed by Jiang Zemin and the efforts of practitioners and supporters abroad to bring an end to their cruel repression.
In virtually every major city in China, people hand out flyers or hang up posters providing detailed information about the persecution.
Such efforts, however, like those of the people who appeal on Tiananmen Square, continue to be met with extreme violence by the state. Numerous deaths verified by the Falun Dafa Information Center over the last three years have occurred after people were taken into custody while distributing such flyers on the streets of their local towns. For example, on December 8, 2001, Mr. He Xingzong, 55, a resident of Macheng City, Hubei Province, left his home to post flyers exposing human rights abuses against Falun Gong practitioners.
Police assaulted and killed him on the roadside.
On January 20, 2002, Ms. Wu Jingxia, a 29-year-old Falun Gong practitioner from Fangzi District, Weifang City, was tortured to death in police custody after being arrested on January 6, 2002, for distributing fliers that exposed the human rights abuses against Falun Gong practitioners in China.
Tapping into China's sTelevision Networks
Appeals by practitioners of Falun Gong have taken to the airwaves.
In China, virtually all media is controlled by the government. Thus, for the past nearly three years television, radio and newspapers have been flooded with anti-Falun Gong propaganda seeking to bend popular opinion against those who practise.
On February 16th, 2002, however, practitioners of Falun Gong tapped into the broadcast signal of a television network and broadcast Falun Gong programmes in Anshan City, Liaoning province.
For many Chinese, it was the first opportunity to see how people in over 50 countries around the world are practising Falun Gong freely. The programs also revealed that the practice had received over 600 proclamations of support and awards in North America alone. This footage also shows how the persecution in China has been condemned by nearly all the world's most powerful nations. This came as a shock to those who had been led to believe, by the state-run propaganda, that Falun Gong was just a small group within China.
On March 5th, 2002, an earlier broadcast in the northeast city of Changchun occurred which covered eight channels of the largest cable network in the region. This was followed by a third a few days later. According to sources in China, the first Changchun broadcast lasted 40 to 50 minutes and also featured coverage of the popularity of and worldwide support for Falun Gong. Evidence of the brutality and the scope of the persecution, as well as footage debunking Chinese government propaganda fabricated to poison public opinion.
In the aftermath of the Changchun broadcast, 5,000 practitioners were rounded up and arrested in an unprecedented escalation of Jiang's efforts to "exterminate" Falun Gong. Police were issued "shoot on sight" orders and Jiang himself declared ,"kill [them] without mercy."
On April 25, the Information Center for Human Rights and Democracy based in Hong Kong reported that it has so far independently confirmed over 2,000 arrests in Changchun and the nearby vicinity in connection with the March cable television broadcast there.
More than 150 practitioners of Falun Gong in Changchun have been sent to "re-education through labour" camps, the Centre said. Changchun's women's labor camp alone has admitted 80 women over the last six weeks".
The Message Remains the Same
"Jiang's persecution of Falun Gong completely relies on deception and lies. All the peaceful efforts of people who practice or support Falun Gong, whether it is handing out flyers or broadcasting television programs, have the same purpose - to reveal the truth of the persecution so as to put these atrocities to an end," said Dr. Shiyu Zhou, a Falun Dafa Information Center spokesperson. Dr. Zhou continued, "… the situation is extremely difficult in China. The state controls all media and uses it to advance its persecution agenda, so people have had to be creative to find effective, peaceful ways of letting the people inside China and around the world know the truth of what's happening there."
The spotlight of the world's media has, indeed, dimmed on Tiananmen Square, and many have mistaken this as a measure of a weakened Chinese people in their appeal for their right to practice Falun Gong. The truth, however, is that the appeals are now much more broadly based. While the media blockade and brutal repression of cameramen and Falun Gong practitioners alike, limits the coverage of the daily appeals on Tiananmen Square, the even larger untold story of peaceful, non-violent appeals unfolds throughout the provinces.
No longer appealing just in Beijing, practitioners and supporters of Falun Gong at large, clarify the truth about the persecution on thousands of local street corners, sign-posts, highway overpasses and increasingly, on the millions of televisions throughout China!
Coercion Can't Change People's Hearts
Dr. Zhou concluded: "Sooner or later those who carry out this persecution will realize that coercion can't change people's hearts. The appeal for Falun Gong in China is stronger than ever because it has touched people's lives. You can't stamp that out. You can't crush the essence of the human spirit, Truth, Compassion, Forbearance."
Source
http://clearwisdom.net/emh/articles/2002/5/9/21838.html
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