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.
Re-education through labor,abbreviated laojiao was a system of administrative detention on mainland China. Active from 1957 to 2013,the system was used to detain persons who were accused of committing minor crimes such as petty theft,prostitution,and trafficking of illegal drugs,as well as political dissidents,petitioners,and Falun Gong followers. It was separated from the much larger laogai system of prison labor camps.
Human rights in China are periodically reviewed by the United Nations Human Rights Committee (UNHRC),on which the Chinese Communist Party (CCP),government of the People's Republic of China (PRC) and various foreign governments and human rights organizations have often disagreed. CCP and PRC authorities,their supporters,and other proponents claim that existing policies and enforcement measures are sufficient to guard against human rights abuses. However,other countries and their authorities,international non-governmental organizations (NGOs) including Human Rights in China and Amnesty International,and citizens,lawyers,and dissidents inside the country,state that the authorities in mainland China regularly sanction or organize such abuses.
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.
In the People's Republic of China,Deng Xiaoping formally retired after the 1989 Tiananmen Square protests and massacre,to be succeeded by former Shanghai CCP secretary Jiang Zemin. During that period,also known as Jiangist China,the crackdown of the protests in 1989 led to great woes in China's reputation globally,and sanctions resulted. The situation,however,would eventually stabilize. Deng's idea of checks and balances in the political system also saw its demise with Jiang consolidating power in the party,state and military. The 1990s saw healthy economic development,but the closing of state-owned enterprises and increasing levels of corruption and unemployment,along with environmental challenges continued to plague China,as the country saw the rise to consumerism,crime,and new-age spiritual-religious movements such as Falun Gong. The 1990s also saw the peaceful handover of Hong Kong and Macau to Chinese control under the formula of One Country,Two Systems. China also saw a new surge of nationalism when facing crises abroad.
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:
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.
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.
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 Weiquan movement is a non-centralized group of lawyers,legal experts,and intellectuals in China who seek to protect and defend the civil rights of the citizenry through litigation and legal activism. The movement,which began in the early 2000s,has organized demonstrations,sought reform via the legal system and media,defended victims of human rights abuses,and written appeal letters,despite opposition from the Chinese Communist Party (CCP). Among the issues adopted by Weiquan lawyers are property and housing rights,protection for AIDS victims,environmental damage,religious freedom,freedom of speech and the press,and defending the rights of other lawyers facing disbarment or imprisonment.
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.
Protesters and dissidents in China espouse a wide variety of grievances,most commonly in the areas of unpaid wages,compensation for land development,local environmental activism,or NIMBY activism. Tens of thousands of protests occur each year. National level protests are less common. Notable protests include the 1959 Tibetan uprising,the 1989 Tiananmen Square protests and massacre,the April 1999 demonstration by Falun Gong practitioners at Zhongnanhai,the 2008 Tibetan unrest,the July 2009 Ürümqi riots,and the 2022 COVID-19 protests.
Guo Xiaojun (郭小军)is a Chinese university lecturer and practitioner of Falun Gong who has twice been imprisoned by the government of the People's Republic of China on charges of "using a heretical organization to subvert the law". Amnesty International considers him a prisoner of conscience.
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.
