Talk:Persecution of Falun Gong

Sources

I'm interested in trying to build this article to be more complete and proportional in its coverage of different aspects of the persecution, but want to make sure I've read all the most relevant books and articles on the topic beforehand. I've started compiling a list of the most significant sources on this topic, and invite anyone with knowledge of other good sources to add to this.

• Amnesty International, China: The crackdown on Falun Gong and other so-called 'heretical organizations,' 23 March 2000.
• Mickey Spiegel, Dangerous Meditation: China's Campaign Against Falungong, Human Rights Watch, 2002.
• Danny Schechter, Falun Gong's Challenge to China: Spiritual Practice or Evil Cult?, 2001.
• James Tong, Revenge of the Forbidden City, 2009.
• Ian Johnson, Wild Grass: three portraits of change in modern china, 2005.
• David Ownby, Falun Gong and the Future of China, 2008.
• David Palmer, Qigong fever: body, science, and utopia in China, 2007.
• Congressional-Executive Commission on China, 2008 Annual Report
• Sarah Cook, The 610 Office:Policing the Chinese Spirit, 2011
• ??

I've read (or at least skimmed) all of these. What am I missing? TheBlueCanoe 03:00, 16 December 2013 (UTC)

I would mention the Kilgour Matas reports, Ethan Gutmann, the resolutions passed by the U.S. congress, and other governments, a lot material from various sources are on faluninfo.net Wiki Chymyst 12:22, 21 April 2014 (UTC)

Make sure to use Amnesty International's report, “CHANGING THE SOUP BUT NOT THE MEDICINE?”. It discusses the shutdown of the RTL system and includes a great deal of information on the persecution of Falun Gong within RTL. —Zujine|talk 20:39, 3 June 2014 (UTC)

The Amnesty report is really useful. I added it to the list of Further Readings, but it would be better if we could find a way to integrate it into the article. I've been thinking of doing some work to update this page. Let me know if you want to help and maybe we can divvy up tasks. TheBlueCanoe 21:49, 21 June 2014 (UTC)

Here's an example of what I'd like to do. This is a new proposed section on the legal issues and frameworks and directives related to the campaign. Part of it would replace the current text on 610 Office. Is this worth including in some form? Any way it could be improved? Or should I just put it up and go from there?TheBlueCanoe 17:40, 28 June 2014 (UTC)

Good initiative. I'm adding comments to the sandbox discussion page. —Zujine|talk 19:28, 2 July 2014 (UTC)

The sections on legal instruments, media/censorship and arbitrary detention are all updated. There's probably more information that should be added under prisons/RTL. A few other things I identified when reading through:

• The "statewide suppression" bit is pretty thin, especially now that some of the material was shifted to later in the article.
• "Rationale" section is a bit repetitive and may focus too much on one angle to the exclusion of other explanations
• "Torture" should be rewritten drawing on a larger variety of sources. Chinese government responses to these reports also should be added.
• The later sections on discrimination and outside China need expanding
• The 'recent campaigns' was removed. If it's important enough, then the more current material should just be integrated throughout the article. It's all part of the same campaign.

Also, sourcing is a total hodgepodge, and the index might be too long. There's more I'm sure, but this is enough for one night. TheBlueCanoe 04:31, 14 July 2014 (UTC)

Time has been spent cleaning up the references. Index is longer now but its a pretty involved subject so I don't think it matters that much.Aaabbb11 (talk) 11:57, 26 December 2014 (UTC)

Orphaned references in Persecution of Falun Gong

I check pages listed in Category:Pages with incorrect ref formatting to try to fix reference errors. One of the things I do is look for content for orphaned references in wikilinked articles. I have found content for some of Persecution of Falun Gong's orphans, the problem is that I found more than one version. I can't determine which (if any) is correct for this article, so I am asking for a sentient editor to look it over and copy the correct ref content into this article.

Reference named "Ownbyfuture":

• From History of Falun Gong: David Ownby, Falun Gong and the Future of China (2008) Oxford University Press, p 89.
• From Falun Gong: David Ownby, Falun Gong and the Future of China, (Oxford University Press, 2008), ISBN 978-0-19-532905-6.

I apologize if any of the above are effectively identical; I am just a simple computer program, so I can't determine whether minor differences are significant or not. AnomieBOT⚡ 08:10, 14 July 2014 (UTC)

Orphaned references in Persecution of Falun Gong

I check pages listed in Category:Pages with incorrect ref formatting to try to fix reference errors. One of the things I do is look for content for orphaned references in wikilinked articles. I have found content for some of Persecution of Falun Gong's orphans, the problem is that I found more than one version. I can't determine which (if any) is correct for this article, so I am asking for a sentient editor to look it over and copy the correct ref content into this article.

