Falun Gong, Spiritual Opium Coated in 'Religion': Self-Immolation Survivors

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Last updated at: (Beijing Time) Wednesday, April 10, 2002

Falun Gong, Spiritual Opium Coated in 'Religion': Self-Immolation Survivors

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According to the news of 8 April 2002 from Zhengzhou, 3 April saw Wang Jindong and Xue Hongjun, the "Falun Gong Cult" members who participated and instigated self-immolation incident in Tian'anmen Square on 23 January of last year accepted the interview of Chinese and foreign reporters in the jail of Zhengzhou, Henan Province. They said that the "Falun Gong" is the spiritual opium garbed as "religion".

Three "Falun Gong Cultists" participated in the self-burning incident in Tian'anmen Square and are now serving the sentence in the jail of Zhengzhou. Unlike Wang and Xue one by the name of Liu Yunfang is still deeply involved in the "Falun Gong" quagmire.

The interview started at 3:30 p.m. of 3 April 2002 in a spacious meeting room of the Zhengzhou jail after Wang and Xue had been brought into the room at 3:15 p.m.

When a reporter asked Wang "For what purpose did you go to burn yourself in Tian'anmen Square?"

"For 'consummation', as the highest attainment of 'Falun Gong' is 'consummation'. Now I know the so-called 'consummation' by Li Hongzhi is a sheer cheating. Burning oneself won't achieve 'consummation', 'ascending to heaven' but will bring harm to myself."

"For what purpose did you start to practice 'Falun Gong'?"

"For keeping myself fit. The purpose is very simple. However, later on Li Hongzhi said mankind would undergo a big catastrophe and 'Falun Gong' could help avoid it. In this sense 'Falun Gong' has actually overstepped the purpose of keeping fit," said Wang Jindong.

When he was told that: "The 'Falun Gong' organization outside China said that you were not 'Falun Gong' disciple and the 'self-burning' was organized by the government."

Wang Jindong answered calmly: "I've learned of this and the fact is very clear they are rumours spread by some people with ulterior motives."

"I have been Wang's close friend for decades. At that time many people said that 'Falun Gong' was a good thing and so I asked somebody to buy a book of "Turning the Wheel of Law" and gave it to him (Wang) and I thought this was good for him. Who knows I did harm to him for which I'll repent for all my life to come," said Xue Hongjun sitting by the side.

Xue Hongjun, one of the main instigators who organized the self-burning incident in Tian'anmen Square keeps a fresh memory of the incident. About this he said, "At that time I and Wang Jindong, a group of 'Falun Gong' disciples had been practicing it for more than a year and had never gone out 'doing promoting it'. Li Hongzhi gave us orders from the net and wanted us the disciples to ignore life and death and go out promoting it so as to achieve so-called 'consummation'. And by that time for most of the disciple friends to go to perform self-burning in Tian'anmen Square was already an irresistible trend so as to attain 'consummation'." But Xue Hongjun later failed to go there. He said: "I didn't go there myself because I was at the lower level compared with Wang and that's the same worth as not having been there and of no significance had I gone. But when I saw on the TV screen the disastrous scene of self-burning in the Tian'anmen Square I was greatly shocked. The so-called 'consummation' was no more than the tragic scene of Wang Jindong and others being seriously burnt. This is the true face of 'Falun Gong'."

When the reporter asked Wang Jindong: "Somebody said that your wife and daughter were faking and they were "temporarily organized" and even the scars on your face were not true and they were just make-up." Wang Jindong said indignantly: "Whoever doesn't believe can touch my face to see whether it's true or not."

Speaking of this, he at once fetched out m an album which contained a picture of his family including his wife and daughter and said, "We've been married more than 20 years. At that time there was no 'Falun Gong' at all in China."

In the introduction Wang Jindong and Xue Hongjun said they were fairly well treated in the Zhengzhou jail and the "��police take great concern over us, and never swear at or scorn us." Wang Hongjun said, "The life in the prison is arranged in a regular way and we have enough time to read and write and papers and TV shows are available. Xue Hongjun and I myself have already taken part in the national self-study examination for institutes of high learning. I took part in the study of philosophy and Xue did the Chinese course."

At the request of the reporters the prison made an exceptional arrangement for the reporters to see the room in which Wang and Xue are jailed. If you say it's a jail there's no iron-gate as normally seen in a prison. The white walls, clean ground and the squarely folded quilt looking very much like a piece of bean-curd and the windows are netted off with a net of thin wires like the anti-theft screen-net of a normal household. Outside of the window one can see a spacious drill ground. Placed in the room of over 20 square meters are four double-decked crates but for the moment shared by only two of them. When the reporters stepped into the prison-room Wang was reading a philosophy book while Xue was practicing his Chinese handwriting with a pen.

Wang Jindong said, "He and I are both over 50 years old now and we'd like to make a fresh start in life by using the service of the sentence as our school-term to make ourselves useful for society."

By People's Daily Online

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