הרדיפה של המאה" – סרט תיעודי על רדיפת מתרגלי הפאלון גונג בסין"

Ten years ago, my mom was behind bars, and my father was trying his best to save my mom. Ten years later, my father is behind bars. My mom and I are trying our best to save my father. After the birth of my first daughter, police trespassed into the house. The policeman then threatened to jail and tortured me if I did not speak. He even told me, it would be a shame for your baby to grow up without a mother. Few events in recent Chinese history have had as profound an impact on the country, and few have met with such a powerful campaign forcing the entire world to ignore or forget. They say, well, maybe this is not affecting United States citizens. It definitely is. But today, we could be witnessing the unfolding of the most untold story of human resilience of the 21st century. So the big moral question of our time, are we going to seize on this opportunity? Are we going to do the right thing? Because if we let it happen to others, and we profit by it, we can hardly complain when it happens to us. And I think that the creep happens very, very quickly if you let it, because they want us to be more like them, not them to be more like us. If you were in China in the 1990s, this is what you would see every morning. People, lots of people, young and old, men and women, meditating in parks and public squares. They're practicing Falun Gong. Falun Gong is a Buddhist-based spiritual practice that really involves slow motion exercises a little bit like you'd see with Tai Chi, a sitting meditation like you see in Buddhism, and the studying of Buddhist-based spiritual principles that are really centered around three core principles, truthfulness, compassion, and forbearance. You're trying to incorporate these principles into your daily life, be more honest, be more compassionate, be more tolerant. A wonderful spiritual practice. An indigenous Chinese movement based on Asian-Chinese philosophy and principles and practices. It started in the early 90s, one that skyrocketed within China. It really was somewhat of a renaissance in that after decades of communist rule, where they're trying to stamp out all traditional beliefs, all traditional culture, people who for decades had been told that they have to believe in Marxism, that they have to denounce Confucius and Buddhism and all these sort of traditional Chinese things, were opening up the Falun Gong books and going, wow. I mean, I remember one old Chinese guy, when I first started practicing, said it was like the good old things of China have come back. It was literally everywhere. I had a friend who actually was studying in Tsinghua University, which is kind of like their MIT. On campus, there were at least three practice sites every morning. Students, professors doing the exercise, military, academic, farmers, housewives, government, including high-level government officials. So even after just seven years, 100 million people were practicing Falun Gong throughout China. Things were going great until July 20th, 1999, when the launch of an unprecedented campaign of repression forever changed the fate of tens of millions in the course of China's modern history. I came here around 2012 for my graduate study and also for the freedom. Actually when I graduated, I got an offer from a Japanese automobile company, I can go to Japan. But my parents said, no, you go to U.S., you go to U.S. So they know U.S. is the beacon of freedom, and that's why I'm here. And I think I'm at the right place. I met you a few years ago, and I was very impressed. He's indicative of some of these immigrants that have come over, hardworking, value education, and very loyal, very loyal friends. So you know, I was devastated when I heard what was going on, and I wasn't going to sit back and take it. Zhou's parents are both practitioners of Falun Gong. Actually, my father was in U.S. 2019 December. He is the eldest son in the family, and he thinks it's his responsibility to take care of my grandfather. So he went back to China in 2020, but in the end, my father could not attend my grandfather's funeral. My father was in prison at that time. It's really a big tragedy to my family. Zhou's father, Deyung Zhou, was sentenced to eight years in a Chinese prison in April 2023 for practicing Falun Gong. This is an innocent gentleman. He's being jailed for eight years for doing absolutely nothing wrong. Absolutely nothing wrong. It all began in the middle of the night, July 20, 1999, when China's ruling Communist Party started a nationwide cultural revolution-style campaign to eradicate Falun Gong, a practice they once supported. Officials orchestrated public burnings and the destruction of any Falun Gong-related books and posters, police launching massive arrests nationwide. Like instantly, people were being pulled out of their beds from, you know, and across the country being thrown into prison camps and labor camps. It was when my mom was sent to the Brine Water Center. She was simply delivering flyers on the street, and she was caught by the police officer. The family member cannot pay my mom a visit, so he was in a solitary confinement for more than 40 days. When Jiang Zemin initiated the persecution in 1999, police broke into our home and arrested my dad. Later, my mom was also arrested. After being tortured and abused in detention, my father died following his release from the detention center in 2009. Meanwhile, my mom was arrested repeatedly. Since 1999, she has been arrested 11 times and has spent 10 out of the past 24 years in detention. Also because she practiced Falun Gong. There is a different level of persecution in China. You have the prison, you can be sentenced to prison for 8 years, and then it's a labor camp. But the labor camp was actually abolished several years ago, but it's a very, very common method of persecution like 10 years ago. And then it's Brine Water Center. So for the Brine Water Center, the thing with that is you don't need, the police can just send you to Brine Water Center without the consent of the court. Basically, the police can