July 16, 2005

By The Epoch Times

The former bureau chief of Wuhan Broadcasting and Wuhan TV Station, Zhao Zhizhen, was served with a summons during a recent visit to New Haven, Connecticut. On July 13th, the former television magnate was sued for producing films instigating and inciting hatred, violence, torture, and genocide against Falun Gong practitioners in China.

It is the first lawsuit to argue that perpetrators of propaganda about Falun Gong are also responsible for the genocide and torture of Falun Gong in China, as well as the hate crimes perpetrated against resident Falun Gong practitioners in the US.

The Chinese government, under the leadership of former president Jiang Zemin, has maintained a vicious nation-wide campaign of repression against Falun Gong since the persecution began in 1999. In its 2001 Annual Report on International Religious Freedom, the US Department of State confirmed that the most commonly used tactic by Jiang’s regime to persecute Falun Gong is to apply pressure on family members and employers of known practitioners.

The Complaint filed against Zhao notes, that the “Defendant has played, and continues to play, a major role in seeking to suppress and eradicate the practice of and belief in Falun Gong through a consistent and thoroughgoing policy, and an extensively and brutally applied, illegal and unofficial, pattern and practice of demonizing Falun Gong practitioners (as traitors, criminals, liars, mentally unstable, enemies of the state) in order to incite and instigate security officials in, interalia, police stations, labor camps, mental hospitals to arbitrarily detain, brutally assault, torture, or exterminate practitioners who refuse to relinquish their belief in and practice of Falun Gong.”

The attorney for the plaintiff has said that the Wuhan Broadcasting and TV Bureau and TV Station were given primary responsibility by the PRC to create a climate of “hatred, fear and violence against persons who practice Falun Gong in China and abroad,” using similar propaganda tactics deployed during the massacre of pro-democracy students at Tiananmen Square in June of 1989. Tactics typically used are demonizing the target and painting them with inherently evil qualities.

According to the World Organization to Investigate the Persecution of Falun Gong (WOIPFG), in June 1999, under Zhao’s supervision, the personnel from Wuhan TV Station went to Changchun, the hometown of Falun Gong’s founder Li Hongzhi, and produced a film about Mr. Li. The film was later used as a tool to convince Chinese Communist Party members to persecute Falun Gong. The film has been the main propaganda tool used repeatedly by state-owned media to brainwash the Chinese people and as a basis for the torture and killing of Falun Gong practitioners.

Chen Gang, a plaintiff in the case from Beijing, said that after practicing Falun Gong, his health and personality were improved and he became more diligent at work. However, on July 20, 1999, the local police attempted to force him into giving up the practice. Two days later, all TV channels nationwide started to broadcast Zhao’s film.

“In the next several months, as soon as turning on the TV, one would see this film; picking up any newspaper, one would see the same contents. This overwhelming distorted propaganda made many people who did not understand Falun Gong developed hatred and misunderstanding toward Falun Gong,” says Chen.

“Despite my clarification using my personal experience, many neighbors and colleagues still kept repeating those lies on TV.”

Chen traveled to the Beijing Appeal Bureau to appeal for Falun Gong on November 1, 1999, and was illegally detained at the Chaoyang Detention Center for 30 days. On the night of June 25, 2000, police arrested him while he was in his home and sent him to Tuanhe Forced Labor Camp in Beijing.

Chen said that the influence of Zhao’s film by that time was pervasive. “No matter where I was sent, all the police officers and government officials were talking about things from Zhao’s film. Some people felt that suppressing Falun Gong was not right, however, they chose to accept these slandering propaganda to protect their own benefit and let their consciousness be distorted and destroyed.”

According to Chen, by its demonic characterizations of Falun Gong practitioners and their teacher, the film particularly articulates a framework which renders (unlawful) arrests, torture and violent assaults as a foreseeable consequence. Aired many times a day, on all prime time Chinese Central TV Station (CCTV) network stations in China – in labor camps, in re-education camps, in prisons, military compounds and bases, and police stations since June of 1999, and in the United States via CCTV satellite TV since July of 1999, this program itself has created a climate of hatred and violence.

The WOIPFG has characterized Zhao’s film as the first film that slandered Falun Gong and major “educational material” used in the forceful brainwashing of Falun Gong practitioners. The Chinese government has forced practitioners to agree to and repeat the contents of the film, or face brutal mental and physical torture.

The plaintiffs’ attorney said that the call to commit genocide is itself genocide under the terms of the Convention Against Genocide. Genocide is defined in the Convention as intentional actions taken to destroy, in whole or in part, a national, ethnical, racial or religious group by not only killing members of the group, but also causing serious bodily or mental harm to members of the group.

The WOIPFG’s independent investigation has shown that Zhao is one of the standing committee members of the Chinese Anti-Cult Association (CACA) that was founded on November 11, 2000. According to the investigation, the CACA’s function is to explain the reason of the persecution of Falun Gong to society through media propaganda, provide the theoretical criticism of Falun Gong, and make suggestions to the government regarding the persecution. CACA also directly participates in various persecution activities, and some local CACA offices belong to the 610 Office, the agency formed exclusively for suppressing Falun Gong.