The Resilience of Falun Gong: A Traditional Practice That Is Still Being Persecuted in China 25 Years On

Commentary

All of us have pondered, in one way or another, the question of what life means. My simple response would be: The purpose of life is to live and then go beyond, to search for what is beyond this world, to search for our core origin.

I think there is no one who has not at least once in his or her lifetime asked the question, “Who am I, and where do I come from?” The meaning of life is also reflected in the pursuit of happiness—not the superficial happiness that fades as fast as it comes, but a deeper, soul-nourishing happiness.

At that time, Falun Gong was a flourishing qigong practice from the Buddha school loved by the Chinese people. About 100 million people practiced it in China in the 1990s, and those who were their relatives, friends, neighbors, and employers appreciated them. Falun Gong practitioners live by the principles of truthfulness, compassion, and tolerance, the tenets of the spiritual practice.

With its five slow-moving exercises, Falun Gong also contributes to health and well-being. This was even acknowledged by Chinese officials. Falun Gong is a practice for mind and body. Its principles are universal and have prevailed throughout history in all prosperous societies. If one is urged to capture in a word what Falun Gong brings to the people, then it would be goodness.

Related Stories

The positive echo that Falun Gong set off in the Chinese people triggered a negative reaction in the leadership of the CCP. It was not due to anything practitioners did—they were a force for good in society—but rather the CCP’s internal characteristics that made it perceive Falun Gong as an enemy. What does that mean? The CCP does not have a life-sustaining agenda that fosters the lives of human beings. It takes away the freedom of the individual, it takes away the free thinking of people, and it takes away the inherent desire of people to ask questions about the meaning of life. The CCP is atheistic as it fears the possibility that there is a higher power above the Party.

To prevent people from searching for the meaning of life and possibly connecting with the divine, the CCP resorts to lies and deception, the opposite of truth. It resorts to hatred and struggle, the opposite of compassion. It only allows one opinion, and that is the opinion that the Party puts in place. In a one-party state, the eradication of the alternate opinion is the maximum variant of intolerance, and that is the opposite of tolerance.

Let’s look at how this description of CCP has played out in reality: The CCP always needs to declare someone as an enemy in order to fill the void over the meaning of life with struggle. In the 1950s, the CCP launched a campaign to “suppress counterrevolutionaries;” during the Cultural Revolution between 1966 and 1976, the CCP declared academics and land-owners as enemies, then an internal power struggle declared even its fellow party members as enemies; and in 1989, the CCP declared the democracy movement as the enemy and established an example on June 4, when about 3,000 students were killed on Tiananmen Square. On July 20, 1999, Falun Gong became the next victim of the CCP’s agenda of hatred.

Nobody had found any fault with Falun Gong, and not even all the members of the Politburo agreed to persecute practitioners, but it was then-CCP leader Jiang Zemin who called for the destruction of Falun Gong. He is quoted as saying, “Destroy them physically,” and he expected to eliminate Falun Gong within three months. Although he initiated widespread repression of practitioners to destroy them physically—including  forced organ harvesting of imprisoned practitioners—he failed in his agenda.

Falun Gong survived well beyond three months: After 25 years since the persecution campaign was launched, it is being practised all over the world by people who want to better themselves physically and spiritually.

Although Jiang Zemin initiated the most sophisticated, elaborate, and brutal persecution against Falun Gong, the practitioners of the practice endured and peacefully resisted. Practitioners suffered from brainwashing, arbitrary detention in labor camps, long prison terms, torture, death from torture, and last but not least, from the state-sanctioned practice of forced organ harvesting.

To profit from the bodies of the Falun Gong practitioners it had persecuted, the CCP used them as a source of “transplant organs.” China’s transplant industry became a lucrative market because of an endless supply of organs that guaranteed 100 percent profit. Persecuted Falun Gong practitioners were blood-tested, medically examined, and categorized in detention centers and jails. Upon the arrival of a transplant recipient in a Chinese hospital, within days or weeks a matching Falun Gong prisoner of conscience was identified and killed on demand to harvest the desired organs.

China’s booming transplant industry was built on the blood and bodies of Falun Gong practitioners. China does not have an ethical organ donation program. Transparency, traceability, or independent international scrutiny are not provided. Forced organ harvesting is a central part of the CCP’s strategy to eradicate Falun Gong in the form of a “cold genocide,” a slow-moving genocide by attrition.

Now, July 20, 2024, is the 25th anniversary of the persecution of Falun Gong.

Despite this evil persecution lasting 25 years, and possibly millions of Falun Gong practitioners killed during that time, practitioners have not surrendered and remain true to the nature of their practice, thus peacefully helping people understand the evil nature of the CCP through continuous efforts to raise awareness of the persecution. Their actions stand in defiance of the evil and anti-human nature of the CCP.

The persecution has never stopped, and the ungodly practice of forced organ harvesting continues to this day. In observance of 25 years of resistance against the most brutal, evil persecution of the 21st century, and in support of the victimized Falun Gong practitioners—but most importantly in appreciation of the sanctity of human life in general—a new petition has been launched to invite people around the world to help end the forced organ harvesting of living Falun Gong practitioners in China.

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