A report released by the banned movement offers horrific details of the continuing persecution.
by Massimo Introvigne
18 of the 96 Falun Gong practitioners killed in 2019 (courtesy of Falun Dafa Info Center)
The persecution of Falun Gong in China started in 1999 and quickly became famous for its extreme cruelty. In twenty years, more than 4,000 practitioners were persecuted to death. While the CCP claims that in several provinces Falun Gong has been almost completely eradicated, and its persecution is now focused on other banned groups such as The Church of Almighty God, against all odds Falun Gong practitioners continue to defy the CCP. They also continue to die.
A report released this week by Falun Gong claims that 96 Falun Gong practitioners have been persecuted to death in China in 2019, bringing the total death toll from 1999 to 4,363. Their age ranges from 28 to 87, and 53 of the victims are female. 19 died in police custody, some a few hours after their arrest.
One 41-year-old woman, Ms. Li Yanjie, fell to her death on December 7, 2019, while trying to escape with her husband from the window of her sixth-floor apartment the police was entering. They used a rope made by tying several bedsheets and curtains together. The rudimental rope broke. Her husband was able to survive the fall and escape, but Ms. Li died.
Other practitioners died of exhaustion in their homes, after years of arrests, imprisonment, torture, and harassment. The province with most victims was Shandong (16), followed by Heilongjiang (11) and Liaoning (10).
As in the past, there are cases with serious suspects of organ harvesting. In 2019, the independent China Tribunal in London concluded that organ harvesting is still going on against Falun Gong practitioners and other prisoners of conscience, and that claims by the CCP that the practice never existed or was discontinued are just fake news.
Massimo Introvigne (born June 14, 1955 in Rome) is an Italian sociologist of religions. He is the founder and managing director of the Center for Studies on New Religions (CESNUR), an international network of scholars who study new religious movements. Introvigne is the author of some 70 books and more than 100 articles in the field of sociology of religion. He was the main author of the Enciclopedia delle religioni in Italia (Encyclopedia of Religions in Italy). He is a member of the editorial board for the Interdisciplinary Journal of Research on Religion and of the executive board of University of California Press’ Nova Religio. From January 5 to December 31, 2011, he has served as the “Representative on combating racism, xenophobia and discrimination, with a special focus on discrimination against Christians and members of other religions” of the Organization for Security and Co-operation in Europe (OSCE). From 2012 to 2015 he served as chairperson of the Observatory of Religious Liberty, instituted by the Italian Ministry of Foreign Affairs in order to monitor problems of religious liberty on a worldwide scale.
