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This is an archived discussion page. DO NOT EDIT THIS PAGE. Please go to the main talk page and join the discussion there.

Archived discussion:

Starting over, take Four hundred or so

All previous discussions have been archived. Shall we start by looking at the article bit by bit?

Does anybody have suggestions to improve the opening paragraphs of the article, the ones that appear above the Table of Contents? CovenantD 04:46, 27 May 2006 (UTC)

Falun Gong (simplified Chinese: 法轮功; traditional Chinese: 法輪功; pinyin: Fǎlún Gōng; literally "Practice of the Wheel of Law") is also known as Falun Dafa (simplified Chinese: 法轮大法; traditional Chinese: 法輪大法; pinyin: Fǎlún dàfǎ; lit. "Great Law of the Wheel of Law") is a system of mind and body cultivation introduced by Li Hongzhi in 1992. Central to Falun Gong are the teachings of "Truthfulness, Compassion and Forbearance" and five sets of meditation exercises (four standing, and one sitting meditation).)

Falun Gong has been the focus of international controversy since the government of the People's Republic of China began a nationwide suppression of Falun Gong on July 20, 1999 for its illegal activities. The Falun Gong came to the attention of the Chinese government when 10,000 practitioners protested peaceful at Zhongnanhai the compound of Chinese top leaders on April 25, 1999.

After the crackdown, the number of Falun Gong practitioners in China was estimated by the government at 2.1 million .[1] The number of practitioners claimed by Falun Gong is much larger, with 100 million followers worldwide including over 70 million in China.[2]

Well, it seems pretty good to me. Neutral, brief, and in line with other articles of a similar nature on WP. We shouldn't call FLG a "cult" (as has happened) nor call Li Hongzhi a living god in the intro, (as has happened with only the slightest exaggeration on my part). --Fire Star 火星 18:02, 27 May 2006 (UTC)
That's because dilip, ONCE AGAIN, made changes before there was agreement. I'm getting fucking sick and tired of it. CovenantD 18:27, 27 May 2006 (UTC)
I've just changed it back to what is in the article. CovenantD 18:36, 27 May 2006 (UTC)
I am sorry if I did something wrong I was trying to introduce the New York times figure. which was actually present in "the article". I wonder which is "the article" you are referring to.Anyway, Covenant, I leave it to you to decide wether saying Falun Gong was banned for illegal activities is correct or not and also wether to include the New York Times figure.Dilip rajeev 19:17, 27 May 2006 (UTC)
Should it not be Falun Gong, also known as Falun Dafa, is... for proper grammar? Skinnyweed 18:31, 27 May 2006 (UTC)
Yes. CovenantD 18:36, 27 May 2006 (UTC)
Yes, that is correct. It is easy enough to change the existing version to the one above. What Dilip and other "pro-FLG" editors have consistently demonstrated IMO is an agenda regarding the uncritical promotion of FLG, as well converting as many other editors to their religion as possible. Until that agenda can be laid aside, their credibility for the purposes of an encyclopaedia article (as opposed to a simple advertisement) is compromised, as far as I am concerned. --Fire Star 火星 18:37, 27 May 2006 (UTC)

FACTS are what I want in the article neither my opinion nor anybody else's. Is inclusion of the NY Times figure promoting Falun Gong? I dont understand. Please point out which non-factual/unsourced material I have tried to add . Thankyou. Dilip rajeev 19:21, 27 May 2006 (UTC)

Sorry for not being clear. "The article," when I use it in this context, is the first three paragraphs of the main Falun Gong article attached to this talk page. Use of NY Times figures is an appropriate, verifiable source, and seems to fit in with the rest of the last paragraph. I'll address the legallity/illegality issue further down this page in it's own section. CovenantD 20:52, 27 May 2006 (UTC)

Suggestions for edits

Personally I'd prefer to see the second sentence of the second article say "alleged illegal activities." I'm not familiar with Chinese legal systems, but based on US perceptions one is presumed innocent until proven guilty. Since Falun Gong hasn't been put on trial, it all seems to be allegations at this point. CovenantD 04:46, 27 May 2006 (UTC)

Oh, and the last sentence of that same paragraph should read "peacefully" rather than "peaceful." Simple grammar. I'll leave it to others to debate the claims. CovenantD 04:48, 27 May 2006 (UTC)

And remember, our comments should address only the article and NOT other editors motivations or beliefs or recent behaviour. CovenantD 04:51, 27 May 2006 (UTC)

  • Ok, I am ready to move forward too. The term “illegal activities” has been there for a while and editors from both sides seem to have no problem with it. So I say it should stay. What do you think? --Samuel Luo 07:07, 27 May 2006 (UTC)
I'm good either way. CovenantD 07:23, 27 May 2006 (UTC)

"Falun Gong has been the focus of international controversy since the government of the People's Republic of China began a nationwide suppression of Falun Gong on July 20, 1999 for its illegal activities."

Which illegal activities? I don't understand. All I have heard is the propaganda that CCP used to turn the chinese people agains Falun Gong. Here illegal activities should be removed. Omido 08:09, 27 May 2006 (UTC)

Also, as I know it, Falun Gong actually was encouraged by the government before the persecuton. They invited Teacher Li to hold sessions etc. But after the number of practitioner grew to above 100 million, Jiang Zemin got jeaoulous because Falun Gong had more members then the CCP has, and made it illegal..starting the persecution. Omido 08:20, 27 May 2006 (UTC)

So you acknowledge that it is illegal. This nullifies your first comment. Any other suggestions for edits? I'll give it another 16 hours, then we'll move on. CovenantD 08:30, 27 May 2006 (UTC)

Im sorry you misunderstood me, I didn't acknowledge that the movement itself does illegal activites. Rather that the CCP banned it in China, that means persecuting it. The movement itself has never been doing anything illegal, that would go against the principle of Kindness/Compassion. As it looks now, it looks like Falun Gong did illegal activities and then got banned, but that is completely wrong. Falun Gong was "banned" because of other reasons, it didnt do anything illegal. Omido 09:27, 27 May 2006 (UTC)

We dont have to speculate wether its "illegal" or not. The earlier version didnt say "illegal". Neither was the term "illegal" agreed upon in any talk page discussion. I dont think there is any need to spend 16 hours on that. Please see the intro. ( Changes: Mentions there is a supression - doesnt speculate wehter it is for "illegal" or "legal" activities. Introduced New York Times figure. (70 million) ) . Let us move on to deciding the proper subsections and the intro paragraphs. Dilip rajeev 12:35, 27 May 2006 (UTC)

  • These illegal activities should be spell out. I propose to add this sentence to the first paragraph: in the core of the Falun Gong belief system is a belief that the morally corrupt humankind is facing annihilation, only Master Li and his Falun Dafa can save the world. --Yueyuen 18:01, 27 May 2006 (UTC)
IF that is a factual statement, I have no problem with it being included. Would others care to comment on this proposed addition? CovenantD 18:46, 27 May 2006 (UTC)

This statement sums up the core beliefs of the Falun Gong, it should be included. --Samuel Luo 03:17, 28 May 2006 (UTC)

Direct quotes from Li's biography & Miborovsky protecting the page

Sorry, I promised to devote more time to Wikipedia, but it hasn't worked out so far. I'm working and trying to finish some my studies at the same time. There's one issue I've requested repeatedly: I asked Samuel Luo to provide direct quotes from Li's biography, so that we can put them into quotation marks. He has not replied.

Another thing I find peculiar is that Miborovsky has locked the page, even though he has been involved in editing the article in the past, and he is by no means impartial. I don't know whether this conforms to Wikipedia policies. Shouldn't we always ask for an outsider?

---Olaf Stephanos 11:56, 27 May 2006 (UTC)

Welcome back, Olaf. Yeah, even when locking the page. why lock a page he prefers? If we can look at the history [3], (cur) (last) 00:14, 25 May 2006 Miborovsky m (Protected Falun Gong: ok that's it, apparently everyone insists on being revert-happy [edit=sysop:move=sysop]) (cur) (last) 23:57, 24 May 2006 Yueyuen (anyone compares these two version can see that. You should talk with others before making big changes, I am not the only one complaining, check your mail box) (cur) (last) 23:52, 24 May 2006 Fnhddzs (ok. but where is not neutral? nothing were simply deleted. If you see things not factual, please feel free to edit)

Fnhddzs: Please don't repeat that false claim. You and Dilip most certainly had deleted important material--the entire set of individual subsection summaries for all those subsections which were in the Criticism and controversy page. You have admitted as such in previous discussion and even offered to allow them to be put back, but now you are again making this false claim. --Tomananda 18:35, 27 May 2006 (UTC)

We can notice the Miborovsky locked the page 17 minutes after the Yueyuen's version. It is clear that during 17 minutes I did not even want to revert the page. There was virtually no need to lock the page for the sake of stopping revert war. Fnhddzs 15:54, 27 May 2006 (UTC)

