Throughout the persecution, Tiananmen Square in Beijing has been a focal point. Hundreds of thousands, if not millions, of Falun Gong practitioners have come to the vast square from all over China and the world to stage petitions, unfurl banners declaring the innocence of Falun Gong, demonstrate the Falun Gong exercises, and simply proclaim: “Falun Gong is wonderful!” For this simple and peaceful expression of opinion, they have suffered tremendously. Almost all were beaten by police or hired thugs, who felt no inhibition in the presence of thousands of tourists on the Square; some were beaten to unconsciousness, while some were beaten to death on the spot; children and the elderly were assaulted with full force; pregnant women were kicked in their abdomens. The attacks were usually so violent and forceful that the victims were silenced in less than a minute. Yet, for just that brief moment, practitioners kept coming and coming, despite the consequences. This seemed puzzling to foreign journalists: Could it be worthwhile? What was this all about?
On September 29, 1999, practitioners demonstrated the Falun Gong exercises at Tiananmen Square as a peaceful appeal to the general public. Policemen rushed over to force practitioners into the police van.
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For Chinese, Tiananmen Square, the “Heavenly Peace Gate” Square, is sacred. The modern history of China is considered to have begun with a student-led patriotic demonstration in Tiananmen Square back in 1919. Several other demonstrations with historical impact, including the 1976 and 1989 pro-democracy demonstrations, also took place in the Square. Tiananmen Square is therefore regarded as a sanctified ground for patriotism, sacrifice, and the last resort to appeal to public conscience.
The sudden descent of terror threw the lives of Falun Gong practitioners into a tailspin, but could not take away their internal conviction and commitment to being good people. After the initial shock, and trusting that the government would halt the persecution if they could clear up the officials’ misunderstanding about Falun Gong, practitioners all over China started to converge at the State Council Bureau of Appeal to hand in their petitions, explaining how Falun Gong is beneficial and can only make positive contributions to society. The kindhearted practitioners soon discovered that the State Council Bureau of Appeal had been turned into a detention center: the “State Council Bureau of Appeal” sign was taken down, and those who asked for directions were tricked into waiting police vans and escorted to detention centers, with no chance to submit their petitions.
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A policeman grabs one practitioner’s unfurled banner, as other Falun Gong practitioners unfurl their banners nearby.
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As more and more practitioners came, the authorities issued a ban on coming to the State Council Bureau of Appeal to petition for Falun Gong and ordered local governments to enforce the ban. This was another unconstitutional order and a shocking step back to the Cultural Revolution. The State Council Bureau of Appeal was set up after the Cultural Revolution as a way to help resolve those “frame-up, sham, and unjust cases” and for the wronged to address their grievances. There were literally millions of such cases at that time, and establishments at different levels tried to cover up and escape responsibility. In response to the outcry from the whole society, the State Council Bureau of Appeal was established to receive complaints directly from the victims, circumventing layers and layers of obstacles. Referred to as “heaven’s ears” by Chinese citizens, this mechanism played a key role in settling the social discontent that resulted from the Cultural Revolution, and the right to address grievances to the State Council Bureau of Appeal was subsequently written into China’s constitution. The brazen stripping of this constitutional right, and the appalling beatings of practitioners caught traveling to Beijing by different levels of authorities, unmistakably signaled to the practitioners that the government was not at all interested in what they had to say. The practitioners were left with no choice but the last resort of appealing to public conscience – and where more symbolic than in Tiananmen Square?
The first known demonstration by Falun Gong practitioners was on September 29, 1999. The night before, a group of practitioners from different parts of China gathered at Tsinghua University, calmly took pictures, wrote down what they were going to do, e-mailed their plans to people they knew overseas, and the next morning, they went!
On the Square, they chose to display the second set of Falun Gong exercises. This was probably the longest demonstration practitioners were able to stage; according to one participant, time seemed to freeze at that moment. Completely unprepared, the police took a while to react; and unprepared for how to react, the police showed their true face, kicking, beating, wrestling, and eventually manhandling all of the peaceful practitioners. We do not have a complete name list of these practitioners, and we do not know their whereabouts; however, their heroism and that solemn moment are imprinted in history forever.
