Speech by the Excutive Director of Friends of Falun Gong in Washington, D.C.
[Photo caption: Alan Adler, executive director of Friends of Falun Gong, speaks at a Falun Gong rally on Capitol Hill.]
Sixteen years ago, the former leader of the Chinese Communist Party, Jiang Zemin, launched a persecutory campaign at a peaceful group of citizens simply because they practiced a popular form of qigong called Falun Gong that had been sweeping the country.
This ill-fated attack turned the country upside down and unleashed the worst elements of the largest state in known history, a state that had been overtaken and held in a death grip by communism, a state that had become practiced at slander and deceit, cruelty, and murder and one that had beaten or run off all of its voices of dissent.
Jiang unleashed the cruelty and deceit of the CCP at Falun Gong and thought they would give up and be defeated quickly, but there were some things Jiang did not know about Falun Gong that caused him to make a mistake in his calculations.
Those people who had been practicing Falun Gong had not only been practicing qigong but studying the principles encompassed by Truthfulness, Compassion, and Forbearance. They had not only been studying Truthfulness, Compassion, and Forbearance but also they had been putting them into practice in any and every situation they could.
They had not only been following Truthfulness, Compassion, and Forbearance in their lives but they had allowed them to melt into their hearts and minds. With a deep understanding of these principles, one learns that, although deceit can poison people’s minds and cause people to misunderstand you, Truthfulness eventually penetrates the fog of deceit and exposes the lies. Although cruelty can cause harm and destruction, it can be defeated by the power of Compassion, and although Jiang thought the massive pressure brought to bear by the CCP through cruelty and deceit against Falun Gong would cause them to give up their practice, he did not understand that, with enough Forbearance, one can endure the unendurable and that the Falun Gong practitioners would never give up.
Here we stand 16 years later, unbowed by the pressure. With Compassion we have told the truth of our situation and the Truth is penetrating through deceit. Now many people throughout the world have understood that the fabrications made up by the CCP to justify their cruelty against Falun Gong are all lies. Now the lies and the cruelty are coming home to roost at the feet of the man who first unleashed them.
Now Jiang will face justice for the genocide he began. In a historically unprecedented event, tens of thousands of criminal complaints have been filed against Jiang in China in the last several weeks. Although the outcome of those complaints is unclear, what is clear is that the tide of history has turned against Jiang and his persecution. It is unclear how much longer the persecution of Falun Gong will continue, but it is clear that Falun Gong practitioners will never give up. We will keep telling the Truth with Compassion for as long as it takes to end the persecution.
I would like to thank the elected United States government officials and representatives from human rights organizations who are standing together with us today to help us end the persecution and human rights violations perpetrated by the CCP. I hope everyone will listen closely and attentively to their perspectives and testimony.
Thank you.