WP:RFC/User#Use of administrator privileges. -- Миборовский U|T|C|M|E|Chugoku Banzai! 16:31, 27 May 2006 (UTC)
I remember seeing that Miborovsky had posted something like a one hour warning before he locked the page, so I don't see what the problem is in terms of timing. To me, all revert wars are counter-productive regardless of which version happens to exist when the page is frozen. As to who has the authority to freeze a page...last time it was an administrator we never heard of, and this time it was Miborovsky. On multiple occassions I have posted a question to this group asking if there was support for asking for formal mediation. I understand that any one of us can request that action, but I don't want to request mediation on my own. We talk about abiding by Wikipedia rules, and I do my best to honor them, but one rule of Wikipedia ettiquette is constantly violated, which is that when an editor asks a question, she/he deserves to get an answer. Why is it that Fire Star has been the only other editor ever to respond to my proposal of seeking mediation? --Tomananda 18:26, 27 May 2006 (UTC)
Sorry. I guess I just keep hoping that if we keep at it, if we act like adults, we can do this. At the moment, however, I'm about ready to call in a babysitter/mediator. And Miborovsky (did I get it right that time?) was responding to a request I made to have the article locked again. CovenantD 18:39, 27 May 2006 (UTC)
Covenant, In a sense you have already been acting as our unoffical mediator and I appreciate all your judicious efforts at reaching consensus. Under normal circumstances your efforts would work. But I am convinced...and I don't want to make this sound like a personal attack...that some of the Falun Gong practitioner/editors on this board will never accept a reasonable reporting of critical views of the Falun Gong no matter how much discussion we have, or how many changes we agree to in terms of use of sourced material, etc. Keep in mind, Li makes standing up for his Dafa a condition for salvation for his disciples. --Tomananda 18:50, 27 May 2006 (UTC)
This is similar to problems we have with articles on such subjective subjects, though. Especially such a well publicized one. If you look through the page histories of articles like Mahavatar Babaji and Suma Ching Hai you'll see similar editing patterns, if not on such a large scale. The Suma Ching Hai article is interesting because she makes almost exactly the same claims about the system she teaches that Li Hongzhi does about his, as well as her insistence that her followers can only progress with her personal intervention, again very like Li. --Fire Star 火星 04:11, 28 May 2006 (UTC)
In other words, don't give, have patience, and eventually we'll get there? I'll try to keep that in mind. :-) CovenantD 04:34, 28 May 2006 (UTC)
Yes, exactly. You (and others) are doing fine work here. After coming back from my artificially imposed break I've had relatively little to do text-wise as you have all been doing a thorough job on the article, IMO. The stuff I had prepared was already covered when I came back, but I've had a few talk page discussion with some other editors here about how I see such emotional issues. People feel very personally about their schools and teachers. Keeping cool heads and always leading discussion back to the issues is the way forward. --Fire Star 火星 16:13, 28 May 2006 (UTC)
They are not direct quotes. Please write here the entire chapters from which they are taken, preferably in English. I don't have the biograpy at my disposal, so maybe you could write all of it to see if there's anything else we could include. Like the names of Li's masters - I heard they're in there, too. Otherwise, please provide a link so that we can check the accuracy of the comments on his biography. --Olaf Stephanos 06:35, 28 May 2006 (UTC)
  • You are right, I paraphrased his claims, just check again. Like I pointed out before it was published as an appendix in all Chinese Zhuan Falun published before 1999. I don’t have the time to translate his statements. Here is an article which translated many of his statements. [4] It is funny that you should ask me for it, since you are Li's disciple. --Samuel Luo 07:07, 28 May 2006 (UTC)

What we are doing is working. By protecting the article, changes can be made only after discussion and agreement. I don't think we need a formal mediator now, CovenantDis doing a pretty good job. --Samuel Luo 04:44, 28 May 2006 (UTC)

Structure and Outline

We need to move fast with the edits and scrutinize the data on the subpages.

  • 9.1 Falun Gong sites
  • 9.2 Critical sites
  • 9.3 Other sites


This is what was, suggested by covenantD last time. I had introduced a section called Theoretical and epistemological studies. I think the organizational aspects ( The way falun gong is organized ) also fits under the sub-heading "Theoretic and Epistemological studies on Falun Gong". "Origins" is now called history and Timeline. ( To describe better the content in the sub-page). Dilip rajeev 12:44, 27 May 2006 (UTC)


And here are the summaries I suggested: History and Timeline

Main article: Falun_Gong,_History_and_Timeline

Falun Gong, also known as Fălún Dàfă (法轮大法), was introduced to the public by Li Hongzhi on May 13, 1992, in Changchun, China. Invited by Qigong organizations from each area, during the period from 1992 to the end of 1994, Mr. Li traveled to almost all major Chinese cities to teach the practice. In the next few years Falun Gong quickly grew in popularity around the world. As of now, the practitioners are present in more than 80 countries and the books have been translated to over 40 languages.

Beliefs and teachings

Main article: Falun Gong teachings

Central to Falun Dafa are the five meditative exercises and the teachings known in traditional Chinese culture as the "Fa" (Dharma), or "Dharma and principles" – that are set forth in the book Zhuan Falun. Falun Gong teaches that what it calls the "Buddha Law" can be summarized in three words – Zhen 真, Shan 善 and Ren 忍, which translate approximately as 'truthfulness, benevolence (or compassion), and forbearance'. The process of cultivation is thought of to be one in which the practitioner assimilates himself or herself to Zhen 真, Shan 善 and Ren 忍.

The teachings and principles of Falun Gong are captured in two main books written by Li Hongzhi: Falun Gong ( Law Wheel Qi Gong) and Zhuan Falun (Turning the Law Wheel). Falun Gong is an introductory book that discusses qigong, introduces the principles and provides illustrations and explanations of the exercises.

Research into health benefits of Falun Gong Main article: Research into health benefits of Falun Gong

Research conducted by Quan Zhen Li, Richard Johnson, et al says "Drastic system-level changes of gene expression were detected in PMNs of Falun Gong practitioners, while little changes were detected among non-practitioners..." and that genes among the practitioners manifest links to PMN functions in anti-viral immunity, apoptotic property and possibly longevity based upon a much more economical balance of protein synthesis and degradation. Surveys conducted on practitioners show improvements in health, the most extensive being a Falun Gong health survey [5] conducted on 12,731 Beijing practitioners in 1998.

Chinese Government's Persecution of Falun Gong

Main article: Persecution of Falun Gong

In July 1999, the Chinese government started a nation-wide supression of Falun Gong.The United States Congress Resoution 188 states:

"Falun Gong is a peaceful and nonviolent form of personal belief and practice with millions of adherents in the People's Republic of China and elsewhere."

"the Government of the People's Republic of China has forbidden Falun Gong practitioners to practice their beliefs, and has systematically attempted to eradicate the practice and those who follow it"

Jiang Zemin's regime has created notorious government `610' offices throughout the People's Republic of China with the special task of overseeing the persecution of Falun Gong members through organized brainwashing, torture, and murder;

"official measures have been taken to conceal all atrocities, such as the immediate cremation of victims, the blocking of autopsies, and the false labeling of deaths as from suicide or natural causes."

According to the Falun Dafa Information Center (FDI), there are, as of March 12, 2006, 2,840 verified cases of Falun Gong practitioners dying in police and government custody in mainland China, giving rise to allegations of torture and police brutality. The report also alleges that hundreds of thousands of Falun Gong practitioners have been detained, with more than 100,000 sentenced to forced-labor camps. Moreover, there are more than 30,000 documented cases of persecution.

Theoretical and Epistemological Studies

Main article: Theoretical and Epistemological studies on Falun Gong

The content of Li Hongzhi's books include commentaries on questions that have been raised in China's qigong community. Falun Gong's teachings tap into a wide array of phenomena and cultural heritage that has been debated for ages. It is noteworthy that the definitions of many terms usually differ somewhat from Buddhist and Daoist traditions.


Criticism and Controversies

Main article: Criticism and controversies about Falun Gong

Criticism and controversies about Falun Gong abound. These include, for example, difference between Falun Gong and Qi Gong, controversies on Li as a savior or supernatural entity, claims about preventing catastrophes and cosmic explosions, controversies on Fa-rectification, debatable significance of Falun Gong awards and recognitions, Falun Gong and sexual orientation, allegation of profiting from Falun Gong, controversies about cult and ethics.

Falun Gong outside China

Main article: Falun Gong outside China

The persecution of Falun Gong practitioners has been regarded by most Western governments as a major international human rights issue. As of December 2005, 61 lawsuits have been filed in about 30 countries charging Jiang and several other senior officials with genocide, torture, and crimes against humanity for their roles in the treatment of Falun Gong in mainland China. (need citation) The Chinese government is accused by Falun Gong and many human rights groups of violating the United Nations Convention Against Torture (UNCAT), also ratified by China.

Falun Gong practitioners are often seen on the streets in major metropolitan areas, directly informing the public of the pesecution of practitioners in China.



Please suggest improvements/ changes to the summaries and also summaries for other sections . Remember factual accuracy is what we should strive to achieve. Where should the awards section go? We really dont want a huge section on the main page..and there isnt enough material to warrant a new page... what about the epistemological studies page? Can we put the awards section there? Dilip rajeev 13:04, 27 May 2006 (UTC)

Suggestions

// Suggestions go here

A Query on available research material=

Hi. I've been following this webpage for a while since I believe Dilip and Omido posted on Asiafinest.com a while back about the immolation bit. I myself is a man of science. (being an resident MD in the US.) I am interested in these claims of healing illnesses by FLG practitioners and if they test up to the scrutiny of a scientific study. Science being a tool rather than a religion, just measures observable differences between 2 subgroup. The human body is quite unique in certain ways because it's known to have mental/bodily links which means with a better mindset you tend to do better with illness in general. So I'm not denying the benefits of mediation, exercise, and the well being one feels being in a group. I propose a study done between 2 subgroups of people both practicing qigong and one of them being FLG practitioners.)If anyone can provide me with links of these "claims" by these so called MDs, PhDs, and scholars, it will be most appreciated. 24.189.163.169 17:32, 27 May 2006 (UTC)

Greetings. As far as Wikipedia is concerned, we have a policy of no original research. It isn't up to us to prove or disprove FLG in any light, some of the discussion on this page notwithstanding. If those sorts of studies interest you, however, there are links to demonstrable results obtained by medical studies done of Taijiquan teachers and students listed at that page. --Fire Star 火星 17:52, 27 May 2006 (UTC)

Hi. :) ..You can find some sources on this page:

http://wiki.riteme.site/wiki/Research_into_health_benefits_of_Falun_Gong

The quote I wrote earlier was from: http://www.walkyourpathwell.net/wholeelephant/submolecularbiology.html A paper by Tongwen Wang, Ph.D., Molecular Biologist, American Cancer Society Scholar. He can be contacted at wangt@thewholeelephant.org . He must be able to provide you with details on studies conducted( or being conducted) in the field...