do anything. The head of the Chinese Communist Party at the time, Jiang Zemin, announced the plan to wipe out Falun Gong, defame their reputations, bankrupt them financially, and destroy them physically. They'll put you through high-pressure psychological techniques, like chaining you to a chair where there's a TV screen blaring at you 24-7 how evil your beliefs are and you are. They'll combine that kind of thing with really brutal torture techniques. The idea to break the mind, break the will, and ultimately what they want to do is have you sign a repentance statement that says you'll stop practicing Falun Gong. Often then, you then must do that to other people. Washington posted a piece on this where they followed an individual who went through this process, a Falun Gong practitioner. He sort of concluded at the end, we human beings are the very worst animals on earth. I mean, he was just so demoralized. Our family remained separate, and in 2017, a year after my mother, Ai Hua, was released, we thought this was finally the chance to reunite for my brother's wedding. However, she was denied a passport because she practiced Falun Gong. Our mother was sentenced to three years. So right now, your mother is in a Chinese prison. Yeah. How? Why? And what is her situation? Actually, I have no idea about her current condition, but I know my mom was arrested last year, July, and the whole year, my family couldn't see her, and we don't have any condition. And my father was actually 62 years old. He has lost almost all his teeth. He cannot eat vegetable. He cannot eat meat. He cannot eat basically every food. The only thing he can eat is the Chinese buns, and he dip the buns in the soup and eat the buns. That's the only thing he can eat. So I'm very concerned about his mental and physical health. He has been in the detention center for two years, so this is very outrageous. And his health has declined since being in the detention center, just to make that clear. Yes, he loses a lot of weight, yeah. This is just an example of what's going on in China. They're abusing their own people. This gentleman, he went back to take care of his father. He could have stayed here in the United States, but he wanted to take care of his father, his ailing father, did the right thing, the moral thing. And this is the way he's penalized by his country, his government? You know, what are these communists afraid of? What is the CCP so afraid of? That is the key question. What is it about Falun Gong that triggered the CCP? Why did the suppression begin in the first place? So the first was the numbers. 100 million people practicing Falun Gong. At that time, that's one out of every 13 people in the country. That's 40 million more people than there are total members of the Communist Party. So when the Chinese government did a survey in late 1998 and found out those numbers, that made a few leaders nervous. My family on my grandmother's side, they are Christian before the CCP took power. So some of the relatives even fled to the U.S. before the CCP took power. And after the CCP took power, they have very severe persecution on Christians. Why? Because CCP want to control what people think, want to control people's mind. If someone believe in religion or someone believe in doing good deeds, then it can be a threat to CCP. Because at some point, they will refuse to follow the CCP's order. That's why CCP start to persecute religion, started to persecute Christians, and then the Buddhism, and now the Falun Gong. So it's a tradition with CCP. But the really the key issue, the thing that really pushed it over the edge, was the top man of the Chinese Communist Party at the time, was the top man of the Chinese Communist Party at the time, Jiang Zemin. He was the first leader of China who didn't go through the revolution. He didn't really have any like street cred among his of the other leadership. And he was desperate to build up this sort of cult of personality around himself, much like Mao and other leaders. And right as he's trying to do that in the 90s, Falun Gong is taking the country by storm. And it was that political motivation, tragically, was what really started the persecution. Over the past two decades, Falun Gong practitioners have been subjected to beatings, sexual humiliation, rape, shocks with electric batons, and forced injections with psychotropic drugs. But the abuse does not stop there. As the world looks the other way, the CCP developed a dark industry out of this persecution. Live, forced organ harvesting. But is there evidence? Why did the issue come to light and receive such little attention until recent years? And what role has the United States and the free world played in this dark industry? There's disturbing news just out from London. An independent international tribunal concludes that China is killing prisoners in order to harvest their organs. The first time I even heard of the concept, it was almost too bad to be true. It was almost unbelievable on its face. China was not a player in the organ transplant business at all until they had hundreds of thousands of Falun Gong practitioners as detainees. And then suddenly, just over a few years, they skyrocketed to become one of the leading destinations for organ transplant operation. And it raised the questions, it begged the question, where are these organs that are being transplanted coming from? According to Chinese Vice Minister of Health, the number of transplants performed each year went from several hundred in 1999 to well over 10,000 a year by 2008. And the China Daily newspaper reported that the actual number in 2006 was 20,000. And now it is widely recognized that China performs the second most amount of transplantations, only second to the United States. Even more troublesome is evidence that China seemed to have an overabundance of organs and that their medical tourism business was booming. They had hospitals advertising all over the internet that they could guarantee patients organs within the time frame of weeks. And they could even schedule them in advance. To put that in