Reference named "Ownby":

• From 610 Office: Ownby, David (2008). Falun Gong and the Future of China. New York, NY: Oxford University Press. ISBN 978-0-19-532905-6.
• From Tiananmen Square self-immolation incident: David Ownby, "Falun Gong and the Future of China" Oxford University Press (2008)
• From Teachings of Falun Gong: "Falungong as a Cultural Revitalization Movement: An Historian Looks at Contemporary China." Professor David Ownby, Department of History, University of Montreal, accessed 2007-12-31
• From Qigong: Ownby, David (2008). Falun Gong and the future of China. Oxford: Oxford University Press. ISBN 978-0-19-532905-6.

I apologize if any of the above are effectively identical; I am just a simple computer program, so I can't determine whether minor differences are significant or not. AnomieBOT⚡ 08:13, 14 July 2014 (UTC)

Orphaned references in Persecution of Falun Gong

I check pages listed in Category:Pages with incorrect ref formatting to try to fix reference errors. One of the things I do is look for content for orphaned references in wikilinked articles. I have found content for some of Persecution of Falun Gong's orphans, the problem is that I found more than one version. I can't determine which (if any) is correct for this article, so I am asking for a sentient editor to look it over and copy the correct ref content into this article.

Reference named "BHbook":

• From Kilgour–Matas report: David Kilgour; David Matas (2009). "Bloody Harvest, The killing of Falun Gong for their organs". seraphimeditions.com. p. 232.
• From David Kilgour: David Kilgour, David Matas (2009). "Bloody Harvest, The killing of Falun Gong for their organs". seraphimeditions.com. p. 232.

I apologize if any of the above are effectively identical; I am just a simple computer program, so I can't determine whether minor differences are significant or not. AnomieBOT⚡ 20:25, 20 December 2014 (UTC)

The references above are effectively identical. I adjusted Kilgour–Matas report and they should be identical now. I can't see any need for changes, but I could be wrong.Aaabbb11 (talk) 10:46, 26 December 2014 (UTC)

Pictures updated

I would like to know what's the matter with the following picture.

File:2004-6-6-bamboo stick.jpg

Torture method: bamboos sticks inserted under nails. (painting).

Aaabbb11, I disagree your removal of this picture. In the text, there's mention of even more severe tortures, but yet you think it's just too violent to show a picture that carry basically the same information.

@Davives: Sure more severe torture is talked about in the article. But I think seeing pictures of torture, is more unpleasant than reading about it. Pictures can be hard or impossible to erase from your memory. In my experience, many adults find the persecution of falun gong, too unpleasant to read or talk about. Children read wikipedia. Children have a far lower tolerance for unpleasant things than adults. In my opinion, the bamboo picture is very unpleasant to look at, so will discourage people from reading this article, which contains many things that are unpleasant to read about. A friend of mine who was persecuted read about something that happened in China and couldn't eat for 3 days afterwards. The more I find out about the persecution of Falun Gong, the more unpleasant I find it is. I think its best to show mild pictures of violence, along with the picture of Gao Rongrong. If the picture is to remain it should be in the torture section.

I think it is VERY important, that as many people as possible, learn about the persecution of Falun Gong, or at least just a few basic facts. Having too many unpleasant pictures in an article is counterproductive. The first thing you see when you look at a page are the pictures not the words. Have you handed out information about the persecution of Falun Gong, and seen how people react?Aaabbb11 (talk) 20:14, 15 January 2015 (UTC)

Then, I would like to know why the following picture that was originally in top page was removed, and get a POV from Epicgenius.

File:Police Violence against Practitioner at Tiananmen Square..jpg

Arrestation d'un pratiquant Place Tian An Men.

The current top page picture is quite the same to me than the previous one.

I won't undo all this changes, but it's hard for me to get the point.