A research paper by Quan-Zhen Li(PhD), Richard Jhonson, et al. can be found here on.. details of people in the control group are also mentioned in the paper... http://pkg.dajiyuan.com/pkg/2005-04-08/genomic%20profiling.pdf Dilip rajeev 17:55, 27 May 2006 (UTC)

  • Plenty of practitioners in the US claiming that their serious illnesses have been miraculously cured by their Master and by practicing the falun gong. If you can examine one of these cases it might answer some of your question. --Yueyuen 18:10, 27 May 2006 (UTC)
The paper by Quan-Zhen Li is quite interesting but admittingly somewhat of a contraversial subject. I can see his bias though when he went thru in his historical background an almost advertisment-like cap of FLG. His paper is exactly what I was looking for in terms of methodology, background information, and conclusions though. He does not states to say anything truly contraversial except the use of FLG practitioner instead of another qigong group. Although he infers in his conclusion that it's probably qigong and not FLG exclusively that made these changes to the neutrophils. I would love to know if the "control" also do any specific exercise or mediation regiment or religious background as well. The improvement in immune system could be attributed to exercise, mediation, etc as previously stated. The study does leave many questions unanswered though.

Addressing Tongwen Wang's article you gave me. I was disappointed by it personally. He wishes to drive in a new theory rather than to test it. As a scientist, you are taught to come up with a hypothesis and then with testing and reporting of those observation do you actually put out a theory. A lot of what he said about cancer dynamics is correct but he seems also to have tunnel vision. Which I will give examples of: "But if our body is the perfect product of natural selections, then how can we still have so many loopholes left in the system to allow so many different types of cancers to exist?" As per him, he think we're at our "perfect" state which most or almost all scientist, MD's will argue against. We are not perfect as by all these disease (not only cancer) that our modern medicine has to fight against dispite our "perfect" state. While the 2nd point/conclusion he reached I agree with. The third point he tries to make a social comparasion between biology and society which works in different ways. He might as well have been giving a lecture on social problems. That article I will leave as a ranting of a biochemist turn socialist. 24.189.163.169 19:24, 27 May 2006 (UTC)

Dilip is still deleting key subsection summaries in his proposed outline

I see that Dilip is still pushing for a main page structure which omits all the sub-section summaries and links in the Criticism page (which had previously been agreed to.) This would destroy any reasonable balance on the home page. No one is saying that there has to be a 50/50% split between the controversial topics and the non-controversial topics, but the net result cannot promote Falun Gong (eg: the health curing benefits and the awards section) at the expense of the controversies and criticism. As some of us have said repeatedly, the Dilip/Fndhzzs version amounts to blatant promotion of the Falun Gong. I actually did a word count of the frozen version of the article and found out that: it's total length is 8,292 words. Of that, 720 words, or 8.6% of the total are used for the existing sub-section summaries. We can even reduce the summaries further if we want, but under no circumstances will we ever reach a consensus on not having the critical subsections summarized separately on the home page.

Concerning the Falun Gong awards section, it would fit nicely into the Falun Gong outside of China section.

Here's a sample of what how Criticism and controversies section can look:

Criticism and controversies about Falun Gong

Criticism and controversies about Falun Gong abound.

Difference between Falun Gong and Qi Gong

Main article: Criticism and controversies about Falun Gong § Difference between Falun Gong and Qi Gong

Critics of Falun Gong point out that while using established Qi Gong terms for cultivation practice, Li’s version applies new meanings to the traditional terms. Deng and Fang (2000) state that Falung Gong differs from all other Qi Gong practices “by rendering a drastically different interpretation of ‘gong’ (energy) and it’s causality.” In Falun Gong, a practitioner is able to accumulate De (德, dé, virtue) through his or her own cultivation efforts, but needs the direct intervention of the master in order to evolve the De into cultivation energy.

Li as a savior or supernatural entity

Main article: Criticism and controversies about Falun Gong § Li_as_a_savior_or_supernatural_entity

Although Li has never directly said he is God, critics point out that he assumes the role of a divinity by virtue of his claimed supernatural powers. In addition to being the exclusive savior of mankind during this "Dharma ending period," Li promises his disciples that they themselves will become gods some day. He has numerous fashen (law bodies) which also exercise "great supernatural power," cure illnesses and know what the practitioners are thinking at all times.

Claims about preventing catastrophes and cosmic explosions

Main article: Criticism and controversies about Falun Gong § Claims_about_preventing_catastrophes_and_cosmic_explosions

Li's predictions of cosmic disasters and his claims to be able to prevent them are matters of some controversy. On several occasions Li has predicted cosmic explosions which have not happened. Some critics argue that Li borrowed these ideas from popular science fiction writers in the West, pointing out that such writings have been reported in Chinese media as “scientific facts.”

Fa-rectification: Li’s version of the apocalypse?

Main article: Criticism and controversies about Falun Gong § Fa-rectification: Li’s version of the apocalypse?

Whether Li’s teaching that his Dafa (great law) is judging all sentient beings amounts to an apocalyptic prediction is a matter of some debate. Practitioners strongly reject the apocalyptic label, while commentators generally come to an opposite conclusion. Maria Chang (2004) writes: "Just as human civilizations had been destroyed in the past because of immorality.l.. Li is convinced that the moral decadence of our times is leading to another apocalypse. His writings and speeches are replete with references to the 'Dharma-ending period' of 'the apocalypse,' the 'Great Havoc,' and the 'end times' (mojie). With the end days approaching, Li has set about disseminating Falun Dafa so as 'to provide salvation to mankind….in this final period of the Last Havoc.'"

Debatable significance of Falun Gong awards and recognitions

Main article: Criticism and controversies about Falun Gong § Debatable significance of Falun Gong awards and recognitions

There is some controversy about how meaningful Falun Gong’s many municipal awards and recognitions are and how they are used to promote the Falun Gong. Falun Gong expert Patsy Rahn (2000), states they “are documents routinely obtained by groups from public officials in the US for public relations purposes” and may be used to mislead people in China into believing “that the American government supports Master Li and his Falun Gong practitioners.” [5] Noah Porter (2003) argues that these awards are not always easy to get, citing one example from Tampa, Florida. [6]

Falun Gong and sexual orientation

Main article: Criticism and controversies about Falun Gong § Falun Gong and homosexuality

Li has made statements condemning homosexuality, describing a homosexual as having a "dark heart, turning demonic." [7] However, homosexuals can practice Falun Gong if they "correct this bad behavior" [8]. The teachings of Falun Gong are seen as homophobic by critics, while defenders of the Falun Gong dispute whether statements made by Falun Gong's founder are fairly interpreted.

Allegation of profiting from Falun Gong

Main article: Criticism and controversies about Falun Gong § Making_money_from_Falun_Gong

Some critics charge that Li hypocritically made money from the Falun Gong movement although Falun Gong practitioners said Li Hongzhi has not accepted donations from students of Falun Gong.[9]

We need a paragraph or two

Tomanada, we need a paragraph or two. It is alright if it runs half a page but please try to avoid sub-sections. Try to make it reasonably sized. I agree that the awards and recognitions can go under Falun Gong outside China. Dilip rajeev 19:30, 27 May 2006 (UTC)

Dilip, we need a main page which summarizes the whole truth about the Falun Gong, which includes sub-section summaries from the criticism section. How can you possibly argue that there should be separate main page sections promoting the unproven healh-benefits of the Falun Gong, its awards and recognitions and a biased report on what you call the persecution, while the teachings on homosexuality, Li as god and savior, the Fa-rectification, and so forth are relegated to one overall-page summary. I know you don't like reporting the Master's teachings on Fa-rectification, homosexuality, mixed-race people, etc, but they are important. In fact, the Fa-rectification teaching is Li's most important teaching at this time...plus his claim that he is turning his practitioners into gods. Interesting that you would so srongly resist giving a promonent place to those teachings. But then again, the Master tells you not to talk about the Falun Gong to ordinary people at the higher levels, right? --Tomananda 19:44, 27 May 2006 (UTC)

If you insist that we need to keep the subtitles for the criticism section, you may. But please try to keep it as short as possible. Keeping things both here and there would interfere with the edit process and inundate the need for sub-pages... Futher, it might keep readers from going through material in the sub-pages... please try to make sure it is proportional in size.. as other sections wont carry sub-titles. Dilip rajeev 20:04, 27 May 2006 (UTC)

Tomananda, you state that his health-benefits are unproven, then what do you call all those critics that you use? Like Deng, Fang and Maria Hsia Chang, who are they? As I see it, they are nothing more than ordinary people saying their own opinions and understanding, these so called "critics" can't be used in your anti-FLG material. These all "commentators say" "critics say" will all be removed because they are nothing more than personal opinions. Omido 20:20, 27 May 2006 (UTC)

Omido, you need to aquaint yourself with some policies, such as Wikipedia:Verifiability. It clearly states, "Verifiability in this context does not mean that editors are expected to verify whether, for example, the contents of a New York Times article are true. In fact, editors are strongly discouraged from conducting this kind of research, because original research may not be published in Wikipedia. Articles should contain only material that has been published by reliable sources, regardless of whether individual editors view that material as true or false. As counterintuitive as it may seem, the threshold for inclusion in Wikipedia is verifiability, not truth." So your determination to remove verifiable sources is wrong and against policy. Part of what we will accomplish here is to agree on which sources meet the criteria of a reliable source.CovenantD 20:42, 27 May 2006 (UTC)

I think Omid was mentioning the quality of the source. What does wiki say on that?

