Mexico: Developing a Relationship with a Major Newspaper While Clarifying the Truth of the persecution of Falun Gong

Mexico is one of the largest countries in Latin America in size and population. Over 100 million people with diverse cultural and racial backgrounds live in Mexico. I found Mexico to be a really intriguing country. Talking about a diverse culture and rich characters, Mexicans do have it. It seems that everyone is different, the appearance, the character, and all, but one thing that is common about them: they are really, truly good hearted people.

One day at a seminar, we met a fairly well-known professor who works with a Mexican political party. When he saw us in the audience, he waved and smiled at us as if he knew us. Myself and a visiting New Zealand practitioner felt it was very strange that he was smiling at us. When the seminar was over, he came down to greet us and said, "My son also practices Falun Gong. When I saw you from the podium I was so happy to see you." In fact, the Seminar was about the pros and cons of doing business with China, and we went there hoping to clarify the truth to Chinese delegates. But no Chinese came. I was very disappointed. However, this professor was very excited to see Falun Gong words on the New Zealand practitioner's shirt. During the seminar he said, "China has a rich cultural heritage with so many different thoughts and philosophy etc...and now China has this cultivation system called Falun Gong. It is something like what we have in Mexico, Mayan cultivation..." And he said very good things about Falun Gong to the audience.

We found out that he was a former UN Ambassador for Mexico, a Law professor and a professor of Architecture, and was surrounded by many important people. At a dinner, he asked us why we were at the seminar, and we told him honestly. Then he asked what we wanted him to help with. I told him about our wanting to let more Mexicans know about Falun Dafa and the persecution in China through media outlets. He said, "Then, let's go. I have a friend at a newspaper company around here." Then we left the restaurant in a hurry. We found out that he had been a reporter for that company for 8 years.

The next week, a young reporter from Milenio came to our practice site. We gave him a package and explained about Falun Dafa and the persecution. He said, "It is very interesting. I will come with a photographer next week." Then he left.

Around May, 2002, an article entitled, "Forbidden Practice" appeared in the newspaper with a photo of practitioners doing meditation. It was a pretty long, 2 page article. In the article he did not mention almost anything about the persecution other than, that the practice had been banned in China. However, I was very thankful to this reporter for writing a good article about the practice itself. That was the first article on Falun Dafa that appeared in a major newspaper in Mexico. Around September, I met this reporter again to ask if he could give us some tips on how to deal with the Mexican media. At that time, he asked me if I would like him to write another article on Falun Dafa. It would be really great if he could write an article on the persecution, since he already wrote an introduction to Falun Dafa. He said to me, "It is really sad that this kind of thing is happening to people, and I can't do much to stop it. But at least I can write an article about it if it can help."

I thanked him much for his sympathy and kind regard for our cause. However, he was not able to write anything further on the persecution, probably for some good reason. During the APEC summit, we went to different media to clarify the truth. At that time we went to Milenio again since the office is located one block from my apartment. We prepared two packages, one for the reporter we had an appointment with, and another one for the editor of that company. We brought a DVD player with us and spent about 2 hours telling all about the practice and what is going on in China. The reporter was very interested in the whole presentation and promised us that she would find us at the practice site.

Then another interesting encounter occurred with this newspaper company. A Congressman who wanted to present a Falun Dafa issue at the Mexican National Congress said to us that he wanted us to give an interview with a reporter.

One morning in November, the congressman brought a close friend of his who is a reporter stationed at the National Congress Press Centre. So a fellow practitioner from Canada, who has much knowledge on how to clarify the truth to the media, went to see the reporter at the national congress. This reporter was a really kind and sincere man in his forties. He mainly wanted to do a story on the persecution. We prepared a DVD player, Compassion magazine along with other materials. We had about a 2 hour interview with him and he was deeply touched. At the end he said to us, "Now I have friends here." He seemed to feel very close to us and sensed some sort of connection with us. His questions were pretty deep and extensive. My fellow practitioner was able to clearly answer all his questions with total calmness and seriousness. At the end, he asked us if we could provide him with pictures of torture methods the evil jaing zemin regime is using and the descriptions of them in Spanish.

Now, the article is in the process of being published.