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Falun Gong is a constant reminder of Chinese oppression

The Chinese government has a long way to go in learning how to treat and respect humanity

A recent Saturday morning, a short, colourful and dignified procession set off from outside the Chinese embassy in Portland Place. It was composed of practitioners and supporters of the Falun Gong movement, a slightly bizarre quasi-religious organisation that believes in meditation and bits of various Eastern religions.

To me, as a mainstream Christian, it may be slightly odd but it is entirely harmless and believes in peace and goodwill and the general well-being of mankind. However, to the Communist Chinese regime it is a major threat to their very survival and needs to be ruthlessly put down in a manner worthy of Hitler’s approach to the "Jewish question".

Why? Because as with all totalitarian regimes the Chinese cannot tolerate any organisation they cannot control, hence their approach to the Roman Catholic Church over recent decades. However, Falun Gong does not have the Pope to defend it, and the wholesale persecution of Falun Gong has gone largely unreported in the West.

Members have suffered spells in labour camps, murder and a particularly brutal Chinese practise; the forced removal of organs for transplant. Falun Gong worshippers are not unique in this respect: Buddhist monks, Tibetan nationalists and political deviants of all kinds continue to suffer. Despite the rise of modern cities, China trails only Burma as the most repressive Asian regime.

Yet, in 2005 Her Majesty the Queen was forced to entertain President Hu Jintao to the full panoply of a State visit. Not since 1978 when President Ceausescu of Romania peed over the wallpaper of Buckingham Palace, has the leader of such a cruel and vicious regime been feted by the British establishment.

The Mayor of London is not alone in spending hundreds of thousands of pounds opening offices in China and encouraging tourists to come to London, but he seems oblivious to the fact that only the "well behaved" are allowed to leave China.

The City Corporation fawns over the People's Republic to the extent that last November I found myself walking the length of the Guildhall Library between the Cardinal Archbishop of Westminster and the Chinese ambassador as we were announced at the Lord Mayor’s Banquet. The Communist functionary looked far better in white tie and tails than I did, and it rather reminded me of King George VI receiving Ribbentrop in the 1930s.

I once visited the Chinese Embassy to meet the ambassador who, at the time, was a rather pleasant chap who had been educated at Ealing technical college in the 1950s and complained that from his first floor office window he could constantly see the permanent demonstration on the pavement opposite.

“That,“ I told the Ambassador, “was the price of democracy.“ However from the sparsely furnished, heavily marbled and thick red carpet (a la Kremlin 1950s) in the embassy, his excellency could not see the irony.

Town Halls up and down the country are besieged by requests from Chinese towns for twinning arrangements and reciprocal visits, but as mayors serve the tea and cucumber sandwiches they do not realise that the polite man who calls himself “vice mayor” is usually the official responsible for sending dissidents off to the Chinese gulag.

The Chinese regime craves recognition, and, sadly, British politicians, businessmen and university vice chancellors are prepared to afford that recognition in exchange for contracts that are helping the Chinese to destroy their environment, persecute their people and stifle democracy.

I am in no doubt that the evil and corrupt regime that currently represses so many of our fellow human beings will fall. Then, perhaps, its many sycophantic supporters in the UK will hang their heads in shame as low as they do now in respect to these Communist butchers.

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17 comments from readers

Ramachandran Vaidyanath
31 July 2007 at 22:07

Dear Mr. Coleman:

I admire your forthrightness, your intuition and clarity of thinking. You can see through the haze and political rhetoric and you refuse to bow down to the almighty dollar, (Sterling Pound or the Yuan). You are a visionary and will be remembered long after your prediction of the downfall of the evil Chinese Communist Party regime. Since you have uncompromisingly forecast it and hastened it, I believe the collapse is not too far off.

The world needs more of your courageous, forthright, visionary ilk.