perspective, the United States waiting time for a kidney is over three years. We are confident that in just a few years, China will become the number one organ transplant country in the world. You can connect the dots and it started to look very, very bad for the CCP, the Chinese Communist Party. Well, how come? I rang up. I was offered a liver very quickly from a hospital in China. How is that possible? I don't want to listen and answer the question of somebody with some political agendas. I've heard directly from some of my constituents about this. And what's particularly unsettling is that this practice allegedly targets prisoners of conscience, including practitioners of Falun Gong. Family members would be presented with a box of ashes of their loved ones, maybe weeks, months after they were taken away. You had testimony from doctors and other prisoners, guards, that this was happening. I believe that there is evidence of genocide here. I mean, it is, it's terrifying, right? I mean, these people are being disappeared for practicing something that they believe in. They're the right age and the right condition. They're disappearing to provide those organs to other wealthy people in China. Carlos, you are a surgeon yourself who's conducted transplant. Yeah, this is really personal to me because I understand the transplant world itself. Basically, China is murdering, and I'll be very clear about that, murdering prisoners of conscience, people who do not believe like the Chinese Communist Party. They're using humans as guinea pigs to supply organs, either for their own domestic supply or to export them. This is an absolute horrific crime. This is a barbaric practice that would make a Middle Ages executioner blush. It shocks me in particular because I am aware that American medical institutions and hospitals are playing a role here. And I have seen lists of 344 organ transplant surgeons who were trained in this country from China, trained by our own medical schools and hospitals, or have been supported. These transplant centers have been supported by our transplant sector in some way, either with joint research or research money or other kind of foundational support. And that continues to this day. They're unspeakable. These things were unspeakable. The Communist Party of China is doing it to their individual citizens with impunity. And we go and shake hands and work business deals. If that hand was being extended to you with the blood on it of someone that just took out somebody's organs, someone that was unwilling to give those organs up and lost their life because of their belief, would you be so willing to extend your hand in friendship or in business partnership or even in diplomatic partnership? In the world's most populous country, crimes against humanity have been perpetrated against 100 million spiritual believers. The evidence? Overwhelming. But many have not even heard about it. How did we let it happen? Right in front of our eyes. All the while, we grew deeper and deeper into a relationship with Communist China. Well, when I heard about it and started looking into it, I realized there was something there. And it was so horrifying that we couldn't ignore it. We had to delve deeper. And it was you run into a brick wall because there's no transparency. You know, I was trying to enlist and others were trying to enlist American government, members of Congress, medical people, medical sector in trying to find out what was going on. And there was just, you know, there wasn't a lot of confidence that this was true. And it was difficult to explain because on the one hand, you had the Chinese Communist Party putting out just massive volumes of disinformation and propaganda, denouncing Falun Gong, demonizing them. Falun Gong is strictly nonviolent. It has little to no formal organization, no system of membership, no churches or temples, and no fees to learn the practice. Yet under the CCP's smear campaign in China and abroad, it was portrayed as a dangerous cult, all to divert attention away from the CCP's human rights abuses and to influence public perception. They want silence. I mean, any of our government officials will tell you over the last 24 years, if you want to end a meeting with a Chinese official anywhere in the world, just mention Falun Gong. The meeting's over. It's the third rail. It's the one thing they won't let you talk about. But it was more than just the cultural barriers blocking the truth. Behind the scenes, bigger changes were underway. At the turn of the century, at the peak of the persecution, the CCP all of a sudden put on a face embracing capitalism. With impressive skylines emerging throughout China, enticing foreign investment, and deceiving the U.S. into accepting China into the global political and economic system. The United States will do everything possible to bring China into the World Trade Organization as soon as possible. The ministerial conference so agrees. It wasn't until decades after that we found out where that policy would eventually lead us. Jiang Zemin at the time seemed so moderate, seemed so friendly and jovial, and wanted to open up markets and be vastly different from the Maoist period and from the Soviet period that we knew very well. So it was hard to believe. It was hard for others to believe when we started talking about it. But you know, you cite the year 2006. Our country was still in the position at that point where we were saying, well, gosh, it's all about free trade. And this is going to bring greater freedom to the Chinese people if we just work with them closely. And I was a part of that scope for a while saying, as they grow more connected to the global economy, they'll lessen their persecution. Didn't happen. And now you've got Xi Jinping, who is a full Maoist, and the persecution level is more intense, and it's more technologically sophisticated of the things that they can do now that they couldn't do back in the Mao era. You find this throughout U.S. history. A lot of times I know what's going on, but I really don't want to hear about it. I don't want to look at