Please Do Not Forget Basic Truth-clarification Issues

I began to practice Falun Gong in 1996. Through these years, when clarifying the truth (about the illegal persecution of Falun Gong) to people and talking about the "April 25" incident, I often heard them saying, "If Falun Gong practitioners had not surrounded and attacked Zhongnanhai, the Chinese Communist Party (CCP) would not have persecuted them." Influenced by the CCP's propaganda and defamation, they thought that the CCP persecuted Falun Gong because practitioners "surrounded and attacked Zhongnanhai."

My cousin teaches at a professional school. Once when we discussed this topic, he said, "As far as I know, the persecution of Falun Gong by the CCP started on April 25, the time when you surrounded and attacked Zhongnanhai. It escalated since then. The CCP did not intervene before that time."

I felt bad hearing this, as I knew my cousin was poisoned by the CCP propaganda. I said to him, "You have been misled by CCP lies. In fact, the CCP set up the April 25 incident so that it could find an excuse to launch the persecution."

Then I told him of the series of actions taken by the CCP prior to April 25, 1999 in order to defame Falun Gong. This included the CCP's instruction to the Guangming Daily to defame Falun Gong in 1996, and to ban the publication of Falun Gong books afterwards. Jiang's regime conducted an investigation trying to find fault with the practice, but which instead showed the enormous benefits of Falun Gong. He also was responsible for the Police Bureau's internal determination that Falun Gong was an evil organization, and the police's unsuccessful attempts to collect so-called "evidence" in order to charge Falun Gong with a crime. The police forcibly dispersed practitioners in various places and illegally confiscated their personal property. When practitioners in Tianjin peacefully sought justice, many were beaten and detained by the police. By then, the Tianjin police told practitioners that only by going to Beijing to appeal could they resolve this issue and have the arrested practitioners released. All of these incidents led to the massive appeal in Beijing on April 25, 1999.

Then I said, "As you can see, the CCP was systematically suppressing Falun Gong prior to April 25, 1999. In other words, the suppression started before the appeal. We need to be clear on this and not be fooled by the CCP."

My cousin listened attentively and kept nodding in agreement. Finally he said, "I did not know that so many things already happened before April 25, 1999. It seems the CCP was setting things up to frame Falun Gong. The media's propaganda is really misleading!"

Then, I told him about the true situation of the April 25 appeal, when numerous practitioners went to Beijing, since I was one of them. On that day, I came back from a business trip. Before arriving at home, I met three practitioners who were hurrying to catch a train. I asked them where they were going and they told me what had happened. One of them asked me, "Do you want to go? It is your own decision since nobody has organized this." I replied, "Of course I will go! I will go with you now." He said, "But you just came back and have not been home yet." I said, "No problem, I will call home after getting on the train." Thus, I went with them and we took the train together to Beijing.

All three of these practitioners had benefited from Dafa and they voluntarily participated in the peaceful appeal on April 25, in order to request an unrestricted and legal environment for practicing Falun Gong. They hoped to share their personal experience with the government so that Dafa could be treated fairly. We felt that since Falun Gong uplifts people's mind and provides hope, we should cherish it and introduce it to more people. The government should not persecute these innocent Falun Gong practitioners; otherwise, morality would be in danger and our nation will experience a disaster.

Today we have all seen the negative consequences of the CCP's persecution, as shown in the Nine Commentaries on the Communist Party, "Jiang Zemin and the CCP established the opportunity for falsehood, promoted evil deeds, violence, wickedness, poisoned people, and propagated corruption. What followed was a widespread moral decline in the land of China, which affected everyone."

After hearing this, my cousin understood, and his confusion disappeared. He was also impressed by the sincerity and compassion of Dafa practitioners.

Over these past several years, we have clarified the truth to people day after day. More and more people have come to know the truth and seen the CCP's vicious nature for what it is. They have also witnessed the wonderfulness of Dafa. In our personal conversations or when preparing truth-clarification materials, we should still emphasize some basics such as the April 25 peaceful appeal and the staged self-immolation. These have been heavily used by the CCP to frame and slander Falun Gong. Although we have clarified the truth about this many times, there are still some people who do not know the truth and thus remain poisoned by these lies. This is because over the past several years, the CCP has been using massive propaganda campaigns to defame Falun Gong. The propaganda has poisoned many people deeply. Therefore, we need to pay attention to the basic misunderstandings so that people can be saved.