Thank both of you. Davives (talk) 14:48, 15 January 2015 (UTC)

@Davives: Personally, I think that picturing a nonviolent arrest (as pictured in the lead currently) is preferable to picturing a violent arrest (which was what I replaced with File:2004-6-6-bamboo stick.jpg). Violence is POV, as there have been nonviolent forms of Falun Gong persecution, as I understand it. The bamboo stick picture was supposed to give an example of such persecution, and is better than either arrest picture because it not only shows persecution, but also is more specific, whereas the arrest pictures can be interpreted as an arrest for anything other than Falun Gong. However, if you have differing opinions, I am fine with that. Epicgenius (talk) 15:35, 15 January 2015 (UTC)

@Epicgenius:In hindsight your reversion of 8 edits should have been reverted (in my opinion) because you didn't provide a clear explanation of why you reverted the edits. Was not clear to Davives or me, anyway. In my opinion the bamboo stick picture is most violent picture in this article and unnecessary as it will discourage some people from reading the article. In my opinion there is no need for a violent picture on the first page. "Woman arrested in Tiananmen Square" seems to be appropriate as practitioners being arrested is very common.Aaabbb11 (talk) 18:21, 15 January 2015 (UTC)

@Aaabbb11: I'm fine with the current image, though the bamboo torture image should probably be placed further down. Epicgenius (talk) 19:48, 15 January 2015 (UTC)

@Epicgenius: Torture section is the logical place for a torture pic.Aaabbb11 (talk) 20:14, 15 January 2015 (UTC)

 Done. Epicgenius (talk) 20:29, 15 January 2015 (UTC)

The neutrality of this article is disputed

This article was not written in a neutral manner. For example, even the use of the word persecution in the title of this article is a loaded word that carries a negative connotation. Naming the article Prohibition of Falun Gong would be neutral and reflect the various opinions on this subject. Most of the complaints in this article are accusations, but this article names the sections and phrases the sentences as though they are facts proven in a court of law. This article also uses a lot of weasel words and is written in Wikipedia:WikiVoice. It's best to attribute the idea to the author you are citing to avoid using weasel words or WikiVoice. Waters.Justin (talk) 02:48, 8 May 2015 (UTC)

I agree with you. The article's title should be renamed, and its content should be rewritten in a neutral tone as per WP:NPOV. STSC (talk) 10:54, 8 May 2015 (UTC)

• The title of this article is consistent with other, similar articles on Wikipedia (Persecution of Jews, Persecution of Christians, Persecution of Copts, Persecution of Muslims, Persecution of Zoroastrians, Persecution of Bahá'ís,

• Persecution of Buddhists, etc.).
• ::*Your proposed title "Prohibition of Falun Gong," is very limited in scope. The large-scale imprisonment, torture, and extrajudicial killing of Falun Gong adherents is a persecution, not a prohibition.
• ::*I'm not sure what weasel words you're referring to. Give us some examples.
• ::*Facts need not be proven in a court of law. When numerous reliable sources report on events as facts, then we can treat them as such.TheBlueCanoe 14:02, 9 May 2015 (UTC)

• In order to be precise and concise, a broad subject should have a broad title and a narrow subject should have a narrow title. Persecution is a broad word that refers to everything from illegal harassment by bigoted citizens to a state policy of discrimination; however, the word prohibition is more narrow and only refers to the state policy of prohibiting the practice. I believe the subject of this article falls into the latter category because the lead sentence specifically says the following: "The persecution of Falun Gong refers to the campaign initiated in 1999 by the Chinese Communist Party to eliminate the spiritual practice of Falun Gong in the People's Republic of China." This lead sounds like an article about prohibition. The articles about persecution you listed above are not limited to a specific country, policy, or time period but broadly refer to any negative treatment throughout history against that religion. Unlike those articles, this article is about a specific government policy of prohibition by a specific country at a specific time. The narrowness of this topic requires a title that accurately reflects the narrowness of the topic. Wikipedia requires neutrality, precision, and conciseness when naming a title. See Wikipedia:Article_titles. Criticism articles are allowed but only if it is necessary "to avoid confusion." See Wikipedia:Criticism#Approaches_to_presenting_criticism. Applying this rule to the current article, the article should be titled Prohibition of Falun Gong because it is the precise subject of the article and creating a more POV title like "persecution" is not necessary in order to avoid confusion, and may only create confusion.
• If you want the article to keep the current title and follow Wikipedia's best practices then the topic should be broadened to include more cases of persecution than China's prohibition policy. There is an "Outside china" section, but even this section only refers to China's prohibition policy. Waters.Justin (talk) 01:02, 10 May 2015 (UTC)

I appreciate your point about concision and clarity, but "prohibition" does not achieve that. Prohibition refers to the act of forbidding something, usually by law, and often (but not exclusively) in reference to alcohol or controlled substances. What we are dealing with here is not merely the initial act of Chinese authorities prohibiting Falun Gong on July 22 1999, but rather a 16-year campaign aimed at the group's elimination. You won't find reliable sources describing said campaign, in all its varied manifestations, as a "prohibition." It just wouldn't make sense. Try replacing the word 'persecution' with 'prohibition' in the following passage, and you'll see what I mean:

Publicly available government documents detail the central role of the 6–10 Office in the persecution of Falun Gong.[1]

Change this to prohibition and the sentence would cease to be accurate.