it. That happened really early on about the slave debate. Nazi Germany, we knew what was going on with the Jewish people and just kind of, look, I'm comfortable here. I really don't want to think about that. 50, 60, 70 years ago said, never again. We never want to see this again. And yet much of the world is countenancing. It is accepting. It is refusing to acknowledge it for profits, for ease of relationships. Unacceptable. The CCP's efforts paid off. It bought nearly 30 years of public amnesia from the West. Why should your average citizen, who this may on the surface not affect, be concerned? Well, look, it depends what kind of universe you think we live in. If you think this is just a material universe and we're just here to rip off as much money as we can for as long as we can, well, you shouldn't really be concerned. But if you believe we're in a moral universe and there are moral consequences for immoral actions, and we are collaborating with a regime that's on a par with the Nazis and we're profiting by that and making our lives more comfortable by profiting through that regime and ignoring the mass slaughter, the mass sadistic cruelty that's been inflicted on millions of Chinese, we have no moral high ground when our children suffer the same fate. You need to know that what is being done in China to Chinese people of various stripes is certainly in prospect for us if the Chinese can get their hands on us. In fact, it's not an accident. Think about it for a moment. It's not an accident that the Chinese are so set on collecting as much data about Americans, whether it's through TikTok or whether it's through, you know, 23andMe or any other of the means that they have available to them. Health data, DNA data, and other personal information. Because this can help them target you. So this is not somebody else's problem. This is something, again, that we ignore at our extreme peril. The CCP's expansion of influence in America. How severe is it? Does it really concern us? Is this threat far-fetched, an exaggeration? Or has the CCP already extended its abuses close to home? I think that the creep happens very, very quickly if you let it. And that's exactly what the Chinese are trying to do here. They're trying to creep because they want us to be more like them, not them to be more like us. The Chinese Communist Party is sending agents here, sending police here, establishing a police station in the heart of Manhattan. This May, the Justice Department announced that a CCP agent was caught trying to bribe an IRS agent, aiming to get the nonprofit status of a Falun Gong-affiliated organization removed. Well, they call it a Chinese service center. It's located in Omaha, Nebraska. It's odd to me that in the middle of the country, you know, we're talking about San Francisco, New York. You have to remember that in Omaha, we run the world's nuclear triad for the United States Armed Forces. That's the bombers, the ICBM missiles, and then the nuclear submarines. So we're a strategic headquarters for the United States Armed Forces. And to have one of these Chinese service centers in our backyard tells you how aggressive and omnipresent the Chinese want to be in every community in America. And it's startling. It should concern everybody in America that they're penetrating that far into the middle of our country. We had a Chinese balloon that flew over our country, transverse the entire nation, many of our military installations, our missile bases, some of our secret missile bases. They're buying up property all around there. They're buying up our farmland. Their Belt and Road Initiative is locking down all rare earth minerals. We learned that there were spies who were posing as tourists trying to get onto one of our military bases, Chinese spies. So this is happening in our backyard every single day. The Chinese have infiltrated in some communities down to the PTA level. I mean, that is how far and deep this goes. You can't have any illusions or delusions of who the Communist Party of China is, who Xi is, and what we're facing. So if I could ask, what does July 20th mean for you? Families are supposed to be together after the persecution started. We have not been able to stay on the same roof, take a family photo, or be together for important life events like weddings or birthdays. This persecution has torn my family apart over and over again. Every year on that date, I am reminded of the suffering my family has gone through over what is now almost 24 years. Every year, I think maybe next year it will be over. I think about how many families there are like mine and about how much they have suffered also. And your dad right now is sitting in a labor camp. What has his incarceration put you through? Psychologically, you must be very stressed out just thinking about him and how he's doing. Not to mention, you didn't even know where he was for a period of time. When I learned they sentenced my father to eight years in prison, it's just overwhelming to me. It's like you just kind of give up. You don't know what to do because they are so strong. I'm in the U.S. My father was in China. And this whole government with all the power and with all the money are persecuting my father. And I'm just nobody. It's my mom who put me together. She's a very strong woman. She always knows what to do, even in the darkest time. So I think there's a reason my mom and I stay here and fighting for my father's freedom. Let's talk about that support that you've received from those elected officials in your state. I think a lot of times when people look at some of these bills or initiatives, they sometimes think that it may be just a formality and doesn't really work. Does it work, and would you encourage them to do more? It definitely works. I will give you an example. So when my father was first arrested, we don't know whereabouts of my father because the local police refused to tell me where my father is. They even refused my lawyer's right to meet my father. So my lawyer had to fly to my city twice, hand out the material, and still got denied. My congressman, Peter