Government Reps and Advisors Call Falun Gong Persecution a Genocide

Dear Reader,

FOR MORE THAN TWO DECADES, human rights lawyers have argued that the persecution of Falun Gong constitutes genocide. Last month, Nina Shea, a senior fellow at the Hudson Institute where she also directs the Center for Religious Freedom, called upon the U.S. government to recognize the Falun Gong persecution as such.

In recent months, members of the U.K., Canadian, and Japanese parliament have also stated that the Falun Gong persecution meets the definition of a genocide. And more are joining the call, which we feature below.

Recently leaked documents from inside China reveal, among other illicit details, the financial incentives, and threats, held over Chinese officials to force compliance with suppressing Falun Gong, spurring widespread violence.

Ordinary citizens are also enticed into complicity. As Bitter Winter explains, one man “earned” $300 for handing over two Falun Gong practitioners to authorities. Both were promptly imprisoned for their faith.

The Epoch Times

In an exclusive interview with Dr. Miles Yu, the former U.S. State Department official explained that there is more evidence of a genocide perpetrated against the Falun Gong in China than the plentiful such evidence of a genocide against the Uyghurs.

Both the Trump and Biden administrations have designated the repression of Uyghurs in China as a genocide. Yu advised former Secretary of State Mike Pompeo, when he was in office, on strategies related to China. Now Yu is in effect supporting the view that there is not only a Uyghur genocide, but also one against the Falun Gong.

By Anders Corr, The National Interest

Numerous U.S. government sources have acknowledged global reporting and scholarship on the persecution of the Falun Gong and significant, uncontroverted evidence of mass imprisonment, torture, and forced organ harvesting of perhaps millions. China’s acts meet the legal definition and scholarly description of genocide pursuant to the 1948 UN Convention on the Prevention and Punishment of the Crime of Genocide.

The Falun Gong movement is a particular threat to the growing power of the CCP because it is often internal to Chinese businesses, universities, and the state. Falun Gong practitioners within China, forced into secrecy by state persecution, operate at least 200,000 “underground printing houses” within the totalitarian country, “in what likely constitutes the largest non-violent, grassroots resistance in the world,” according to a Falun Gong website.

Leaked Documents Reveal Pervasive Societal Reach of Falun Gong Persecution

Issued by the Dandong City’s Committee of Political and Legislative Affairs (CPLA)—the de facto administration of judicial branches at all levels of society in China— the documents include a 2015 regulations and policy document (pdf), a 2019 mid-year work summary (pdf), 2020 priority summaries and Responsibilities for Social Stability and Security Agreement (pdf) and a summary of documents issued by the CPLA in the first two quarters of 2020 (pdf).

In 2020 Priorities document, the CPLA ordered the judiciary branches to “empty the inventory” of unconverted Falun Gong practitioners through a variety of methods, ranging from “24-hour surveillance” of Falun Gong practitioners and “closely monitoring their thoughts and actions,” to more severe punishments. 

Officials are rewarded with financial incentives and promotions for meeting their quota, and risk losing their job if they fail to meet the quota. Such measures motivate and force the judiciary system to adopt a wide range of abusive methods to convert Falun Gong practitioners. Commonly used methods include detention in jails and other facilities, forced brainstorming sessions, physical torture, deprivation of employment and schooling for the practitioners and their families, and more, according to FalunInfo.net.

69 Falun Gong Practitioners Reported Sentenced for Their Faith in July 2021

The month of July 2021 recorded 69 Falun Gong practitioners sentenced for their faith. The longest sentence was 10 years, and among those sentenced, even an 85-year-old woman was not spared (sentenced to 3 years for her faith). To date, a total of 736 sentencing cases have been reported in 2021. 

Man Sold Two Falun Gong Practitioners for $300

The heinous system of delation was at work in Anhui province.

By Yang Feng, Bitter Winter

One of the worst features of the Chinese system of religious persecution is that it gives money as a reward for delation. This creates a widespread culture of generalized suspect. Your neighbor may be your enemy, not even because he or she disagrees with your religion but because the rewards may offer a welcome supplement to a meager monthly income.