I'm not personally wedded to the term "persecution" either, but it is a more or less accurate descriptive of the nature of the campaign and it is in keeping with naming conventions elsewhere on this encyclopedia. And to answer your contention about those other articles, there is nothing in the definition of persecution that says it must span a certain time period or geographic expanse. Persecutions can be confined in time and place. They can be driven by societal prejudices, government policy, or some combination of the two. Refer to Persecution of Christians by ISIL, Persecution of pagans in the late Roman Empire, Persecution of Croats in Serbia during the Croatian War of Independence, Catholic Persecution of 1801, Persecution of Christians in the Eastern Bloc, Diocletianic Persecution, Persecution of homosexuals in Nazi Germany and the Holocaust, Persecution of Jehovah's Witnesses in Nazi Germany, among others.TheBlueCanoe 11:58, 10 May 2015 (UTC)

Following those naming conventions, it would be more precise to name the article Persecution of the Falun Gong by China unless the subject of this article is made broader than China.Waters.Justin (talk) 14:52, 10 May 2015 (UTC)

Prohibition should not be understood as a legal prohibition. In the US, the law is the same for all. But in China, the suppression of Falun Gong obeys no law. Chinese law allows freedom of expression and belief (see the report tabled in the European Parliament). The Office 610, entirely created for the suppression of Falun Gong, is based only on orders emanating from the Chinese Communist Party officers; the very existence of this office is not officially recognized. Some lawyers defended Falun Gong practitioners incarcerated on the basis of Chinese law, some have been successful, others are persecuted (see here).

Given the history of the Communist Party, a "campaign to eliminate" means turning Chinese people against each other by the way of propaganda (cultural revolution great leap forward,...). As for the Falun Gong, Tiananmen of students in 1989 have not received any ban on demonstrations, they also had support within the government. It ended with violent repression and propaganda. The Falun Gong is unilateraly suppressed by the Chinese Communist Party with violent means. In that case, "elimination" also means a desire for destruction. Edward McMillan-Scott and other public figure the term "genocide" to describe this persecution. This also match with some of the above examples quoted by TheBlueCanoe I suggest we keep the title of this page as it is. Please forgive my poor English! Davives (talk) 15:00, 10 May 2015 (UTC)

Persecution of the Falun Gong by China is closer to the mark. But I wouldn't want to imply that the entire nation of China is culpable for the actions taken by governing party. Since, as you said, most of the article is centered on China, would Persecution of Falun Gong in China work?TheBlueCanoe 01:28, 11 May 2015 (UTC)

I would suggest the title as Exclusion of Falun Gong from China. STSC (talk)

"Persecution of Falun Gong" is the most rational title to me. It is also widely used, see for instance:

• Slander and Persecution of Falun Gong in China and in the United States (PDF), Congressional Executive Commission on China, 2002-12-09, retrieved 2014-01-25
• Smith, Chrandra D. (2004-10-01), "Chinese Persecution of Falun Gong", Rutgers Journal of Law and Religion, Rutgers School of Law: 8, retrieved 2014-03-05
• Yang, Chin-Yunn, "The Perfect Example of Political Propaganda : The Chinese Government's Persecution against Falun Gong", Global Media Journal, 4 (7), Purdue University, retrieved 2014-03-02
• Turley-Ewart, John (2004-03-20), "Falun Gong persecution spreads to Canada : Ottawa does little", National Post, retrieved 2014-01-25
• Rowe, Peter, Beyond the Red Wall : The Persecution of Falun Gong, CBC Television, retrieved 2014-03-28
• H.Res. 605 (111th) : Recognizing the continued persecution of Falun Gong practitioners in China on the 11th anniversary of the Chinese Communist Party campaign to suppress the Falun Gong spiritual movement and calling for an immediate end to the campaign, 2010-03-16, retrieved 2014-03-23

Nibbler869 (talk) 16:35, 13 May 2015 (UTC)

Let's see if we can resolve this then. So far we have two editors proposing to retain the current title, and one vote each for "Persecution of Falun Gong by China," "Persecution of Falun Gong in China," and "Exclusion of Falun Gong from China." Only the last one is clearly unworkable from where I stand, as Falungong has neither been ejected from nor blocked from entering China. If there aren't any other counter-proposals or a clearer consensus, we can move to wrap this up. —Zujine|talk 22:32, 16 May 2015 (UTC)