Arkes, wrote the first letter on the end of April 2021. So I called the prosecutor's office and told them, my congressman has written a letter to President Xi, and this is our legal right to meet my father. And just one hour after this phone call, my lawyer received another call telling him he can meet my father. That's the first time my lawyer can meet my father. Ever since then, my lawyer has no trouble meeting my father. So it just shows how international support can make a difference. So many officials in China read the tea leaves about what's happening in that country, and they're trying to get out. They're trying to get their kids' passports, they're trying to get their money out, and this is around the country. When we sanction those officials, word of that, that gets out all over China, and suddenly you get police chiefs, other security apparatus leaders scared that they're the ones that are going to be next sanctioned, that they're not going to be able to get their kids out. So that kind of thing works. It sends reverberations throughout China. The United States has to do everything possible to raise this issue to consciousness of not only all America, but all of the world. It cannot be left to stand, and there's no one else that can or will take the lead. We have to. And even though there have been some bills, we even passed one earlier this year, it falls way, way short, and we must do every single thing we can. We need to identify every single Chinese Communist Party official that is involved. And look, we can't reach into their country and take them and put them into prison. Goodness and the good Lord knows that we should. But short of that, what we must do is make sure that their life is a living hell for what they've done, and that's what my bill seeks to do. Your bill essentially makes them think twice if they were associated with organ harvesting, which many have, if they come into the United States. Absolutely, because we're going to do something about it. So even if you just drove the person to the clinic, if you had anything to do with it, don't come to America, because we're going to get you. What most people don't know about Falun Gong in China is for the last 15 years is the largest civil disobedience movement in the world. That is, tens of millions of Falun Gong people every day are creating an underground media, leaflets, pamphlets about the persecution they face, about the terrible history of the CCP, and usually undercover at night, they're leaving it on doorsteps. And this is happening all over China. Big cities, small villages, and everything in between. And so there's a tremendous groundswell in China to let the people know what the true history of the regime is, what's really happening to Falun Gong, and that's creating a lot of awareness. And I think, ultimately, that is going to win the day in China. And if it wins the day in China, it could be a tremendous difference for the world. Imagine not having the tyranny of the CCP looming over the world on the international stage. Business and labor have to get together and say, hey, this is wrong. Let's shut this stuff down. And the way we shut it down is we've got to quit sending them our dollars for cheap products. Look, we've got to use the moral power of our vote, the moral power of our money, and the moral power of making a stand. If we can do that and we can destroy the CCP through moral methods, we may never have to fight them physically. Our boys, if we can stand up morally, our boys will not have to die fighting them in the battle. What would your message be to the American people? What do you want them to know? Cherish the freedom you have. Three years ago, my congressman, Billy Rutgers, he gave lecture at USF, University of South Florida. So at one lecture, he actually invited me to that lecture to tell my story to American students. So based on my experience, I think many young generation from US, they do not understand what's going on with communism. They do not understand the value of freedom. Freedom is a human right. Everyone in US, they are born with. But freedom can be a privilege in other country, in other region. And I think every American should realize that, should cherish their freedom and fight for their freedom. Because at some point, someone will come to your home and take the freedom away from you. And you have to be prepared for that. What would you say to the millions of Falun Gong practitioners around the world and the ones that are being persecuted? We hear you. We know what the Chinese Communist Party is doing. Stay strong. They're resilient people. Keep up the good work. Don't give up your principles. And help is on the way. I hope you will keep the faith. Because we in America will always stand for those that believe in religious freedom. But more importantly, that's simply a human right. And it's recognized by most people around the world. And I hope that they will keep the faith that someday they will be able to be free people out from the yoke of communism. Our message, my message to them is to stay hopeful. Keep believing. Keep practicing. Know that help is on the way. Know that you're not alone. Know that all things worth achieving, worth saving, require sacrifices. And if your sacrifice is that silent suffering while you do your work, then that's part of it. And look, this is the road less traveled, which means that not everybody's on it. But you're on it. And there are people that are on it with you, even from afar. We hear your cries. We hear your pleas. And we're going to do everything. I'm going to do everything I can in my power. I'm not in charge in China. But I have something to say in America. And I'm going to let as many people know so that they're aware of it. And it's hard to be patient. But those who are patient are the ones who almost always succeed. It's the perseverance that is usually victorious. So we will get there. Maybe not today, but we will get there. So hang in there and stand strong and stand for what you believe in because there are many people around the world that believe in you.