Ramachandran Vaidyanath

ramvaidya@sympatico.ca

July 31, 2007

charles_liu
31 July 2007 at 22:38

Dear Mr. Coleman:

Falun Gong's "live organ harvesting" allegation has been discredited by multiple undercover investigations:

US embassy in China:

http://www.usembassy.it/pdf/other/RL33437.pdf (section CRS-7)

US State Department:

http://usinfo.state.gov/xarchives/display.html?p=washfile-en...

Long time Chinese dissident Harry Wu:

http://www.zonaeuropa.com/20060806_1.htm

http://www.cicus.org/info_eng/artshow.asp?ID=6491

Sir, please defend human rights with facts. If we in the west can not be precise with our allegation, only resort of nefarious indictment - why should anyone take what we say seriousely?

Sincerely,

Charles Liu

Seattle, WA

USA

Makina
01 August 2007 at 02:32

Bravo Mr. Coleman for this enlightened piece. I couldn't agree more.

I see Charles Liu is really anxious as always to discredit the Kilgour-Matas Bloody Harvest report confirming organ harvesting from live Falun Gong prisoners of conscience across China.

I'm still wondering where is Beijing's answer about the unexplained 41,500 organ transplants from unknown source - mentioned in the Bloody Harvest report? Of course, Beijing will not admit that they are from the peaceful Falun Gong practitioners because that would be admitting to genocide!

Charles, your repetitious spin is based on vicious rumours undoubtedly concocted by the Communist Party and is quite boring. Why on earth would you so stubbornly expand so much effort to support the most murderous regime ever on the web and media? Some people even think you've made a career out of it.

http://organharvestinvestigation.net/media/WesternStandard_0...

Please Charles give you head a shake and smell the ginseng!

Makina
01 August 2007 at 02:47

Oh, I forgot, here's the link for the Bloody Harvest report:

http://organharvestinvestigation.net

It's a must-read! I can almost guarantee that you will not support Beijing 2008 after that.

Timur
01 August 2007 at 06:56

The CCP has deceived its people for too long.. Just like the Qin dynasty demonstrated, when an empire is cruel, it has bad consequences. The destruction of chinese traditional values and culture, massacre of tibetans, tiananmen square massacre, persecution of buddhists, christians, Falun Gong, Muslims, etc.. Torturing, lies, censorship, brainwashing... I can't count all the evil deeds committed by this party. When there are no guiding moral principles to guide a government, it loses its credibility and will fall for sure. The CCP, during its history, had no guiding principles and were ready to do anything just in order to survive. Family members reported each other as traitors.. Good values are welcomed except when they do not advantage the CCP. Chinese people have nothing to do with communism anyway.

KukiSzabolcs
01 August 2007 at 09:54

Dear Mr. Coleman,

First, thank you for your stance. I’m from an ex-communist country from Eastern-European block. I do share the same feeling that it’s absolutely outrageous to support a regime where the leaders are people who think that it is ok to torture and kill people they don’t like, or even worst from whom they can get out a profit.

The number one thing that is needed I think it’s to counter balance the Communist Propaganda and let the truth known. Basically the Communism in China already killed under it’s unelected rule more then 80 million people and currently is keeping in terror more then a billion people, by running the labor camps (ever wondered, why are things so cheap from China?) where Tibetan, Catholics, Falun Gong, Democracy Activist, basically all the positive people, are detained and tortured, and even killed by tens of thousands for their organs.

In the light of the Beijing Olympics and with the huge publicity around it, there is a great opportunity for the people of the world to know about it’s crimes, and thus removing their support and putting pressure on it. It would be great if this stance would be made also by the athletes by refusing to go in a place where human dignity is trampled and this way refusing to help in this trampling of human rights. Lets not forget or ignore that every dollar spent, every positive support given to this regime will be converted to empowering more suppression, more torture and more terror.

Also it would be excellent if independent organizations like Amnesty International and Human Rights Watch, would be permitted go to China and conduct unbarred investigation.

Because we are Humans and thus we should not imagine how it is to live without Human Rights!

