Beijing is targeting Falun Gong refugees in the United States

NEW YORK – Chinese authorities are trying to track down Falun Gong practitioners in the United States who have fled the persecution of the Chinese regime, and collect their foreign addresses and other personal data. This is what we have been communicating with Afternoon times By many practitioners of spiritual discipline.

Harassment of the Falun Gong community in China by the Communist Party has been the rule since the regime began Persecution campaign Decades against the group, subjecting millions of people to various violations, torture, imprisonment, forced labor, and even forced organ harvesting. According to its website, Falun Gong is a self-improvement practice rooted in Buddhist tradition and underpinning the values ​​of “honesty, compassion, and patience.”

In recent weeks, especially when the “two sessions” were held in China – the regime’s most important annual meeting – the police have lobbied to obtain personal information about Falun Gong practitioners from their families in China, threatening to disrupt their normal activities if they refuse. To obey.

For example, Ling Jili, a Falun Gong practitioner who sought refuge in the United States from Xinjiang five years ago, said that when her parents were in China, after selling their home, they needed to modernize the place. Residing with the Chinese local police, the police refused this routine three times, explains Ling: “On the first day, they didn’t. Then they asked for my address and phone number. The next time, they asked me to take a picture with my son with our ID documents. Local for my name, what I do, and what is my business […] What school does my son go to? They asked for everything. ‘

Ling is far from being the only Chinese to be forced to live under state control even after taking refuge abroad. Practitioners from Beijing, Guizhou, Guangdong and Shandong provinces reported similar experiences.

A rock on my heart

The intimidation and censorship of the Chinese regime appears to match what was described in an internal government document leaked in 2015 from Liaoning Province, in which officials order the collection of full information on Falun Gong practitioners who have left China, including: Chinese and foreign names, photographs and identity documents. New such as green cards and key details for their families in China.

The document instructed villages and local business units to “analyze each individual based on their relationships in China and create customized action plans” with the approval of the central government authorities.

A document issued in 2020 by the Standing Committee of the “ Rubber Seal ” of the Chinese legislature, the National People’s Congress, highlights that the Chinese Communist Party (CCP) still sees the suppression of Falun Gong as a major issue for its political stability.

Peng Yongfeng, who was a human rights lawyer before leaving China, explains A. Afternoon times: There was never a true rule of law under the CCP. They only have one ultimate goal: to collect and archive as much information as possible from Chinese communities in order to maximize their control over the population. ”

As for Ling – who was arrested several times for her belief in China, also her hands were tied to a wooden plank and Chinese prison guards burned her with electric batons – police surveillance re-raised her fears: As if I had returned to China – Ling says, recalling how she felt when she learned Accident from her father – all night long, I felt like a rock was crushing my heart. I felt they could come and arrest me the next day.

In Xinjiang, Falun Gong practitioners and other ethnic and religious minorities have been placed in concentration camps for refusing to renounce their beliefs or conform to the party’s ideas. After she finished her labor camp, Ling says, she still had to submit a weekly report to the local authorities: “I felt like I was being watched,” referring to the weekly reports to the police station. The police regularly visited her at home or called her to investigate her activities. So she feels lucky to have escaped abroad. In fact, she has a friend, also a Falun Gong practitioner, who has been barred from leaving Xinjiang despite having obtained an entry visa to the United States.

A Falun Gong practitioner from Guizhou, who requested anonymity to protect the safety of his family, reported that his village committee had recently requested his date of birth, address in the United States, and details of his workplace. Village officials told her family that they were counting the population. However, the man left China two decades ago and has not lived in the area for more than 30 years.

Li Ping, a Falun Gong practitioner from Shandong, who now lives in New York, told me Afternoon times That the police in his hometown called his mother, pretending she wanted to know his workplace and his life now, as well as his opinion on issues related to China: “How can the Chinese Communist Party control what people think?”

Ping explained that the behavior of the Chinese police with the Li family is a testament to the “extreme” nature of the regime’s governance model: “They say that, regardless of whether you are in China or abroad, as long as you are Chinese, you are under the authority of the Chinese government. They treat Falun Gong as an enemy.” Them because they know what awaits them when Falun Gong’s efforts make people aware of who they are. “

The article is in English: Beijing is targeting Falun Gong refugees in the United States, and is tracking their whereabouts