Why is Falun Gong Persecuted?
It is always the question asked—why would a country want to persecute a spiritual practice that requires people to be truthful, kind and tolerant? It is understandably difficult to comprehend. David Matas, a Canadian human rights lawyer and co-author of a report on illegal organ harvesting from Falun Gong practitioners in China, says it is best understood by looking at the very system under which Chinese people live. “The Communist Party of China [CCP], for no apparent reason other than totalitarian paranoia, sees Falun Gong as an ideological threat to its existence,” he says. “Yet objectively, Falun Gong is just a set of exercises with a spiritual component.” Former Chinese leader Jiang Zemin, credited with initiating the persecution of Falun Gong, illustrates the extent of that paranoia. In a letter written in 1999, but published in “Jiang Zemin’s Article Collection” in 2006, he questions the popularity of Falun Gong and the turnout of thousands of practitioners at Zhongnanhai, the l
