(Clearwisdom.net)

WASHINGTON, Aug. 22--Falungong followers have again [tapped into] a local Chinese television station with broadcasts aimed at countering negative official reports on the banned spiritual movement, sources in China told Radio Free Asia (RFA).

For 10 to 20 minutes on Aug. 17, according to residents of Baiyin City in China's northwestern Gansu Province, Channel 5 of official CCTV aired Falungong images to local viewers. An employee at the Baiyin cable television company, contacted by RFA's Mandarin service, confirmed that the interception had occurred and estimated that it had lasted less than 10 minutes.

Local newspapers in Baiyin didn't report on the incident, said the employee, who asked not to be named.

According to one local resident, the Falungong programming took direct aim at the Chinese leadership, which banned Falungong in July 1999.

"The narration said, '[Chinese President] Jiang Zemin rose to power from the June 4th, 1989 crackdown," said one Baiyin resident. "The video showed the naked back of a person who had been severely beaten... and a group of Falungong followers being pursued by public security. When I went to the Baiyin cable TV station around 10 p.m., public security vehicles were parked outside."

The population of Baiyin was 1.73 million as of 2001, according to the municipal government. How many residents have access to television and might have seen the broadcast wasn't immediately clear.

On several previous occasions, Falungong followers have intercepted Chinese television programming and substituted their own material for broadcast. Nine Falungong practitioners have so far been charged in connection with those incidents, according to China's official Xinhua news agency.

China banned Falungong, which claims tens of millions of followers in China and abroad, in July 1999, after the group staged a massive silent protest [Note: this was an appeal to the central government according to the laws of the PRC, not a protest] outside the main leadership compound in Beijing. [...]

Human rights groups estimate that hundreds of Falungong followers have been jailed and tens of thousands sent to labor camps without trial since then.

Yuan Feng, Falungong spokeswoman in the United States, told RFA she knew nothing about the Baiyin interception. "We do not know how it was done technically, nor are we in direct contact with them. But we feel the Chinese people have the right to know the truth and make a well-informed judgment about Falungong."