Dilip rajeev 20:56, 27 May 2006 (UTC)

Coventant, so If I make a homepage, and say on that homepage that Falun Gong is really good and say alot of good things about Falun Gong and why I think they way I do, can I publish it in the wikipedia article too? In that case let me take countless articles from pro-FLG sites and post them. These so called "critics" called Deng, Fang and Maria Hsia Chang I think should not be on the article, because what they say is only their own personal thoughts. As Ive understood it, the reason for the articles on wikipedia is to offer people a chance too make their own thoughts and understandings regarding things. If we citate people from this or that website and write down what others think, how could that give a chance to other people to make their own opinion? Its like forcing opinions into others, as I see it, these critics he used should not be used. If he uses them, I can use all the positive things people has said too right? and believe me I can find 10 times more positive things that people has said about Dafa, that is for sure. Those sources he used is really not reliable, that is what I am trying to say. Omido 22:26, 27 May 2006 (UTC)

Short answer: no you couldn't. The key phrase here is reliable sources. For more on this, see Wikipedia:Reliable_sources.
Longer answer: A lot of WP policies have to be considered in tandem to make any sense. Verifiability and reliable sources are two that have to be taken together. I fully intend to make sure that we look at each and every source to make sure it's appropriate for the context. Some, like the New York Times, are pretty obviously considered reliable for most things, while others, like Falundafa.org, may only be appropriate for certain purposes. I'm sure that some of them will be found lacking and have to be removed. Quite honestly, I haven't contemplated a lot of them yet because in my mind we're not ready for that. We haven't even gotten through the first three paragraphs. When we do start considering sources, rest assured that I'm going to be one of the toughest critics :-) CovenantD 22:53, 27 May 2006 (UTC)

Legality/Illegality of the FLG ban in China

It has come to my notice that this website, [10], has mentioned the reason FLG is illegal. Over here: [11]. Unfortunately I couldn't find an English version of the article and I don't have knowledge on the laws in China. Before people start yelling "propaganda website", don't forget that the laws are at least cited out. --Yenchin 19:41, 27 May 2006 (UTC)

The United States Congress Resolution 188[12] passed unanimously (420-0) states:

Whereas this policy violates the Constitution of the People's Republic of China as well as the International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights and the Universal Declaration of Human Rights;

The ban itself could be called "illegal" looked at with international laws. Then we will have to say :China illegally banned Falun Gong. Dilip rajeev 19:48, 27 May 2006 (UTC)

My understanding is that prior to the big Beijing protest, Falun Gong practitioners had staged a series of illegal protests in media stations throughout the country. During those earlier protests, some of the practitioners had been arrested. In fact, one of the Falun Gong's demands was to have those people released from jail. So it is clear that there had been illegal activity prior to the Beijing protest. To say otherwise is to fly in the face of historical accuracy.
And for those who argue that Falun Gong practitioners should be allowed to stage disruptive protests anywhere they want in China, I point to the recent illegal protest staged by a female Falun Gong practitioner using her Epoch Times press pass to gain access to the White house lawn. There are limits to free speech, even in the US. Let's get real about this. --Tomananda 19:54, 27 May 2006 (UTC)

Rough jist of it:

  1. social organisations cannot conduct commercial activities
  2. social orgarnisations must be registered
  3. protests that 1. violates basic principles of the constitution 2. endangers national sovereignty 3. incites racial hatred 4. endangers public safety will not be allowed
  4. citizens cannot protest outside their cities of residence
  5. disruption of publics safety include disrupting daily running of commerce, production and education, spreading lies, rumours and disrupting social order
  6. organising protests/marches that do not have approval, refuse to comply with approved times, locations, routes, refuse to disperse, endanger public safety is liable to be jailed for less than 5 years
  7. organising cults that use superstition that destroy national laws and executive policies, or cause the death of others is liable for 3-7 year jail time, extreme cases 7+ years.

-- Миборовский U|T|C|M|E|Chugoku Banzai! 20:17, 27 May 2006 (UTC)

Based on what I read here, I still contend that "alleged illegal activities" is probably the best wording we can find for the opening paragraphs. It acknowledges that accusations without making a determination on whether they are valid or not in light of international law. If people feel that strongly about it, and I'm sure they do, we can go into more detail elsewhere in the article or on a subpage. CovenantD 20:58, 27 May 2006 (UTC)


  • The Chinese government provided two major justifications for banning the Falun Gong 1) The unnecessary death of 1,404 practitioners who abandoned their needed medical treatment in following the group’s teachings. 2) Its many illegal protests against critics and later government institutions which caused a threat to social stability.
Article 36 of the Chinese constitution permits the banning of religious groups under certain circumstances. It states: Citizens of the People's Republic of China enjoy freedom of religious belief. No state organ, public organization or individual may compel citizens to believe in, or not to believe in, any religion; nor may they discriminate against citizens who believe in, or do not believe in, any religion. The state protects normal religious activities. No one may make use of religion to engage in activities that disrupt public order, impair the health of citizens or interfere with the educational system of the state. Religious bodies and religious affairs are not subject to any foreign domination.
China’s banning the Falun Gong is in accord with International laws such as the “International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights” and the “Declaration on the Elimination of All Forms of Intolerance and of Discrimination Based on Religion or Belief.” Both of these laws call for the protection of religious freedom, however, they also both have the same clause allowing for limitations on religious expression under certain circumstances. “Freedom to manifest one's religion or beliefs may be subject only to such limitations as are prescribed by law and are necessary to protect public safety, order, health, or morals or the fundamental rights and freedoms of others.” With freedom comes responsibility. These international laws permit governments to hold those who exploit religious freedom responsible.
Under the protection of the First Amendment, American religious freedom seems to be absolute, with cults and hate-preaching groups like the KKK enjoying legal status and protection. But not all western democracies are as permissive of religious freedom as the United States. Enabled by the anti-cult law, France, a nation with a long democratic tradition and respect for religious freedom, permits the government to dissolve a cult-like organization and jail its leader. These legal actions can only be taken when an organization commits offences like “deceptive advertising, frauds, and falsifications” and “intentional or unintentional prejudice to the life or the physical or psychological integrity of the person.” Other western democracies like Canada and Spain also have “hate speech” laws that outlaws speech promoting hatred or violence based on religion or race.
US politicians would denounce any country for limiting religious freedom but that does not mean these countries, in this case China, violates international laws.
Going back to our discussion, to say that the Chinese government banned the falun Gong for “alleged illegal activities” is inaccurate. We can argue whether the group did violate those laws, but it was banned because the government believed it “violated the Chinese laws.” How about using “violated the Chinese laws” instead? --Samuel Luo 04:21, 28 May 2006 (UTC)

I can post here material from Congress Resolution, Amnesty International and HRW to United Nation Reports, and over 61 lawsuits filed by leading international Human Rights attorneys around the world. But I think that is necessary. Let us not deviate too much from the discussion of the material. In my opinion, the legality or illegality of the supression neednt be mentioned in the introduction. The previous version of the article stated: "Falun Gong has been the focus of international attention since the government of the People's Republic of China began a nationwide suppression of Falun Gong on July 20, 1999. Concerns were triggered especially when 10,000 practitioners assembled in peaceful protest at the Central Appeal Office at Foyou street, outside Zhongnanhai.". Dilip rajeev 07:13, 28 May 2006 (UTC)

One problem with the latter quote: I think the world was aware of Falun Gong before the clampdown. Etaonsh 07:26, 28 May 2006 (UTC)

Samuel Lou, there is no evidence that Falun Gong did violite any law at all, its only what the CCP says, and we all know the nature of the CCP... Omido 07:57, 28 May 2006 (UTC)

Here's some revised wording:

Falun Gong has been the focus of international attention since (date), when 10,000 practitioners assembled in peaceful protest at the Central Appeal Office at Foyou street, outside Zhongnanhai. Prior to that, the Falun Gong had staged protests against it’s media critics all over China which were deemed in violation of Chinese laws and resulted in the arrest of practitioners. On July 20, 1999 the government banned the Falun Gong for allegedly causing the unnecessary death of 1,404 practitioners who abandoned their needed medical treatment in following the group’s teachings and for it’s many protests which were considered a threat to social stability.

I believe Etaonosh is correct that the world became aware of Falun Gong before the ban...it was that protest in Zhongnanhai that brought them to world attention. So I have reversed the chronology. Also, it's clear that there was a violation of Chinese law prior to the Zhongnanhai protest, otherwise there wouldn't have been the demand to release practitioners who had been arrested. So all of this needs to be summarized briefly. I think the above does it. --Tomananda 08:12, 28 May 2006 (UTC)

Specifically speaking, what triggered the Zhongnanhai incident was the Tianjin incident. On 1999, April 11, FLG members protested against the publisher which published He Zuoxiou's "I Don't Agree Teenagers to Practice Falun Gong", an article which criticized the movement. 45 members were arrested near the end of the protest. --Yenchin 10:13, 28 May 2006 (UTC)

Tomananda, the above is not good enought. Why? Because you can't just give the version of the CCP. You can't say "allegedly causing the unnecessary death of 1,404 practitioners who abandoned their needed medical treatment". This is from no verifiable source, its just lies and propaganda used by the CCP. I think it is okey to say something like: "The CCP accused Falun Gong for the death of 1,404 practitioners who abandoned their needed medical treatment. Falun Gong practitioners strongly reject these accusations and say that these accusations is a way for the CCP to turn the chinese people against Falun Gong and justify their persecution of Falun Gong. There is no evidence of 1,404 practitioner dying from not taking their medicine."

