Truth Competes With Economic Interests, as China’s Leader Visits Poland

This word will be used in this text only once, and this is only to show how powerful a tool is propaganda driven by hatred, the desire to gain and maintain control as well as how long-lasting are its effects. The word that made millions of innocent people in China being every day persecuted, oppressed, abused physically and mentally. The word-excuse, put into diplomatic folders that can be drawn out from them, whenever an awkward question about human rights violation is asked. The word, which can discredit even truthfulness, compassion, and tolerance. Cult.

This term and practically only this term is used by the Chinese regime to describe the Falun Gong spiritual practice, also known as Falun Dafa. How great is the strength of the Chinese black PR can be illustrated at the beginning by the fact that it was also my first thought that somewhere in the back of my head began to appear on the background of TV footage from circa the early years 2000s:  a group of protesting Asians, police, confusion. 

When a few days later, I was talking with Tomasz Ozimek, the co-founder of the Polish Falun Gong  Association, I realized what was said on that day in the news—an incident in Tiananmen Square in 2001. Five people allegedly practicing Falun Gong attempted to commit an act of self-immolation, he said. Allegedly, because there were suspicions that sounded like certainty that the entire event was fabricated only to discredit members of the movement.

What was their fault? Were they protesting against the government? Did they conspire to overthrow communism? No. There were a lot of them, and they were healthy.

Fear of Kindness

Imagine that the U.S. government suddenly finds that the greatest threat to democracy are the people practicing yoga. Probably every other Californian and a few million people living in less sunny states, where this combination of exercise and meditation has its supporters, would have been imprisoned. Absurd? Not in China.

The easiest way to explain to a layman the concept of ​​Falun Gong is through analogy to yoga, tai chi, or chi gong, although after thorough exploration of the intricacies of this philosophy, the similarities become much less clear.

“The advanced system to improve mind and body”–such description of Falun Gong can be found on falundafa.org .

This is exercising of self-discipline, focusing on eliminating character flaws–this is how in turn Huang Jianmin, a Chinese with Polish citizenship and an activist for human rights, explains the essence of Falun Gong.

[coverage]2091178[/coverage]

The five sets of exercises, following the principles of “truthfulness, compassion, and tolerance”  in life, as well as the lectures of the  Falun Gong founder Li Hongzhi, enjoyed a similar popularity among the Chinese in the 90s, as yoga among celebrities. On squares, in parks, in larger and smaller groups about 100 million Chinese practiced regularly. The Communist Party felt threatened.

“Chinese authorities control society through violence,” Tomasz Ozimek said. “If a movement gains popularity, it has to be overcome as soon as possible. Repression can be avoided only by cooperating with the government.”

Falun Gong has not always been criticized. Members of the Public Security Bureau also practiced Falun Gong. Li Hongzhi lectured for them as well. As Falun Gong was gaining more and more popularity, the authorities decided that they needed to take it under control, as they did with other religions permitted in China. Li Hongzhi refused to transform Falun Gong into an official, state controlled organization, which gave a pretext to start the persecution, explains Ozimek.

It was not difficult to locate Falun Gong followers. Straight from parks, hundreds of thousands of people were imprisoned, and sent to camps and …hospitals. Authorities discovered however that the fight in the name of the purity of the dominant communist ideology can be cashed. Healthy and athletic supporters of Falun Gong have become ideal organ donors for transplantation. That was not by no means voluntary.  In “On Topic” we reported already on this practice in detail here.

The Chinese authorities expected that the repression of people whose only crime was meditation in the open air would raise suspicions of world public opinion. So they started an absurd hatred campaign, whose key example was mentioned earlier, the “self-immolation” case, which took place on Jan. 23, 2001.

“The entire incident was staged by the authorities, for it is difficult to have doubts,” explained Ozimek. The guards, who intervened in the incident, were equipped with fire extinguishers—equipment, which they do not carry on themselves every day.

One person who was killed in the incident, was hit with a stick by an officer—as caught on camera—mentioned Ozimek, adding that the press material of the entire incident was created at once in English. A coincidence? It is rather an act with premeditation, which brought about the expected results. The world’s media took this propaganda bait and spread information about the incident involving members of the “dangerous cult”.

Journalists and activists, including Tomasz Ozimek, tried to fight the deceitful propaganda. “In 2001, we organized a conference where we tried to explain what really Falun Gong is and what could have happened in China,” Ozimek said. The response was faint, he recalls.

A year later he took more determined steps and together with a group of activists from around the world decided to protest on Tiananmen Square.  On Feb. 14 at 2 p.m. he reached the place, but a moment later was sent to a prison. Before he was forcibly expelled from China, the officers beat him and took away from him his winter jacket and boots.

The Meaning of Life and Economic Interests

The persecution of Falun Gong in China is still in progress, organ harvesting also continues. Meanwhile the Chinese Chairman Xi Jinping arrived in Poland on June 19 for a diplomatic visit. The Polish Association of Falun Dafa peacefully protested during the visit.

In front of the Chinese Embassy and in front of the place where the politician stayed, practitioners demanded in silence to bring to justice Jiang Zemin, the former leader of the Chinese Communist Party, responsible for the persecution of Falun Gong. Tomasz Ozimek joked before the demonstration that he should prepare an additional banner with the slogan: “President Xi, return my boots!”

[coverage]2097522[/coverage]

Huang Jianmin, who has been living in Poland for 30 years should not protest. In China, he has a brother, who has been contacted a few days ago by the authorities. It was not to just threaten him, because the Chinese authorities do not threaten, they only “imply.”

“They do not say anything directly,” noted Huang. It could however be concluded from the conversation, that if he participated in the protest, his brother “would lose his job,” which could mean almost anything in the euphemistic language of Chinese security services.

“When I started practicing Falun Gong in 2007, people from the embassy invited me for a talk. I heard that I could practice, but at home. I was to have laid low,” he recalled. He did not comply with the ban.

“No one can change by using fear the values ​​in which I believe,” Huang Jiemen said. “I did not stop practicing Falun Gong, because I do not do this to myself. A man who lives in the truth, is kind and patient helps not only himself. He helps all around him.”

“We want to be a China’s central partner in Central Europe. The development of trade, including the wider opening of the Chinese market for Polish products, as well as development of investment and supporting instruments: banks and investment funds, is very important for Poland” said Minister Krzysztof Szczerski, before Xi Jinping’s visit. The issue of human rights violations appeared at the end of the statement. The minister managed to include the crux of the matter in two paragraphs:

“When it comes to issues of human rights, it is important that the entire Western world passes systematically and consistently their point of view. While Poland itself will not make any fundamental change in this regard, we know about it.”

There is no doubt that the Chinese delegation were received by Polish officials with kindness. During the negotiations certainly there was no lack of patience. It is a pity however that there was probably a lack of truth.

This is a translation of an article first published by www.natemat.pl, for which Karolina Palys writes.

[morearticles]2062536[/morearticles]

Views expressed in this article are the opinions of the author and do not necessarily reflect the views of The Epoch Times.