Falun Gong or Falun Dafa is a new religious movement. Falun Gong was founded by its leader Li Hongzhi in China in the early 1990s. Falun Gong has its global headquarters in Dragon Springs,a 427-acre (1.73 km2) compound in Deerpark,New York,United States,near the residence of Li Hongzhi.
Li Hongzhi is a Chinese religious leader. He is the founder and leader of Falun Gong,or Falun Dafa,a United States-based new religious movement. Li began his public teachings of Falun Gong on 13 May 1992 in Changchun,and subsequently gave lectures and taught Falun Gong exercises across China.
New Tang Dynasty Television is a multilingual American television broadcaster founded by adherents of the Falun Gong new religious movement and based in New York City. The station was founded in 2001 as a Chinese-language broadcaster,but has since expanded its language offerings;in July 2020,it launched its 24/7 English channel which now broadcasts nationwide in the U.S. and UK. It is under the Epoch Media Group,a consortium which also includes the newspaper The Epoch Times. The Epoch Media Group's news sites and YouTube channels have promoted conspiracy theories such as QAnon,anti-vaccine misinformation and false claims of fraud in the 2020 United States presidential election.
The Epoch Times is a far-right international multi-language newspaper and media company affiliated with the Falun Gong new religious movement. The newspaper,based in New York City,is part of the Epoch Media Group,which also operates New Tang Dynasty (NTD) Television. The Epoch Times has websites in 35 countries but is blocked in mainland China.
The 610 Office was a security agency in the People's Republic of China. Named for the date of its creation on June 10,1999,it was established for the purpose of coordinating and implementing the persecution of Falun Gong. The 610 Office was the implementation arm of the Central Leading Group on Dealing with the Falun Gong (CLGDF),also known as the Central Leading Group on Dealing with Heretical Religions,a leading small group of the Chinese Communist Party (CCP). Because it was a CCP-led office with no formal legal mandate,it is sometimes described as an extralegal organisation.
Freedom of religion in China may be referring to the following entities separated by the Taiwan Strait:
The Sujiatun Thrombosis Hospital,officially known as the Liaoning Provincial Thrombosis Treatment Center of Integrated Chinese and Western Medicine,is a public hospital opened in December 1988 in the Sujiatun district of Shenyang,in northeast China. The hospital is a joint venture with a company associated with the Malaysian government,and has gained several awards for research.
Falun Gong,also called Falun Dafa,is a spiritual practice and system of beliefs that combines the practice of meditation with the moral philosophy articulated by its leader and founder,Li Hongzhi. It emerged on the public radar in the Spring of 1992 in the northeastern Chinese city of Changchun,and was classified as a system of qigong identifying with the Buddhist tradition. Li claimed to have both supernatural powers like the ability to prevent illness,as well having eternal youth and promised that others can attain supernatural powers and eternal youth by following his teachings. Falun Gong initially enjoyed official sanction and support from Chinese government agencies,and the practice grew quickly on account of the simplicity of its exercise movements,impact on health,the absence of fees or formal membership,and moral and philosophical teachings.
Falun Gong,a new religious movement that combines meditation with the moral philosophy articulated by founder Li Hongzhi,first began spreading widely in China in 1992. Li's first lectures outside mainland China took place in Paris in 1995. At the invitation of the Chinese ambassador to France,he lectured on his teachings and practice methods to the embassy staff and others. From that time on,Li gave lectures in other major cities in Europe,Asia,Oceania,and North America. He has resided permanently in the United States since 1998. Falun Gong is now practiced in some 70 countries worldwide,and the teachings have been translated to over 40 languages. The international Falun Gong community is estimated to number in the hundreds of thousands,though participation estimates are imprecise on account of a lack of formal membership.
Li Hongzhi published the Teachings of Falun Gong in Changchun,China in 1992. They cover a wide range of topics ranging from spiritual,scientific and moral to metaphysical.
Sound of Hope (SOH) is an international Chinese-language radio network. Along with New Tang Dynasty Television and The Epoch Times,it is part of a network of media organizations established by practitioners of the Falun Gong new religious movement. SOH serves the Chinese diaspora in US,Europe,Australia,Japan and South Korea via AM/FM radio and Chinese people in China via shortwave radio.