If you only say: "allegedly causing the unnecessary death of 1,404 practitioners who abandoned their needed medical treatment" This makes it sound like it is true, and it isn't, it's just lies used by the evil CCP. /Omido 11:27, 28 May 2006 (UTC)

1 : asserted to be true or to exist <an alleged miracle>
2 : questionably true or of a specified kind : SUPPOSED, SO-CALLED <bought an alleged antique vase>
3 : accused but not proven or convicted <an alleged gangster>
Please explain how "allegedly causing...." makes it sound it is true. It's just your personal opinion. As for personal opinions, please refer to the previous section where you can find what you said.
--Yenchin 15:02, 28 May 2006 (UTC)

The CCP propoganda has even "alleged" Falun Gong practitioners are CIA agents and such things have appeared in Chinese media. It is alright to say they have "alleged" but not in the introduction and not in a manner that tries to justify the inhuman persecution. We'd rather give more importance to what the Amnesty Internation, HRW or the United Nations say on the persecution.

I'd prefer statements from international organizations in the introduction rather than a made up "excuse" for torturing tens of thousands, including children and women, to death. I would like to hear a better excuse for that than "somebody didnt take medicine". Dilip rajeev 15:26, 28 May 2006 (UTC)

Wow "evil" I've only seen this word used in recent history by religious fanatics (GW Bush included.)

Well you can't say that the chinese communist party has been good exactly can you? They have a history of killing innocent people, and in 50 years it is estimated that 60-100 million chinese people have died a unnatural death by the CCP, in my opinion that qualifies for evil...

"evil" is a mild word to use. What do you call taking people from their homes and torturing them to death and then threatening their families with further persecution if they speak out? Tell it is not "evil" to families left devastated. May 26, 2006. Brussels (EFGIC) - Following a three-day visit to Beijing, the Vice President of the European Parliament, Edward McMillan-Scott, called the Chinese Communist leadership a "brutal, arbitrary and paranoid system" The sad fact is that some confuse the CCP with China. They desperately want to be part of the crime, they want to support, defend and coverup the atrocities. Dilip rajeev 15:50, 28 May 2006 (UTC)

We can argue the moral term "evil" to death but this is not the scope of this article so I would stop. In clear facts, FLG did break chinese laws so it was made illegal in China. Pretty much ends the discussion. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 24.189.163.169 (talk • contribs)
It doesnt end any discussion. Dalai Lama is wanted dead or alive for his "illegal" activities by the CCP. I'd prefer what the US congress resolution, HRW, Amnesty International, The European Parliament and prominent Human Rights Attorneys say in the introduction. "The CCP, violating international Laws and its own constitution, illegaly banned Falun Gong and has systematically attempted to eradicate Falun Gong practitioners through organized torture and murder", please point out anything non-factual. Not that I want to discuss these things in the introduction.. but because you keep wanting to label the insane persecution "legal" and allow the murderers to label the victims "illegal".
Dilip rajeev 18:03, 28 May 2006 (UTC)
That is ofcourse only your understanding.
/Omido 16:37, 28 May 2006 (UTC)
It is pretty well established that the CCP has ruthlessly suppressed the FLG, using murder and torture, at least. It is also pretty well established that Li Hongzhi turned tail and left his followers in China to face the suppression without the aid of his soi-disant divine intervention. So perhaps it isn't a good guy/bad guy thing, and we will impede agreement on the article by making it one. --Fire Star 火星 16:40, 28 May 2006 (UTC)
Christian monks have been persecuted in History. Buddhist Monks have gone through unspeakable hardships. The sages of vedic India went through boundless hardships. Many western cultivators have died really bad deaths. Gnostic cultivators have been tortured to death. This has happened through out history and scriptures give the reasons. The Buddhist scriptures emphatically affirm that this will happen in this period( which according to the scriptures is the "Dharma Ending Period"( which caries no apocalyptic meaning an only signifies a period of time when the morality of mankind is very low...). (See, for instance: http://www.drba.org/dharma/btts/9xxentrydetail.asp?wid=89 )
It is no co-incidence that even after spending a major fraction of the nations budget on trying to persecute Falun Gong and resorting to the most horrible and insane atrocities, the CCP hasnt been able to achieve its ends. Li Hongzhi was in United Sates from 1997 he moved so that the government may not feel cocnerned about the number of practitioners in China.
Dilip rajeev 17:16, 28 May 2006 (UTC)
? major fraction of it's national budget? Links please. I don't know why people keep bringing up apocolpyses/ dharma ending days... The christians were into it during the 1000 AD, 2000 some people thought the world was going to end, the Garland group a few years ago as well, now the FLG too? Anyways sorry I'm going off topic. This is about the legality of the ban. 24.189.163.169 17:33, 28 May 2006 (UTC)
No. The Dharma Ending only means end of the Dharma ( Law / Morality ).. Its a Buddhist term.. not Falun Gong's. It has absolutely nothing to do with any apocalypse!..

Dilip rajeev 18:58, 28 May 2006 (UTC)

  • the article is called "I Don't Recommend Teenagers to Practice Qigong." [13] the article was not directed at the FAlun Gong, Mr. He only gave a example about one of his colleague became psychotic after practicing the FAlun Gong. This article was published in a small magazine owned by a university; it was protested by 7 thousand plus practitioners. The company called the police who then ordered the practitioners to leave, when these practitioners refused to obey order four hundred police forced the evacuation and arrested about a dozen practitioners. The protest was illegal because it had no permit and was an intimidation to suppress critic. --Samuel Luo 17:34, 28 May 2006 (UTC)
  • Clearly we must report this protest, or media protests in general, which were presumed (or alleged) to be in violation of Chinese law. Even in the US, where there is an absolute "presumptioin of innocence" the press reports people being arrested or indicted for allegedly committing crimes all the time. Dilip, I appreciate your passion when talking about the "persecution," but keep in mind there's an entire page devoted to that topic. Right now, for this paragraph, we just need to agree to language which reports what led up to the ban in China.

Words like "alleged" seem absolutely correct to me, so it's just a question of building the best sentence to convey these thoughts. --Tomananda 17:43, 28 May 2006 (UTC)


I have followed the ban closely; I don’t think this statement “the CCP has ruthlessly suppressed the FLG, using murder and torture” is based on facts. Yes torture and death of practitioners did happened, but there is no government policy to torture and murder. I believe these were acts committed by individual brutal prison guards. But the government can be condemned for not holding investigation into the deaths and punish the perpetrators. --Samuel Luo 17:45, 28 May 2006 (UTC)

There a wikipedia policy saying "No Original Research." And what you say contradicts what teh international bodies say on the matter. Dilip rajeev 19:30, 28 May 2006 (UTC)

I agree with Firestar's assessment. Truth is just what he said. No need to be apologetic on what the CCP did. The government should punish those guards that did it because they are responsive for those guards. There should not be a debate on the legality of the ban either. 24.189.163.169 17:52, 28 May 2006 (UTC)

  • I don’ think the word “alleged” works. How about this “The government banned the Falun Gong for its violation of Chinese laws but the group denies any wrong doing”? The government’s charge against the group and its rebuttal can be introduced in the body of the article. --Samuel Luo 17:52, 28 May 2006 (UTC)
I think "alleged" is wrong here too. They broke chinese law. Now is the law just or not is a whole different matter. But a law was broken. So why hide around the bush. 24.189.163.169 18:12, 28 May 2006 (UTC)

Quite interesting.. you torture people to death people then harass their families, rape women, kill kids and then label them "illegal" and then accuse them for "breaking laws". Welcome to the civilized world. I insist that we mention what the international bodies say in the introduction. Dilip rajeev 18:24, 28 May 2006 (UTC)

Dilip, unless you are claiming that FG practitioners were tortured before the ban, your entire statement above is inaccurate because it assumes a sequence of events that didn't happen. First, thousands of Falun Gong practitioners staged illegal protests at media stations all over China insisting that your Master's teachings never be criticized. Some of those media protests resulted in arrests and all of them had the effect of suppressing the freedom of speech of Falun Gong critics, such as that professor who wrote that academic article which so bothered Li Hongzhi. So the practittioners, at the urging of Master Li (to show his power?), continued protesting and demanding that the arrested people be released, that the publishers issue retractions and that the government proclaim that Falun Gong is good. Then, after all these illegal activities took place, the Chinese government officially banned the Falun Gong and, to use your terminology, the "persecution" began. Please understand that I am not justifying the torture or persecution of anyone, but I do insist that the history be told correctly. There are two sides to this story.--Tomananda 19:01, 28 May 2006 (UTC)


The un-informed reader doesnt know that the Chinese laws require people to be put in prison for 10 years and tortured for practicing Qi Gong. I'd prefer what the US congress resolution, HRW, Amnesty International, The European Parliament and prominent Human Rights Attorneys say in the introduction. "The CCP, violating international Laws and its own constitution, illegaly banned Falun Gong and has systematically attempted to eradicate Falun Gong practitioners through organized torture and murder", please point out anything non-factual. I dont think anybody with a conscience would want to coverup those crimes. I actually dont want to go into such details in the introduction but am forced to suggest it as some editors who ( I really dont know why) want to make it look like Falun Gong commited "illegal" activities and was thus banned. Dilip rajeev 18:24, 28 May 2006 (UTC)

