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| The card reads, "Falun Dafa practitioners in the government departments in Jilin Province respectfully wish Revered Master a Happy Chinese New Year! (Minghui.org) |
Since 2001, during each Chinese New Year Falun Gong practitioners from around the world send tens of thousands of greeting cards to a Falun Gong website to express their fondness and appreciation for Mr. Li Hongzhi, the founder of Falun Gong (also known as Falun Dafa). These New Year’s greetings also express something else: the endurance of this spiritual practice in the face of persecution.
The majority of greetings come from mainland China. They come from all parts of China and cover all segments of society, including members of the government, military, law enforcement, police, national security, education, health, and other official sectors.
The beautifully crafted greeting cards are a bright highlight on Clearwisdom.net, the English-language version of the Chinese-language site minghui.org, to which the cards are first sent by email.
These sites are maintained by practitioners as a forum for exchanging their understandings of Falun Gong, as an introduction to and history of the spiritual practice, and to document the persecution of the group by the Chinese regime. Individuals in China use special software to circumvent the regime’s Internet blockade to post their messages.
Greetings come not only from Falun Gong practitioners, but also from families and friends of practitioners, people who have benefited from Falun Gong, and those who wish to express their support and esteem for Mr. Li. In a sign of respect, he is usually addressed in the greetings as “shifu,” a traditional term meaning “teacher” or “master.”
Mr. Li first taught Falun Gong in public in the northeastern city of Changchun in 1992. In only seven years, Falun Gong spread to every corner of Mainland China. According to official Chinese state reports at the time, between 70 and 100 million people were practicing the exercises and studying the Falun Gong teachings, which are based on the principles of truthfulness, compassion, and tolerance.
In 1998 in a survey of ten thousand practitioners done in Beijing, 98 percent reported significant health improvements. A survey conducted by the Chinese People’s Congress before 1999 concluded that Falun Gong is beneficial for any person, any organization, any society, with “hundreds of benefits and no harm,” is a “teaching of high moral standards” that will benefit the country and the people, and should be actively promoted.
However, on July 20, 1999, the Chinese Communist Party (CCP), under former Party head Jiang Zemin, launched an unlawful persecution of Falun Gong. Jiang feared that the number of Falun Gong practitioners exceeded the number of communist party members and that the Chinese people would prefer the teachings of Falun Gong to the doctrines of the CCP.
During the past 12 years, the CCP has used vast resources to persecute Falun Gong and carry out a massive smear campaign directed at the practice, Mr. Li, and practitioners, while hiding from the Chinese people the true character of the persecution. According to the Falun Dafa Information Center (FDIC), at any one time, hundreds of thousands of practitioners are locked up in prisons and labor camps, where they are subjected to hard labor, torture, and mental abuse.
To date, the identities of 3,427 Falun Gong practitioners, who died from torture and abuse in custody, have been confirmed. The true number of deaths from torture and abuse is estimated by FDIC to be in the tens of thousands.
In addition, according to the book “Bloody Harvest” by former Canadian secretary of state David Kilgour and the international human rights lawyer David Matas, practitioners are the most likely source for 41,500 organ transplantations that occurred between 2000 and 2005. Those whose organs are harvested in this way are killed in the process. According to Kilgour and Matas, the practice of using practitioners for organ harvesting is still going on.
The thousands of colorful and elaborate cards sent to minghui.org are evidence that, after twelve years of harsh persecution, Falun Gong is still vigorous in mainland China. The greetings sent by those who do not practice Falun Gong suggest that the practitioners in China have persuaded members of Chinese society that the propaganda attacking Falun Gong is false.
For the Falun Gong practitioners and citizens of China who send these greetings, happy New Year celebrates much more than the passing of the seasons.
