This weekly bulletin is written by an independent media agency that supports Falun Gong and may not always represent Falun Gong's viewpoints. It summarizes news about the persecution of Falun Gong and is sent to worldwide media every week.

FALUN DAFA RADIO TO LAUNCH IN CHINA -- SEE DETAILS BELOW

CHINA CRISIS NEWS BULLETIN #48áááá 6/29/2000

Monitoring News of the Persecution of Falun Gongá
US FALUN DAFA INFORMATION CENTER - Contacts: Gail Rachlin 212-501-8080, Erping Zhang 917-679-6944, Feng Yuan 917-734-6913, or Levi Browde 914-720-0963. Email: usinfo@falundafa.orgá

  • NEW NATIONWIDE SWEEP LEADS TO 1,200 ARRESTS, TORTUREá

  • FALUN DAFA TO LAUNCH RADIO BROADCASTS INTO CHINA JULY 1á

  • CHINESE ARMY OFFICER ARRESTED, SENT TO PSYCHIATRIC HOSPITAL

MASS SWEEP NETS 1,200 ARRESTS AS PROTESTS CONTINUE IN CHINA

HONG KONG (Agence France Press) - Jun 27, 2000 - Chinese police detained at least 1,200 members of the banned Falungong spiritual movement after a series of protests around the country last week, a rights groups said Monday. The Information Center for Human Rights and Democracy also alleged that a Beijing University professor and Falungong member named Zhao Xin was left paralyzed after being tortured by police following her arrest. The Hong Kong-based rights group said the 1,200 were detained between June 18 and June 25 during protests and public demonstrations of Falungong in nine provinces. The statement said she was detained at Qinghe detention center in the Chinese capital where she suffered serious injuries to her cervical vertebra during torture, which left her paralyzed.á

LISTEN UP: WORLD FALUN GONG RADIO GOES ON THE AIR AND THE NET JULY 1, 2000

PRACTITIONERS TO COUNTER CHINA'S ONGOING DEFAMATION, ONE-SIDED PROPAGANDA BLITZ
Falun Gong will take to the shortwave radio band daily for the launch of World Falun Dafa Radio. The hour long broadcasts begin July 1, 10:00-11:00PM (Beijing Time) broadcasting to China in Chinese, on Short Wave 9.915MHz. The program will also be available online at http://falundafaradio.org. According to a Falun Dafa press release: "The goal of World Falun Dafa Radio is to inform the public in China of the true extent and nature of the persecution, to break the information blockage intentionally set by the Chinese authorities, and to help practitioners in China whose basic freedoms have been taken away and whose lives are in danger." The radio is operated by Falun Dafa practitioner volunteers. "Falun Dafa World Radio is a response to pervasive censorship of information", says the statement. "To justify their brutal crackdown, the Chinese government launched an intensive defamation campaign against Falun Gong. It fabricated horror stories and distorted facts to cover the truth. These lies flooded the nation's media and were also distributed internationally. All communications with the outside world were blocked. Pro-Falun Gong web sites were sealed. Telephones were tapped. E-mail was monitored, and foreign reporters were threatened or detained for contacting Falun Gong practitioners."á

CHINESE ARMY OFFICER SENT TO MENTAL HOSPITAL FOR SPIRITUAL BELIEFS

BEIJING (AP) - June 28, 2000 - A Chinese army officer has been committed to a psychiatric hospital for refusing to renounce his belief in Falun Gong, a rights group said Wednesday. Lt. Col. Zhao Xinli was sent last month to an army psychiatric hospital in Beijing where at least five other Falun Gong adherents from the military are being held, the Hong Kong-based Information Center for Human Rights and Democracy said. The group said Zhao took part in a New Year's protest by Falun Gong followers on Beijing's Tiananmen Square.á

CHINA'S COMMUNIST PARTY BLAMES FALUN GONG FOR EXPOSING ITS INTERNAL PROBLEMS

HONG KONG (South China Morning Post) - June 27, 2000 - A three-day national ideological and political work conference begins in Beijing tomorrow as party leaders worry that the political education of cadres has been inadequate, sources said. The conference is considered a major step in the Communist Party's political drive, and observers in Beijing have hailed it as a curtain-raiser to the 16th Communist Party Congress to be held in 2002. The party is scheduled to elect a new leadership at the 2002 congress and President Jiang Zemin is expected to step down as party boss. Sources said the leadership was concerned that political work among cadres had been inadequate. They said the problem was exposed last spring when more than 10,000 Falun Gong members surprised the authorities by staging a protest in Beijing to demand official recognition...á

DELAYED REPORT: CHINA SLOWED NATION'S INTERNET TO AID CRACKDOWN

Received June 27: Asia Internet.com (Hong Kong May 15, 2000-) Internet access in Beijing slowed to a crawl late last week as China attempted to halt online celebrations of Saturday's World Falun Gong Day and stifle the banned movement's ability to organize electronically. Dial-up services including Capital Online's 263 service connected at such a slow rate that users of Web-based email sites like Hotmail received time-out messages before ever connecting to their accounts. However, dial-ups that provide access only to domestic China sites with ".com.cn" designation, including Beijing Telecom's 169, were unaffected.á

COMING SOON: A NEW HALF-HOUR VIDEO "FALUN GONG THE REAL STORY, PART 2"

Featuring information and analysis from leading China experts, Human Rights organizations, prominent political and religious leaders and, most importantly never before seen footage of interviews with practitioners inside China.á

US FALUN DAFA INFORMATION CENTER - Contacts: Gail Rachlin 212-501-8080, Erping Zhang 917-679-6944, Feng Yuan 917-734-6913, or Levi Browde 914-720-0963. Email: usinfo@falundafa.orgá

Category: Accounts of Persecution