Dilip rajeevplease provide a link for the statment you are citing. --Samuel Luo 18:25, 28 May 2006 (UTC)

We are getting off topic. Here's a revised paragraph incorporating the suggestions so far:

  • Falun Gong has been the focus of international attention since April 25,1999, when 10,000 practitioners assembled in peaceful protest at the Central Appeal Office at Foyou street, outside Zhongnanhai. Prior to that, the Falun Gong had staged protests against it’s media critics all over China. At Tianjin, 7,000 practitioners had protested against an academic article which was critical of the Falun Gong, resulting in the arrest of 45 practitioners. On July 20, 1999 the government banned the Falun Gong for its violation of Chinese laws, but the group denies any wrong doing.--Tomananda 18:28, 28 May 2006 (UTC)

I dont agree. I insist that we mention what the international bodies say in the introduction. "The CCP, violating international Laws and its own constitution, illegaly banned the peaceful practice of Falun Gong and has systematically attempted to eradicate Falun Gong practitioners through organized torture and murder[14]", please point out anything non-factual. Dilip rajeev 18:41, 28 May 2006 (UTC)


As I have read, the torture and killings are not just about a few guards that did this or that. Many many practitioners that made it out alive from the concentration camps or brainwashing camps has spoken out and told, that the CCP offers you to renounce your faith in Dafa. That means, you sign your name on a paper which means that your don't believe in Falun Gong anymore, if you do this, they will release you very fast without touching you...and if you don't they will torture you with all kind of methods until you sign under. Its been reported that alot of practitioners were chocked with electric batoons in the face for 8 hours because they didnt renounce their faith in Dafa, and also they wont let you sleep for many many days, they also give criminals bonuses if they torture practitioners. After the torture, the practitioners were barely alive, and still they didn't want to give up their faith in Dafa. Also, witnesses, doctors and other people have stepped forward saying that the government are doing organ transplant on LIVE Falun Gong practitioners because the CCP knows that Falun Gong practitioners have very good health and rarely get sick. After the transplantation they throw the body into a crematorium to destroy all evidence. One more thing to notice, is that after the persecution began in 1999, the organ transplant business in China has gone up by 3000 %. Today, in China it takes two weeks at most to get a new organ...in other countries it takes at least two years. Also investigators have called hospitals doing the transplants pretending wanting to buy, and the hospitals sometimes said the organs was from live Falun Gong practitioners. This persecution is evil beyond words. Omido 18:37, 28 May 2006 (UTC)

The organ transplant from live people has been covered by a UK Channel with under-cover cameras. Dilip rajeev 18:41, 28 May 2006 (UTC)

  • Tomananda, the protest on April 25,1999, was held outside of Zhongnanhai, China's leadership compound not the Central Appeal Office at Foyou street. [15] --Samuel Luo 18:42, 28 May 2006 (UTC)

Dilip rajeevI asked you to provide a link to the report from the Us congress not the FAlun Gong --Samuel Luo 19:08, 28 May 2006 (UTC)

The text of the resolution ( Concurrent Resolution 188 - passed unanimously (420-0) by the U.S Congress) is available on several websites including the website I mentioned earlier. Dilip rajeev 19:20, 28 May 2006 (UTC)

Interested in how they came up with the conclusion that it was illegal according to China's constitution as well. 24.189.163.169 19:17, 28 May 2006 (UTC)

Third Revision of Target Paragraph on the Ban

Responding to requests from Samuel and Dilip, I propose the following paragraph which aims to summarize, as briefly as possible, both POV's about the history and legality of the ban in China.

Falun Gong has been the focus of international attention since April 25,1999, when 10,000 practitioners assembled in peaceful protest outside Zhongnanhai, China’s leadership compound. Prior to that, the Falun Gong had staged protests against it’s media critics all over China. At Tianjin, 7,000 practitioners had protested against an academic article which was critical of the Falun Gong, resulting in the arrest of 45 practitioners. On July 20, 1999 the government banned the Falun Gong for its violation of Chinese laws, citing the unnecessary deaths of 1,404 practitioners, some of whom had abandoned their needed medical treatment in accordance with Li Hongzhi’s teachings and the threat to social stability caused by the Falun Gong’s many protests. However, the Falung Gong denies any wrongdoing, pointing to declarations made by several international bodies. In particular, the Falun Gong cites US House of Representatives Resolution 188 which it helped to write in 2002. That resolution claims that the CCP itself has violated international laws and its own constitution; and has attempted to eradicate Falun Gong practitioners through organized torture and murder.

We need to remind ourselves that this is just a summary. Anything longer than this would be inappropriate for this introductory section in my opinion. --Tomananda 20:03, 28 May 2006 (UTC)

This reads more like a summary to the crackdown of the Falun Gong section. Anyway, a few changes is needed in my opinion. Below is a revised verion:

Falun Gong has been the focus of international attention since April 25,1999, when 10,000 practitioners assembled in peaceful protest outside Zhongnanhai, China’s leadership compound. Prior to that, the Falun Gong had staged protests against it’s media critics all over China. At Tianjin, 7,000 practitioners had protested illegally against an academic article which was critical of the Falun Gong, resulting in the arrest of 45 practitioners. On July 20, 1999 the government banned the Falun Gong for its violation of Chinese laws, citing the unnecessary deaths of 1,404 practitioners, most of whom had abandoned their needed medical treatment in accordance with Li Hongzhi’s teachings and the threat to social stability caused by the Falun Gong’s many illegal protests. However, the Falung Gong denies any wrongdoing, pointing to declarations made by several international bodies. In particular, the Falun Gong cites US House of Representatives Resolution 188 which it helped to write in 2002. That resolution claims that the CCP itself has violated international laws and its own constitution; and has attempted to eradicate Falun Gong practitioners through organized torture and murder. --Samuel Luo 20:12, 28 May 2006 (UTC)

Samuel, can you prove the protests was illegal? I heard it was legal... /Omido 20:37, 28 May 2006 (UTC)

Easy, it was held without a permit. --Samuel Luo 21:12, 28 May 2006 (UTC)

Frankly speaking Zhu Rongji interviewing with protesters says nothing about the protest itself. Illegal protests were held by people after the Presidential Election in Taiwan, officials still came to meet the protesters. Also according to one of the 4.25 Zhongnanhai protesters Zhu Rongji didn't mention or question whether the protest was permitted.[16] --Yenchin 00:10, 29 May 2006 (UTC)

It suprises me that the US House of Representatives has the right of a Supreme Court Justice on deciding whether something is constitutional or not. Last time I checked, they don't. --Yenchin 22:40, 28 May 2006 (UTC)

You're correct, the House does not have that kind of authority. US House resolutions do not have the force of law. They are essentially symbolic, and are usually drafted by lobbyists of one sort or another and just presented to legislators for ratification. The fact that something is stated as fact in a US House resolution does not mean it's a fact. Even when the congress passes actual laws, most congressmen don't read them. So it's quite easy to get inaccurate statements slipped into a resolution. It's part of the brilliance of Li Hongzhi's PR strategy to have figured out how easy these things are to get and then have his followers pursue them all of the country. Then, the same practitioners get to point to these resolutions as proof of how good Li Hongzhi's teachings are. Quite cynical, don't you think? --Tomananda 22:58, 28 May 2006 (UTC)
PS: By way of example, check out US House Resolution 29, "Commending Jared & Jerusha Hess and the City of Preston for the Production of the Movie 'Napolean Dynamite'" here: [17] I have never heard of this film or the city of Preston. I had to read further to find out that Preston is a city in the rural state of Idaho. I doubt if more than a handful of the congresspeople who signed this resolution have ever actually seen the film they praised in the resolution. You get the idea.--Tomananda 23:10, 28 May 2006 (UTC)

Tomanada, This is a Hon. Concurrent Resolution passed unanimously( 420-0) by the Congress. Why do you argue this is not a "law"? That sounds really mis-informed. Dilip rajeev 12:18, 29 May 2006 (UTC)

Um, hello? Since when did the legislative of the US has rights to make "laws" for China? Are you using a Ming sword to behead a Qing official? Definition of resolution. --Yenchin 16:24, 29 May 2006 (UTC)
Still interested on how they came to that conclusion. I want the facts. Not some declaration by some people that might or might not have any idea what they are signing. 24.189.163.169 23:38, 28 May 2006 (UTC)
I get the point. So it's like those "awards" and "days" they make such a fuss about. Anyway, I took the trouble to look up the original process and text from the Library of Congress. The records of discussion can also be found in there.[18]. It would be another example to put in related FLG topics on Wikipedia. Back on topic, I think the current version is good enough. The fact of persecution or not is irrelevant to the laws China cites. Governments use anti-Sodomy laws to persecute gay and lesbian people, but it doesn't change the fact that people were arrested by these laws. --Yenchin 23:52, 28 May 2006 (UTC)
Unfortunately, we can't tell how they came to their conclusions. The web link which Yenchin provides is missing some information. It lists four "Witness prepared statements" in support of the resolutioin (two dated 6.27/01 and two dated 8/1/01) and states that "some documents may contain partisan views," but when you click on those links it doesn't take you to the documents. Perhaps they've been archived? It would be interesting to see them. I suspect they largely contain claims made by the Falun Gong, such as the claim that the ban is in violation of the Chinese constitution, which never were investigated or verifified by the House committee which dealt with the resolution. --Tomananda 00:26, 29 May 2006 (UTC)