Ok for Persecution of Falun Gong in China. Davives (talk) 12:51, 17 May 2015 (UTC)

In my opinion when someone suggests a name change to Prohibition of Falun Gong it indicates they are unfamiliar with the topic, as the three key organ harvesting investigators (Kilgour, Matas and Gutmann) estimate tens of thousands of FG have been killed for their organs, which is just one part of the persecution. In October 2014, in an interview with The Toronto Star Gutmann didn't limit the time frame to 2000 to 2008 and stated, "the number of casualties is close to 100,000". Part of the problem could be that the 2nd sentence in the article is too weak, "sometimes resulting in death". It probably should be stated that 3 books have been published about organ harvesting to make it clear to readers that publishers have taken this subject seriously. Aaabbb11 (talk) 13:58, 20 May 2015 (UTC)

Ok for Persecution of Falun Gong in China, but expanding the article to include persecutions outside of China is another option if you want to keep the same title. Regarding Aaabbb11's opinion, the allegations of organ harvesting seem suspicious, for example, in the link you provided the author of the book even states that his witnesses may not be credible. "You can’t always confirm these things perfectly. That’s why I spend so much time talking to people and getting to know them. It becomes much easier to assess their credibility. People who’ve gone through terrible trauma often have distortions in what happened. We do what we can to establish credibility. In many cases I threw perfectly good interviews out because I felt that the person was too interested in giving me the story they thought I wanted to hear rather than what had happened." I'm not saying the allegations shouldn't be in the article. They just need to be stated as allegations. Waters.Justin (talk) 15:17, 22 May 2015 (UTC)

@Waters.Justin. Gutmann is saying he doesn't use information from witnesses he doesn't feel are credible. So it adds to the credibility of his work. Have you talked to Falun Gong from China in a city near you?

When hospitals and other institutions across China admit they are using Falun Gong organs its more than an allegation. Its a confession. Aaabbb11 (talk) 10:23, 25 May 2015 (UTC)

I for one would plump for the wording "Suppression of Falun Gong". It is factual, neutral, without religious overtones, unlike "Persecution of Falun Gong" which is for obvious reasons the preferred choice of advocates of Falun Gong. --Elnon (talk) 12:07, 23 May 2015 (UTC)

@Elnon. Persecution vs Suppression was raised as an issue on the Falun Gong talk page Talk:Falun_Gong on 1 March 2015. There was no debate and it is now in Talk:Falun_Gong/Archive_39. Aaabbb11 (talk) 10:23, 25 May 2015 (UTC)

I have further suggestions on the title:

• Purge of Falun Gong in China
• China's crackdown on Falun Gong

STSC (talk) 16:18, 28 May 2015 (UTC)

1. Defn purge = physically remove (something) completely. That hasn't happened. Its possible the number of FG in China has increased since the persecution began in 1999, so not a good title.

2. Defn crackdown = a series of severe measures to restrict undesirable or illegal people or behaviour. Killing a minimum of tens of thousands of people is more than a severe measure. FG practice truth, compassion and forbearance - not undesirable or illegal. Its the CPC persecuting FG not China. Aaabbb11 (talk) 08:14, 31 May 2015 (UTC)

"Suppression" could work, and I might even prefer it when writing articles. But in terms of article titles, it would raise the question of why we're treating Falun Gong differently than other persecuted minority groups, where "Persecution of x" is the accepted convention. This is an age-old discussion, and each time the Wikipedia convention has been provided as the main reason. I'm not sure we're going to reach any other consensus on a new title here. TheSoundAndTheFury (talk) 17:15, 31 May 2015 (UTC)

Unlike the main religious groups - Christianity or Islam, Falun Gong is just a cult as classified in China. What the Chinese government did was crackdown on a cult inside China. "Persecution" is not a suitable word to describe the government's operations on the illegal activities within its own country. STSC (talk) 17:54, 31 May 2015 (UTC)

Virtually every persecuted religious minority has been classified as a 'cult' (or an equivalent pejorative) by the government that seeks to eliminate them. TheSoundAndTheFury (talk) 18:54, 31 May 2015 (UTC)

Not every cult is harmful. Falun Gong was considered as posing a danger to Chinese society and therefore must be eliminated from China; such process should not be described as "persecution" as if the elimination is undesirable. Wikipedia is neutral and should not make judgement on the Chinese internal policy for the good of its society. STSC (talk) 20:00, 31 May 2015 (UTC)