The Tiananmen Square self-immolation incident took place in Tiananmen Square in central Beijing,on the eve of Chinese New Year on 23 January 2001. There is controversy over the incident;Chinese government sources say that five members of Falun Gong,a new religious movement that is banned in mainland China,set themselves on fire in the square. Falun Gong sources disputed the accuracy of these portrayals,and claimed that their teachings explicitly forbid violence or suicide. Some journalists have claimed that the self-immolations were staged.
Masanjia Labor Camp is a "re-education" through labor camp located in the Yuhong district near Shenyang,in the Liaoning province of China. The facility is sometimes called the Ideology Education School of Liaoning Province.
The Kilgour–Matas report is a 2006/2007 investigative report into allegations of live organ harvesting in China conducted by Canadian MP David Kilgour and human rights lawyer David Matas. The report was requested by the Coalition to Investigate the Persecution of Falun Gong (CIPFG) after allegations emerged that Falun Gong practitioners were secretly having their organs removed against their will at Sujiatun Thrombosis Hospital. The report,based on circumstantial evidence,concluded that "there has been,and continues today to be,large-scale organ seizures from unwilling Falun Gong practitioners." China has consistently denied the allegations.
The persecution of Falun Gong is the campaign initiated in 1999 by the Chinese Communist Party (CCP) to eliminate the spiritual practice of Falun Gong in China,maintaining a doctrine of state atheism. It is characterized by a multifaceted propaganda campaign,a program of enforced ideological conversion and re-education and reportedly a variety of extralegal coercive measures such as arbitrary arrests,forced labor and physical torture,sometimes resulting in death.
Falun Gong is a spiritual practice taught by Li Hongzhi. Practicing Falun Gong or protesting on its behalf is forbidden in Mainland China,yet the practice remains legal in Hong Kong,which has greater protections of civil and political liberties under “One country,Two systems.”Since 1999 practitioners in Hong Kong have staged demonstrations and protests against the Chinese government,and assisted those fleeing persecution in China. Nonetheless,Falun Gong practitioners have encountered some restrictions in Hong Kong as a result of political pressure from Beijing. The treatment of Falun Gong by Hong Kong authorities has often been used as a bellwether to gauge the integrity of the one country two systems model.
Free China:The Courage to Believe is a 2012 documentary film about the persecution of Falun Gong,starring Jennifer Zeng and Dr. Charles Lee.
Ethan Gutmann is an American writer,researcher,author,and a senior research fellow in China Studies at the Victims of Communism Memorial Foundation whose work has investigated surveillance and organ harvesting in China.
Allegations of forced organ harvesting from Falun Gong practitioners and other political prisoners in China have raised concern within the international community. According to a report by former lawmaker David Kilgour,human rights lawyer David Matas and journalist Ethan Gutmann of the Victims of Communism Memorial Foundation,political prisoners,mainly Falun Gong practitioners,are being executed "on demand" in order to provide organs for transplant to recipients. Reports have said that organ harvesting has been used to advance the Chinese Communist Party's persecution of Falun Gong and because of the financial incentives available to the institutions and individuals involved in the trade. A report by The Washington Post has disputed some of the allegations,saying that China does not import sufficient quantities of immunosuppressant drugs,used by transplant recipients,to carry out such quantities of organ harvesting. However,a group of experts stated that the Post's article made an “elementary statistical error”and omitted unofficial pharmacy data in Chinese hospitals.
Vision China Times Australia is a Chinese language newspaper owned by the Vision Times Media (Australia) Corporation Pty Ltd. Vision China Times Australia was established as a weekly newspaper in Australia in July 2006,based on a widely-read overseas Chinese news website,secretchina.com,which was launched in 2001 in the United States and is known as Vision Times or Kanzhongguo. The newspaper has been described as part of the media outreach of Falun Gong,an anti-communist new religious movement,although this has been contested by the paper's Australian editorial team.