Criticism page

While we have been discussing structure and sources on this main Talk page, practitioners Dilip and Fnhddzs have attacked the Criticism and controversies page with a series of edits (from 6:28 to 7:17 on 28 May), deleting, among other things, all of the Deng and Fang quotes. This is an outrageous breach of good faith. Is this the prelude to another revert war? Should other editors start going into the Falun Gong teachings or Persecution pages and do to these Falun Gong practitioners what they have just done to us? Or should we exercise restraint and ask for administrative intervention? I opt for the latter and request that if it is within Wikipedia policy to do so, both Fnhddzs and Dilip receive some kind of sanction. After all of this discussion, and two previous revert wars brought to us by Fnhddzs and Dilip, to have this happen is truly outrageous. What is the point of our continuing along this path if such a blatant subversion of our cooperative editing process goes unpunished? --Tomananda 21:25, 28 May 2006 (UTC)

Tell you what, Tomananda. If it happens again, why don't you just revert with a note to take it to the talk page. I think we're getting bogged down too much in the interpersonal comments. I'll back you up in reverting things that haven't been properly discussed. CovenantD 06:01, 29 May 2006 (UTC)
OK with me. Dilip just did the same deletes in the Criticism and controversies section that Fnhddzs did earlier. I did a revert. What he is doing is deleting all of the Deng and Fang quotes in various sections which were discussed two weeks ago and are being discussed again. Rather than wait for a group decision (and actually, as far as I'm concerened we already decided this one), Dilip has simply done the reverts. --Tomananda 07:10, 29 May 2006 (UTC)

Wikipedia policy on citing self-published sources

Tomananda, what is your assumption of good faith? Assume_good_faith?

As I mentioned a while ago, xys.org is a personal website hosted by the biochemist Fang, Shimin [19] or Self-published_sources.

Self-published sources in articles about themselves

Material from self-published sources, and other published sources of dubious reliability, may be used as sources of information about themselves in articles about themselves, so long as:

* It is relevant to the person's notability; * It is not contentious; * It is not unduly self-serving; * It is not contradicted by reliable, third-party published sources; * It does not involve claims about third parties, or about events not directly related to the subject; * There is no reasonable doubt about who wrote it.

Self-published sources may never be used as sources of information about another person or topic.

Source issue

A Wikipedia article about an unreliable newspaper should not — on the grounds of needing to give examples of their published stories — repeat any claims the newspaper has made about third parties, unless the stories have been published by other credible third-party sources.

Fnhddzs 23:42, 28 May 2006 (UTC)

I strongly request wiki amdmins give Tomananda sanctions !!!!!! for his ignoring wiki's policy, for his slanders and personal attacks !!!!! Fnhddzs 23:51, 28 May 2006 (UTC) How could wiki allow such a senior wikipedian at large? Fnhddzs 23:53, 28 May 2006 (UTC)

Fnhddzs: The question of using private web pages as sources was discussed at length in the Criticism and controversies talk page. When we left it, some of the editors had agreed to a standard proposed by Covenant which would require that the private web page be a copy of something presented elsewhere (in the case of Deng and Fang, that would be an academic conference). Also part of that discussion was the recognition that Covenant's standard would allow the inclusion of some of your pro-Falun Gong stuff, including but not limited to the Lili Feng material and other medical reports.

You have violated good faith by deleting substantial portions of the material on the Criticism and controversies page without first obtaining consensus on the talk page. We can revisit the discussion of standards for self-published sources...in fact, that is our intent in the present discussion. But you cannot unilaterally delete this material. --Tomananda 00:02, 29 May 2006 (UTC)

PS: I just tried to go back in the archives to point to this prior discussion, but the archives for Talk Criticism and controversy seem to be missing. Can someone help? --Tomananda 00:13, 29 May 2006 (UTC)

All Falun gong websites are private, if Deng and Fang's website does not meet the standard then all material from FAlun Gong private websites have to go too. --Yueyuen 00:40, 29 May 2006 (UTC)

Fnhddzsthere is no justification for you to delete critical material from the criticism page. You are again being warned. --Yueyuen 00:43, 29 May 2006 (UTC)

Fnhddzs: I forgot to mention that criticizing your editing practices does not constitute a personal attack. You and Dilip have a history of doing significant deletions without discussion and have already provoked two revert wars. It becomes tiring to have to deal with those violations over and over again. The request is simply to discuss major changes before doing deletions. --Tomananda 01:36, 29 May 2006 (UTC)

Repost from Talk Criticism page on the issue of using private web sources

I located part of the earlier discussion on this topic:


I'm going to be looking for a slightly higher standard for something that appears on a website; I want it to be a reproduction of something presented elsewhere, whether a conference or a newpaper or a book or a lecture or something. Just a personal paper on a website is going to be met with raised eyebrows.I want to point out that there is a blockquote provided by Dilip that I want to have included, that seems to agree with the premise that words and phrases carry different meaning. I think it provides balance to the allegation by essentially saying, "sure, it's different, but that's the way it has to be." CovenantD 04:29, 11 May 2006 (UTC)

Both of the sources that I mentioned above--Deng and Fang's academic article and the expose from Li's earliest followers--meet your proposed standard (the private website version of the expose is a reproduction of an official report submitted to the China Qi Gong Research Society). I assume the Lilli Feng material would meet your proposed standard as well. There may be unusual situations in which we need to allow other types of private web site sources, but if we encounter that kind of situation we can discuss that particular case on its own merits. For now, in order to make some progress, I approve your standard, at least on a provisional basis.

(break..new editor speaking) I also share your concern about too many quotes from Li affecting the readability of the article, but they are probably the best source of material for actual teachings. As long as they're kept short and to the point...

Samuel, it depends on the context in which ClearWisdom and other Falun Gong sites are used. If it's being used as a source on Falun Gong teachings, I'd say it meets "primary source" criteria. If it's being used to highlight something else, like persecution, then another, independent source should be found and used to avoid the controversy of "questionable" sources. (I'm not expressing my opinion, merely reflecting what others have expressed, hence the quotation marks.) CovenantD 17:53, 11 May 2006 (UTC)

Fair enough, I remember practitioners used a personal statement from clearwisdom.net in “Financial and business aspects of the Falun Gong” section. The following is the statement in question: “Li refused the house according to the practitioner who bought the house in this letter [8]. The house which Mr. Li admitted to living in in the report was at least partially paid for by James Pang, ‘who was among Mr. Li's first followers in the U.S. and helped rent the Queens apartment for Mr. Li.’” According to wikipedia standards and what you are saying here, this statement will have to go. --Samuel Luo 19:37, 11 May 2006 (UTC) That bit is no longer in the article, so it's a bit difficult for me to comment on it. I seem to remember thinking that the entire section needed work to provide balance since it seemed to be reverted back and forth a lot. CovenantD 21:15, 11 May 2006 (UTC)

Infact, what was used appeared in the letters to the editor section of the wall street journal.

Dilip rajeev 08:23, 29 May 2006 (UTC)

Earlier on, Ed Poor and Olaf had also voiced their opinions which amounted to saying that a broad application of this rule might be best, since it would allow material that is not available any other way. (Did I summarize that correctly, guys?) In any case, we must discuss this before deleting any material and, as I said before, if we're going to apply a new "get tough" policy, it will also necessarily lead to the deletion of some of the pro-Falun Gong material. --Tomananda 00:50, 29 May 2006 (UTC)

Source issue

It is ridiculous that you have hesitation on citing the public U.S. government publication, instead you guys seem not to have hesitation on citing the biochemist's self-publicated sources on his personal website. I don't understand the bias hidden on mind of guys here.

Tomananda said the xys.org source is a reproduction of a conference paper. What is the proof of that? How to get the conference paper? It is not verifiable. Fnhddzs 05:26, 29 May 2006 (UTC)

The US gov't publication is of course a good source. It just needs to be put in the proper context. The conference paper is a bit more problematic because of the verifiability issues. It would be nice if we could reference something directly tied to the conference or the organization that put it on, just so we know that it is what it claims to be. That would alleviate any doubts. CovenantD 05:56, 29 May 2006 (UTC)
Just keep in mind that the US government has a POV too. (Let's hope the NSA doesn't check up on me at night.) -- Миборовский U|T|C|M|E|Chugoku Banzai! 07:11, 29 May 2006 (UTC)

That is not just what the US Government says. From the Amnesty International to the European Union and the United Nations . Dilip rajeev 08:17, 29 May 2006 (UTC)

And I'm pretty sure Amnesty International and the EU and the UN all have their own POVs. -- Миборовский U|T|C|M|E|Chugoku Banzai! 08:21, 29 May 2006 (UTC)


I think it's real sad that Tomananda can use material from Deng and Fang homepage, that is just personal opinions from private people. In that case, let me get all the pro-FLG comments from personal websites I can find, including people talking about their experience after practicing Falun Gong, how they benefited and how happy they are, and how wonderful Falun Gong is. I don't see any reason at all how personal websites can be allowed. Frankly, these Deng and Fang's opinions doesn't mean anything, why are their opinions so important? It is up to the reader to decide what to think after he reads all the material. All Deng and Fang does is to slander things they don't understand, what, is the meaning of that? Admin, what is your comment on this case? /Omido 08:15, 29 May 2006 (UTC)

__________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________

The Two Tales of Falun Gong on-line document is an updated version of a paper presented at the April 28-29, 2000 annual conference of the American Family Foundation held in Seattle, Washington. The foundation is now called the International Cultic Studies Association. I will reference this information in a footnote. I have contacted the organization to find out what they can provide to verify the article's authenticity.

