For the past 13 years Falun Gong practitioners in China have been put in forced labour camps and jails for their beliefs. More and more regular Chinese citizens are opposing this persecution, and calling on the CCP to release them.
From 1999, Chinese Communist leader Jiang Zemin ordered a crackdown on Falun Gong. According to the CCP's own surveys at the time, more than 70 million people had begun the spiritual practice.
[Former Shandong University Professor Sun Wenguang]male first soundbite
:"After more than ten years [of persecution], everybody has seen that Falun Gong practitioners still adhere to Truthfulness, Compassion and Tolerance. This belief should be respected by people. Now the Chinese people who have been indoctrinated by communist ideology for decades are more selfish and less and less concerned about society as a whole. The pursuit of truth has been diluted."
As a result of the massive propaganda campaign that was launched to defame Falun Gong, people have been afraid to even talk about Falun Gong. But for the last two years, more and more individual Chinese people are standing up to appeal for the release of Falun Gong practitioners who have been vilified and attacked for no reason.
[ Mainland China Scholer Qi Yanchen]
:"This shows that people are changing from being afraid of Falun Gong [due to the propaganda] to gradually accepting practitioners--from staying away from them as if to escape a plague to now some people even joking with them, or sitting down and having a heart to heart talk. These details show that people believe those who practice Falun Gong are innocent people with good character."
Other than in Hebei Province where around 300 villagers signed their names to a petition, stamped with red wax, calling for the release of fellow resident, Wang Xiaodong, similar petitions have appeared in Liaoning Provice appealing for the release of Zhang Guoxiang. A petition from Fushun City to appeal for the release of Zheng Hongying said:
"Good people should not be in prison. Ordinary people call for justice and conscience."
[ Mainland China Scholer Qi Yanchen]:"We first have to acknowledge the overall moral bankruptcy of Chinese society [caused by the CCP]. We can falsify a spacecraft story, poison can be put in children's milk, even buns we eat everyday have problems. Food is so dangerous. The entire social morality has collapsed, which creates a lot of worries for people. Then they see Falun Gong practitioners [who are being persecuted] and their personal moral character is beyond reproach."
According the report from Clearwisdom.com--a website that documents cases of persecution against Falun Gong practitioners in China--the family of Zhou Xiangyang, a Falun Gong practitioner from Tianjin, says that Gangbei jail is torturing him. Twenty three hundred people from his hometown signed a petition letter to rescue him. It is the largest of such events so far. After Xiangyang's wife, Li Shanshan was arrested another five hundred people signed a petition letter for her release.
Mainland China scholar Qi Yanchen says, the reason Mainland Chinese people are switching from discriminating against Falun Gong practitioners to supporting them, is that they follow the principle of Truthfulness, Compassion and Tolerance. Practitioners apply this principle to their daily life, and people can see that they hold themselves to a high moral standard.
NTDTV Liang Xin, Jia Shan reports
