[Music]
for many decades the chinese communist
party or
ccp has placed itself as the absolute
authority over people's lives and
beliefs in china
its officials have amassed enormous
wealth through nefarious means
it is torn apart generations of chinese
families
and it demands that chinese people
worship it with an almost
religious fervor and yet the ccp calls
us the falun gong community which is a
traditional buddhist-based
meditation practice that's free to learn
and you can do in the privacy of your
own home
they call us a cult
how did the ccp come up with this label
and what has been the impact on people's
lives
we're going to take a close look at
these questions my name is levi browdy i
live in new york with my wife
and two sons and for the past 20 years
i've served as the executive director
for the phalandofa information center
which is an all-volunteer organization
working to expose the human rights
abuses
in china throughout this time one of the
big
challenges we have faced is a constant
barrage of propaganda
from the chinese regime their goal has
been to divert attention away
from the human rights abuses by
marginalizing and demonizing
people who practice falun gong a
cornerstone of that propaganda
has been to convince the world that
falun gong is a cult
and while this is a bizarre and tragic
tale
of a deadly campaign in china it is also
a campaign that has taken root
to some extent right here in the west
in fact we can feel the effects of this
propaganda
bearing down on our lives our freedoms
our empathy
and even our ability to know the truth
it's that
far reaching let me explain
falun gong is a buddhist-based
meditation practice with roots in
traditional
chinese culture it was first introduced
to the public
in 1992 over the next several years
falun gong grew in popularity and by
1998
as many as a hundred million people were
practicing
during these years the chinese
government leaders praised falun gong
for its health benefits and moral
teachings
but everything changed in 1999.
the top ccp leader whose name is john
zamin
grew fearful that falun gong had grown
too big
and that its great reputation was
overshadowing
his own legacy therefore in july of 1999
he ordered that falun gong be eliminated
immediately people who practice falun
gong were rounded up by the
hundreds of thousands many were
imprisoned
tortured or killed and yet when the
international community condemned the
chinese government
and demanded to know why they were doing
this
ccp officials had no real answer
here's an example days after the
persecution started a senior chinese
government official appeared on abc's
nightline with ted koppel
when pressed by mr koppel the only
excuse this official could come up with
was that falun gong was
obstructing traffic and disturbing
social order
hardly the kind of behavior that would
warrant mass arrests
and widespread torture the international
community was not buying it
and put pressure on beijing
several months later in october of 1999
for the very first time the ccp labeled
falun gong
occult this timeline alone proves that
even the ccp
does not believe this label otherwise
they would have used it from the very
beginning
and remember the ccp spent almost a
decade
praising the health benefits of falun
gong
furthermore when you look at falun gong
teachings themselves
and how they're put into practice it is
abundantly clear
that falun gong is quite the opposite of
a cult
the instructional books and videos to
learn falun gong are free to download
and you can learn on your own there's no
organization
to join no membership no hierarchy and
no fees
to be clear this means anyone who'd like
to practice may do so without spending a
penny
in the privacy of your own home and
without requiring the help or approval
of anyone else it's also important to
note that
falun gong teachings emphasize setting
aside anger
resentment and other negative emotions
and to engage
life and those around you with honesty
compassion and tolerance its teachings
specifically discourage
many religious trappings such as
worshiping
proselytizing isolating from society etc
the teachings encourage people to live
their own lives
adopting the principles of the practice
as they see fit
all this is abundantly clear to anyone
who spends even a little
time talking to falun gong practitioners
and getting to know them
in fact some journalists academics and
human rights workers in the west
who have done their homework on falun
gong make it clear
this label is false for example ian
johnson who won the purelitzer prize for
covering falun gong in china and
witnessed
firsthand the cult narrative in
state-run media there
said in response quote falun gong aimed
at improving one's health and didn't
meet many common definitions of occult
professor david ownby who is the
director of the center of east asia
studies at the university of montreal
and did extensive research on the falun
gong community
said the entire cult label was quote a
red
herring from the very beginning cleverly
exploited by the chinese state
to blunt the appeal of falun gong and
the effectiveness of the group's
activities
outside china the washington post
laid it out very clearly when they wrote
quote
the crackdown against falun gong was
undertaken to
demonstrate and solidify the power of
the chinese leadership
this obviously is very personal for
zhang
the ccp leader i mentioned earlier
another post article went on to say
it was zhong who ordered that falun gong
be labeled occult
and then demanded that a law be passed
banning cults
in contrast the nature of falun gong has
been aptly captured by
many leaders in the west who've actually
come to know
the falun gong community mark palmer a
former u.s ambassador and a co-founder
of the national endowment of democracy
had this to say quote falun gong is in
my judgment the single greatest
spiritual movement in asia today
there is nothing that begins to compare
with it encourage
and importance erwin kotler canada's
former minister of justice
and attorney general put it this way
quote
falun gong represents the very best of
chinese culture
and values and did you know that the
founder of falun gong
mr lee hong ger is a five-time nobel
peace prize nominee
he was nominated for the sakuraoff prize
for freedom of thought by the european
parliament
he is the recipient of freedom house's
international religious freedom award
and has received
hundreds of awards and proclamations
from local
and federal government leaders across
north america
europe and asia so clearly this is a
false label
and clearly the ccp purposely used it
to divert attention away from human
rights abuses but has it really worked
what exactly has been the impact
well inside china the results have been
catastrophic
and widespread keep in mind in the 1990s
falun gong was widely respected
but over time this propaganda turned
millions of chinese people
into implements of ccp tyranny it has
turned police and prison guards into
torturers of innocent people it has
turned neighbors and co-workers into ccp
informants
pressured to identify people in their
neighborhood or office
who practice falun gong so those people
can be taken away
to prisons and brainwashing centers
it has torn apart countless families
wives or husbands fearful of ccp thugs
threaten to divorce their spouses if
they don't give up their practice
children are ostracized at school or
themselves
punished if their family is known to
practice falun gong
in short this propaganda has dehumanized
and demonized tens of millions of people
fueling
atrocities throughout the country
outside china
the cult label has had some effect in
silencing voices in media and government
that would otherwise stand up for falun
gong
and when journalists in the west
propagate these lies
and when we believe them then the ccp
a foreign communist regime has achieved
something quite chilling
it has successfully manipulated our
emotions
distorted the information that we use to
assess the world around us
and in many ways silenced us
so the next time you read in the news
that falun gong is a cult
send the journalist a link to this video
and ask him or her
does he or she know that they are
repeating propaganda from the ccp
that is not only demonstrably false but
is formulated specifically to vilify
a persecuted group hopefully they'll
take a closer look
and set the record straight
you