Chinese Media Admissions

Especially in its earlier reports, the PRC’s state-run media made no secrets of what was to be done to the Falun Gong and why. Around 2002-2003 the Party changed strategies and sought to downplay the campaign against Falun Gong, as if it were over; Chinese embassy postings attacking Falun Gong were removed almost simultaneously. Yet many of the earlier pieces in the People’s Daily and other prominent publications have been preserved and their blunt candor would no doubt be considered ham-fisted in the eyes of contemporary Communist Party’s publicists.

This from the Party’s official Xinhua News Agency:

The whole country has formed a situation in which the “Falun Gong” cult is being chased by all like rats running across the street […] We must exterminate the cult, and the evil must be totally eradicated […]

(Xinhua News Agency, Beijing, September 7, 2003. From an Amnesty International report available at: http://web.amnesty.org/library/index/engasa170352003)

This more recently from Xinhua:

“During the period [first half of 2008], the police cracked 16 cases of the Falun Gong …, detained 25 suspects and destroyed seven illegal printing press of reactionary propaganda material for Falun Gong,” according to by Chen Zhuangwei, head of the public security bureau in Urumqi, Xinjiang Uyghur Autonomous Region.

(Xinhua News Agency, July 10, 2008 link)

This from an early Associated Press report:

China’s entirely state-controlled newspapers claimed successes Monday in the government crackdown, saying people were turning in Falun Gong materials and renouncing the organization. The evening television news showed inspectors pulling the group’s books and tapes from shops and newsstands and featured testimonials from people who said they were obeying the party and no longer believed in Falun Gong.

The state-run Xinhua News Agency said in a commentary Monday that the ban was crucial to maintain the “vanguard role and purity” of the Communist Party. It condemned [Falun Gong…] for competing with the ruling party in promoting ideals.

“In fact, the so-called `truth, kindness and forbearance’ principle preached by Li Hongzhi has nothing in common with the socialist ethical and cultural progress we are striving to achieve,” the commentary said.

The article called the crackdown a “serious ideological and political struggle” and urged party members who practiced Falun Gong to “draw a clear ideological line” against it and “return to the side of the party.”

China doesn’t allow independent religious or political groups for fear they might challenge the Communist Party’s monopoly on power.

(from “China Detains Government Officials,” Renee Schoof, The Associated Press, July 26, 1999)