The Chinese language regime has exported its ultra-leftist suppression of religions to U.S. soil by means of defamatory supplies in school textbooks, a brand new report has discovered.
Titled “Surveillance, Slander, and Censorship,” the report launched on Could 25 by the New York-based Falun Dafa Info Heart (FalunInfo) surveyed dozens of college campuses throughout the USA with a presence of Falun Gong, a non secular self-discipline closely persecuted in communist China, to look at how the Chinese language regime’s persecution is affecting adherents of the religion in the USA.
It discovered that at the least 10 universities, together with Yale College, Brown College, the College of Chicago, the College of Michigan, and Wellesley School, use curriculum supplies for a Chinese language language course that contained defamatory details about the non secular observe.
The textbook, titled “Discussing Every thing Chinese language,” accommodates a bit on Falun Gong that “makes an attempt to legitimize the CCP’s spiritual persecution in opposition to Falun Gong by misrepresenting the observe and framing its adherents as possessing psychological issues,” the report acknowledged.
Falun Gong, also referred to as Falun Dafa, is a non secular self-discipline involving meditative workout routines and ethical teachings primarily based on three core ideas: truthfulness, compassion, and forbearance. The observe gained reputation in China throughout the Nineties, with estimates placing the variety of adherents at 70 million to 100 million.
The communist regime, fearing that the variety of practitioners posed a risk to its authoritarian management, initiated a sweeping marketing campaign beginning in July 1999 and continues right this moment, to suppress the observe and its adherents.
Since then, thousands and thousands in China have been detained in prisons, labor camps, and different amenities, with lots of of hundreds tortured whereas incarcerated, in response to the FalunInfo.
A vital part of the CCP’s persecution is its disinformation marketing campaign in opposition to the observe, geared toward turning Chinese language residents in opposition to Falun Gong and its adherents. To this finish, the regime has relied closely on propaganda, inciting hatred in opposition to the non secular self-discipline and vilifying its practitioners.
The CCP’s propaganda marketing campaign expanded to the West, the place it focuses on “malign and inaccurate[ly]” labeling Falun Gong as a “cult,” in an try to demonize the observe, in response to the Falun Dafa Info Heart’s report.
“The bodily dimensions of the CCP’s marketing campaign to wipe out Falun Gong have been accompanied by a large, systematic propaganda effort to defame and slander Falun Gong, to unfold falsehoods, and to incite unfounded fears that the group is harmful or violent,” acknowledged the report.
“Discussing Every thing Chinese language” echoes CCP propaganda, the report continues, by introducing broad statements like, “Falun Gong can lead individuals to insanity,” and accusing practitioners of selling “excessive concepts comparable to hunger, compelled sleep deprivation, and rejection of any medical remedy”—claims that FalunInfo contests. Assignments even ask college students to affiliate the non secular observe with heretics.
The textbook additionally contains workout routines that endorsed China’s One-Youngster Coverage “as a reliable technique of controlling inhabitants progress” and promote “a powerful anti-american sentiment,” in response to the report.
Harassment and Censorship
The report discovered that in at the least 9 universities, survey respondents confronted or heard of interference with Falun Gong occasions; six of these circumstances concerned the consulate-linked Chinese language College students and Students Affiliation (CSSA).
Supposedly created to assist worldwide college students and promote cultural trade, CSSAs type half of Beijing’s sprawling abroad affect actions run beneath the Chinese language Communist Get together’s (CCP) United Entrance Work Division (UFWD). The social gathering unit coordinates hundreds of teams to hold out overseas political affect operations, suppress dissident actions, collect intelligence, and facilitate the switch of U.S. know-how to China, in response to analysts.
One case occurred on the College of Pennsylvania (UPenn), the place the Falun Dafa membership co-hosted a screening of the documentary “Within the Identify of Confucius,” which exposes ties between Confucius Institutes—a Chinese language language program attaching to over 1,600 overseas universities and faculties all over the world—and the Chinese language regime.
The occasion was co-hosted with the Athenai Institute and College students for a Free Tibet, and was marketed by the Graduate and Skilled Pupil Meeting (GAPSA).
After the occasion, at the least 79 college students and former graduates linked to the CSSA despatched complaints to GAPSA, framing the occasion hosts as “anti-China” organizations, acknowledged the report. In addition they accused GAPSA for selling the occasion, labeling it as an “act of marginalization in opposition to the Chinese language Neighborhood at UPenn.”
In response to FalunInfo’s report, some tried to delegitimize the occasion by saying it promoted “anti-Asian hate,” even supposing each the director of the movie and the Falun Gong membership president are of Chinese language ethnicity.
“The try matches a sample reported at different college campuses of Chinese language college students lodging complaints about occasions vital of the CCP, claiming they promote anti-Asian hatred,” the report acknowledged.
The CSSA-affiliated college students additionally held a marketing campaign of on-line harassment and pressured the college to penalize the Falun Gong membership.
Because of this, the then Falun Gong Membership president claimed to have suffered ongoing trauma and nervousness from the harassment, in response to the report.
Stigma and Trauma
“Aggressive harassment campaigns and deceptive depictions of the observe in textbooks, media stories, and displays by Chinese language college students—usually affiliated with CSSAs—can contribute to discrimination, intimidation, and trauma for college kids who observe Falun Gong,” acknowledged the report.
FalunInfo’s survey discovered that many Falun Gong adherents at universities really feel “afraid of stigma” and “unfavourable reactions” from Chinese language college students or college members. Some even recounted experiencing backlash from second era Chinese language or non-Chinese language college students who had learn the CCP’s propaganda.
A fifth of the survey respondents claimed feeling considerably or very uncomfortable self-identifying as a Falun Gong adherent or talking about it in school.
Respondents additionally talked about on-line harassment and social media posts aimed to dissuade individuals from becoming a member of Falun Gong occasions or interacting with practitioners.
“Discrimination and stigma are skilled [at U.S. university campuses] … in ways in which can be broadly seen as unacceptable within the case of different faiths,” concluded the report.
These experiences resemble what Falun Gong practitioners in China have been struggling for greater than 20 years attributable to heavy brainwashing of their friends in opposition to Falun Gong, which prompted them to turn out to be social pariahs, humiliated, and bullied.