video: China's Persecution of Falun Gong from Robert Exter on Vimeo
video: https://vimeo.com/537978354
45 Goals from “The Naked Communist” to Overthrow the United States (by Cleon Skousen, 1958)
SHEN YUN is awakening people everywhere to the beauty of Chinese culture that is overshaddowed by the brutal communist regime. Click the picture below for more information and performance times/locations:
Falun Gong (UK:
/ˌfɑːlʊn
Falun Gong | |||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
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The Falun Dafa emblem
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Traditional Chinese | 法輪功 | ||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
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Simplified Chinese | 法轮功 | ||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
Literal meaning | Dharma Wheel Practice or Dharma Wheel Work/Power/Energy | ||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
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Falun Dafa | |||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
Traditional Chinese | 法輪大法 | ||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
Simplified Chinese | 法轮大法 | ||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
Literal meaning | Great Dharma Wheel Practice | ||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
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Falun Gong originated and was first taught publicly in northeastern China in 1992 by Li Hongzhi. It emerged toward the end of China's "qigong boom"—a period that saw a proliferation of similar practices of meditation, slow-moving energy exercises and regulated breathing. It differs from other qigong schools in its absence of fees or formal membership, lack of daily rituals of worship, its greater emphasis on morality, and the theological nature of its teachings. Western academics have described Falun Gong as a qigong discipline, a "spiritual movement", a "cultivation system" in the tradition of Chinese antiquity, or as a form of Chinese religion.
The practice initially enjoyed support from Chinese officialdom, but by the mid to late 1990s, the Communist Party and public security organizations increasingly viewed Falun Gong as a potential threat due to its size, independence from the state, and spiritual teachings. By 1999, government estimates placed the number of Falun Gong practitioners at 70 million.[2] During that time, negative coverage of Falun Gong began to appear in the state-run press, and practitioners usually responded by picketing the source involved. Most of the time, the practitioners succeeded, but controversy and tension continued to build. The scale of protests grew until April 1999, when over 10,000 Falun Gong practitioners gathered near the central government compound in Beijing to request legal recognition and freedom from state interference. This demonstration is widely seen as catalyzing the persecution that followed.
On 20 July 1999, the Communist Party leadership initiated a nationwide crackdown and multifaceted propaganda campaign intended to eradicate the practice. It blocked Internet access to websites that mention Falun Gong, and in October 1999 it declared Falun Gong a "heretical organization" that threatened social stability. Falun Gong practitioners in China are reportedly subject to a wide range of human rights abuses: hundreds of thousands are estimated to have been imprisoned extrajudicially,[3] and practitioners in detention are subject to forced labor, psychiatric abuse, torture, and other coercive methods of thought reform at the hands of Chinese authorities.[4] As of 2009, human rights groups estimated that at least 2,000 Falun Gong practitioners had died as a result of abuse in custody.[5] One observer reported that tens of thousands may have been killed to supply China's organ transplant industry (see Organ harvesting from Falun Gong practitioners in China).[6][7] In the years since the persecution began, Falun Gong practitioners have become active in advocating for greater human rights in China.
Falun Gong founder Li Hongzhi has lived in New York City since 1996, and Falun Gong has a sizable global constituency. Inside China, estimates suggest that tens of millions continued to practice Falun Gong in spite of the persecution.[8][9][10] Hundreds of thousands are estimated to practice Falun Gong outside China in over 70 countries worldwide.
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