Thank You for Every and Any Positive Action of Yours,

Sincerely,

Kuki Szabolcs

Tao
01 August 2007 at 10:00

"To me, as a mainstream Christian, it may be slightly odd but it is entirely harmless and believes in peace and goodwill and the general well-being of mankind."

It is really funny that a man with ignorance can make comments.

lotsofjaffacakes
01 August 2007 at 11:56

Excellent article...for those who want to see the real history and present of China, read Wild Swan's by Jung Chan...it's still banned in China because of her real-life account of the Communist regime.

Tao
01 August 2007 at 17:40

If you want to see the real history and present of China, go directly to China and see with your own eyes, instead of reading articles, reports or books with bias and prejudice.

joe
01 August 2007 at 21:59

yes, a hundred years ago, British went to Middle to fight a war on terrest, went to china to fight a war on drug. what I mean is British behaves like a terrest in Middle East, export opium to china by force. Mr Brian Coleman, a mainstream Christian and a british noble man, what is you opion about that, have you every write some artical about that.

Makina
02 August 2007 at 04:25

Average joe - you're off topic.

Tao - do you have to actually physically go to Paris to believe that the Eiffel tower really exists?

Umpteen human rights groups all agree that China's rights record is the worst than it's ever been. Did it ever occur to you that rewarding dictators and butchers with the honour of hosting the Olympics is morally wrong? Would you give the Olympics to Sudan or Zimbabwe?

What you see with your own eyes in China is a showcase to fool the western world in thinking that they are great. But if you go to China, go off the beaten path for a second and meet the 1 billion poor peasants. The hundreds of thousands whose homes have been bulldozed to make room for the Olympic venues will tell you the truth behind the glossy mirage. Or better still, just go ask Falun Gong.

But again, if you are part of the elite, China is a pretty good place to live in.

Tao
02 August 2007 at 08:41

Makina ,

You need to take a course on logic.

If you haven't ever been on the land to see how people are living, please shut up!

Tao
02 August 2007 at 08:44

"Or better still, just go ask Falun Gong."

Now I know who you are.

KukiSzabolcs
02 August 2007 at 13:26

Of course mr. Tao it's pretty clear who you are as well. Most likely somebody hired to spread the Communist Propaganda, since you were oblivious to answer questions like is it OK to help those who are persecuting, torturing and killing innocent people? From my experience unelected governments do that and if they are binded by the Atheist code (communists that is), they do a lot more. For them there is no such thing that I should really think of the other before thinking for myself.

And it's also pretty interesting how you prefer to deviate the attention from the current ongoing crimes, for which we can do something to something remote in the past of exporting opium, which of course was also a crime, but for which we can not really do much today.

I urge you think it over, after all do you really want to help to build a crime society or would you prefer some real stability for you and your childrens, a place where they are pretty sure that the goverment is not going to retaliate against them?

KukiSzabolcs
02 August 2007 at 13:29

PS: in democracy we hire our government which is quite different from repressive totalitarian regimes, where the government keeps it's people as unquestioning obedient slaves and which has a very wide range and refined ways of punishment.

Jenny
05 August 2007 at 04:45

Yes, the communists in Beijing want to control everything, even people's minds. The latest and possibly most ridiculous example of this is the regime's recent announcement that Tibetan living buddhas are forbidden to reincarnate without permission from Beijing. http://www.timesonline.co.uk/tol/news/world/article2194682.e...

Freedom of belief is anathema to the communist Party, which has an official policy of atheism. The fact that anyone might believe in a power higher than them frightens them immensely. And while they harass and imprison many Uighers, Catholics and Christians, the Party has vowed to "eradicate" Falun Gong. Which means they're carrying out a genocide as we speak. Given this scenario and all the human rights abuses perpetrated on the long-suffering Chinese people, how the IOC could give Beijing the Olympics is beyond me.

Harmonious Fists
30 April 2008 at 11:06

Lies, western lies. More US propoganda to destroy China.

The falun gong is a wacko cult that follows a man who thinks he's a space alien. When they start gassing people in subways everyone will be wanting to know why more was not done to stop them.

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