The public demonstrations in Tiananmen Square were disastrous for Jiang Zemin. From August to October, 1999, Jiang traveled abroad frequently. Among other things on his agenda, he tried to sway world opinion with his version of “handling the Falun Gong issue” and entice other governments’ cooperation with his persecution through giving away business interests and territory claims. Feeling confident, and contrary to his later rejection of international criticism as “interfering with internal policy,” he personally passed out booklets that smeared Falun Gong to leaders of other governments, and offered interviews on the subject of Falun Gong to the international media, thus inviting international attention to the Falun Gong issue and to his ability to handle crises.
The continuous demonstrations by Falun Gong practitioners not only deflated Jiang’s claim of having solved 98% of “the Falun Gong problem,” but also unmasked his fairy tale of “education and affection” in “solving” the “problem.” People, including international reporters, started to wonder: if the police can be this violent in broad daylight, what will they not do behind the closed doors of jails, detention centers, and labor camps?
The practitioners’ sacrifices, however, were tremendous. Not only were those on the Square brutalized, but those suspected of having the “inclination” to travel to Beijing were rounded up by local authorities and coerced into signing the so-called “double pledges”: pledge to renounce Falun Gong and pledge not to appeal for Falun Gong. Those who refused to comply were tortured, some to death.
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Two policemen kick and drag one practitioner who is appealing on Tiananmen Square, while a plainclothes officer grasps the practitioner’s yellow banner.
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However, Falun Gong practitioners continued to stage petition after petition on Tiananmen Square. In October, an enraged Jiang ordered the Chinese national legislature to pass a law to legitimize a tougher persecution. The Washington Post noted in an article on November 2, 1999, that “When [China's Communist leaders] found themselves without the laws they needed to vigorously persecute a peaceful meditation society, the Party simply ordered up some new laws. Now these will be applied – retroactively, of course… By these standards, Stalin was a scrupulous observer of civil rights.”
At the same time, Jiang ordered all levels of government to stop practitioners from going to Tiananmen Square, and those officials who failed to do so would be demoted. Precious resources were diverted to set up checkpoints at airports, train and bus stations, public highways, and even hotels to intercept Falun Gong practitioners. To pass the checkpoints, travelers were required to curse Falun Gong, or to spit on or step on Falun Gong books, and anyone who refused would be detained.
To further diminish practitioners’ ability to travel to Beijing, Jiang issued an order to “destroy their reputation, bankrupt them financially, and exterminate them physically.” The cruelty of this order was amplified by the greed of local officials, who took the opportunity to loot or seize practitioners’ homes, personal property, and businesses, and to extort large amounts of ransom from the families of those they arrested. The oppression by local tyrants sometimes had the effect of compelling practitioners to go to Beijing, because they could not safely remain at home and had nothing left but grievances to address.
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Plainclothes police seizing Falun Gong practitioners at Tiananmen Square during their peaceful appeal.
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With no money, no help, no map, and no compass, many practitioners started to walk or bike to Beijing. Scaling mountains, crossing the wilderness, sleeping under trees, begging for food, and avoiding checkpoints, they went to Beijing step by step and one by one. Along the way, they were intercepted by ferocious policemen, by misinformed locals, and by patrol teams recruited to hunt them. But they were also helped by kindhearted people, by those who were willing to listen to their side of the story, and by those who looked in their eyes and found not bitterness but peace. After their few seconds on Tiananmen Square, they refused to give out their names and addresses to the interrogating police, or they would be escorted back and it would be months before they could walk to Beijing again.
It is important to note that these appeals all happened spontaneously. From its past despotic experiences, the Chinese government thought it could paralyze the Falun Gong “organization” by arresting all the important “leaders.” What the government could never understand is that Falun Gong genuinely has no organization. While practitioners may know each other, their decisions and actions are completely from their own hearts, their own initiatives, and their own determination to speak the truth.
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