Since we have apparently decided to take a tough stance on sources, I will start challenging sources that appear in the pro-Falun Gong edits as well. Two problems immediately come to mind:

  • The health claims made by Dr. Lilli Feng (were they presented at a conference or published elsewhere?)
  • The Julie Ching (2001) article quoted in the Persecution section, with a link only to the Rick Ross website.
The paper by Quan-Zhen, Richard Johnson et al has appeared in several journals including JACM. It was done by reputed researchers in the field. Including Researchers from micro array core, Beynora institute and Baylor College
Dilip rajeev 11:06, 29 May 2006 (UTC)
That paper by Quan_zhen I've looked at and also what you wrote on the medical benefits. You took the findings out of context and distort the findings. It's first a Pilot study which just means it's a preliminary stuff/a search and probe type of study. Not a ground-breaking study or anything of the sort. Secondly the study's conclusion suggests qigong in general (and not only FLG) improves neutrophil functions. I believe a rewrite of that section will help clarify things and take some of the bias out of the health benefit page.

24.189.163.169 12:42, 29 May 2006 (UTC) [20] is a version of the paper that appeared in JACM. The original research was titled "An ancient cultivation practice Falun Gong improves neutrophil functions and causes system-level gene regulation [21][22]" and specifically says Falun Gong. Dilip rajeev 20:36, 29 May 2006 (UTC)

Which means it was not acceptable for publication in a journal until it was edited. Many journals are submitted to the new england journal of medicine (NEJM) yearly. Most are tossed out because of bad writing quality. Some are accepted if errors and biases are addressed. So no I'm not going to say that version is truth. Although I thought the JACM version has quite a bit of bias in their still. 24.189.163.169 15:00, 30 May 2006 (UTC)

Also, there is a significant amount of material that amounts to original research that will have to be deleted from some of the sections. For example, the following representations in the Teachings section:

  • Practitioners encourage studying the books or listening to the lectures, first-hand, to gain a good understanding of the principles and the cultivation system. All teachings, Exercise instruction videos and Lecture Videos are available for free download from www.falundafa.org
  • It is generally believed by practitioners that Falun Gong requires in-depth and repeated study of the books, especially Zhuan Falun, in order to gain a good understanding of its content. Practitioners point out that their own understanding keeps deepening with the repeated study of the books, and also comes from as well personally experiencing the "miraculous" effects of Falun Gong practice, including health benefits.
This statement, in my opnion, really doesnt deserve a reply. If you are that adamant I will get a confirmation from www.falundafa.org - thats the primary source.

Dilip rajeev 11:06, 29 May 2006 (UTC)

A critique to the primary source is still sourceable if the critique is within reason. Just as the PRC is the primary source for the opposition to FLG. Can you say you can't critique the PRC sources? 24.189.163.169 16:02, 30 May 2006 (UTC)

Plus unsourced material in The Tianamin Square self-immolation incident such as:

  • The campaign of government criticism begun in 1999 was considered by most observers to be largely ineffectual until January 2001,( unsourced POV) when persons whom the government claimed were Falun Gong practitioners. And:
  • Falun Gong practitioners emphatically denied that the people who set themselves on fire could have been actual practitioners, since suicide is completely against Falun Gong's principles. (unsourced POV) And:
  • Falun Gong members believe that the incident is an attempt of the Chinese government to turn public opinion in China against Falun Gong to rally support for government crackdown. Falun Gong practitioenrs claim that their Master forbids suicide but have not yet provide any such statements.
Change "Falun Gong members" to IED, FDI or UN Reports and I will give you a source. By the way the section didnt origianlly say "Falun Gong members" it was a recent change by some editor.
Dilip rajeev


For instance, The International Education Development Bureau's (IED) report, announced at the United Nations, states:

"This government took out this so-called self-immolation incident that happened on January 23, 2001, in Tiananmen Square and used this as evidence against Falun Gong. We have reached the conclusion after watching a videotape on this incident, that this incident has however been completely orchestrated by the government.

Dilip rajeev 12:30, 29 May 2006 (UTC)

  • There is no such thing as IED "Bureau". Various FLG articles and websites keep on confusing readers that this NGO is a branch under the United Nations and furtherly leap the logic that the UN has investigated the incident.
  • The IED website[23] has no mention of their investigation on the incident videotape. At best this is just another unbased claim. To state more clearly: IED hasn't explained how they investigated, and what convinced them to believe the incident was staged.
--Yenchin 14:10, 29 May 2006 (UTC)


IED's statement to the Sub-Commission on the Promotion and Protection of Human Rights at the United Nations in August, 2001

Dilip rajeev 22:00, 29 May 2006 (UTC)

Yes, I'm fairly aware on the "where" and "when" of the report. However, IED has never formally published a report on their investigation. Which is the "how". How were they convinced that the incident was staged? There is no mention of these details on the Sub-Commision report, as well as their own website. At best this only shows their opinion, it doesn't help a further understanding of the incident. --Yenchin 23:10, 29 May 2006 (UTC)
I'm the editor on the "FLG members believe...crackdown". The original text was "observers", which I don't need to point out that none of these observers were cited. At best from what I see in "False Fire" and other FLG articles, FLG members argue that the Tiananmen Square incident is meant to incite a negative view on FLG. As ridiculous as this sounds (martyrs, anyone?), these points can be found from FLG. So I only changed "observers" to "FLG members" to reflect this fact. --Yenchin 11:56, 29 May 2006 (UTC)


More unsourced material from the Persecution section:

  • Falun Gong practitioners have affimed that the people seen in the video were not actually practitioners.
source Falun Gong related website including FDI, FOFG, Clearwisdom.net
  • Falun Gong practitioners went to Tianjin College of Education, which published the magazine, and related governmental agencies and held peaceful protests.

Two paragraphs from the persectution section which are either not sourced at all, or cite one of Falung Gong's own websites:

  • Some practitioners were arrested and were, according to reports, beaten by the police. Several days later, for 12 hours on April 25, about 10,000 people gathered at the Central Appeal Office at Foyou street, outside Zhongnanhai, the headquarters of Chinese Communist Government and lined up along a 2 km stretch. They held no signs and chanted no slogans. Premier Zhu Rongji met with some representatives of the practitioners and promised to resolve the situation within three days. The practitioners dispersed peacefully after they received word that Zhu had agreed to their requests. Nevertheless, it was widely reported by the Chinese media that Falun Gong practitioners organizing a protest in the heart of the Chinese Communist Party alarmed many senior leaders, particularly Jiang Zemin. According to some estimates, at this time there were more than 100,000 Falun Gong practitioners in Beijing alone. Some analysts claimed that about 70 million people practice it, which is more than the number of members in the Chinese Communist Party (about 60 million people). (footnote goes to a Falun Gong website, which cannot be used to verify this kind of information.)
I can give sources. There are many. These are not controversial material.
Dilip rajeev 11:06, 29 May 2006 (UTC)
  • The Falun Dafa Information Center, a website which "endeavors to compile, cross-check, organize and publish" [3] reports about the government crackdown on Falun Gong, has confirmed that at least 2,840 (March 2006) Falun Gong practitioners have died while in police or government custody. (cannot use Falun Gong’s own website to verify this information.)
source is Falun Dafa Information. FDI is a registered human rights organization, I understand.
With Gail Rachlin and Zhang Erping in it. Seems like another FLG clone website. --Yenchin 12:17, 29 May 2006 (UTC)

A cursory review of the material submitted by pro-Falun Gong editors indicates that more unsourced or unverified material will come to light as we progress. But for now, can the other editors please respond to the above problems in the existing edits as soon as possible? If we don't hear back in a couple of days, I will delete the problem sections and sources. --Tomananda 08:38, 29 May 2006 (UTC)

See tomanda, the material you are talking about here is nothing controversial - there is no comparing it with the kind of material you insist on introducing. Your statements, seem to suggest to me a threat to vandalize the article unless your material is unconditionally approved. Sorry, The Wikipedia doesnt work like that. And you say the article was submitted at the "American Family Foundation".? See, I would better appreciate it if the article had appeared in an academic journal. Dilip rajeev 11:06, 29 May 2006 (UTC)

Well, with all due respect. This article is about Falun Gong. FalunDafa.org doesn't promote Falun Gong, it only tries to offer people information about Falun Gong, information about what Falun Gong is...and then people themself can decide what they want to think about Falun Gong. It doesn't say on Falun Gong websites: "Falun Gong is really good, come and learn" does it? But your critics tries to make people think negative thoughts about Falun Gong, but the Falun Gong websites, which you call "pro-FLG websites"...gives people a chance to form their own opinions and understand what they want to understand..that is the main difference I think. Your critics force their own opinions on others, while other websites doesnt say good or bad things, they just offer people to have their own understanding. I think the big problem with you is, that you really believe that anything that isn't critical or negative is positive and adverstisement. That is why it is really hard to come to any conclusion with you. But the truth is, it isn't positive or negative. Also, this article is about Falun Gong, what Falun Gong is and how it works, so why can't we use websites that offers people information of Falun Gong? Such as the lectures or the book Zhuan Falun. (which FalunDafa.org does) Omido 10:26, 29 May 2006 (UTC)

Also, if you say all those things have to be removed, then I say the whole critics and contreversies section have to be removed, because as I see it, the whole section is "critics say" "critics point out" "Fang says" "Chang says". Absoloutly everything in the critics and conreversies section seem to be unsourced and based on personal opinions. Omido 10:36, 29 May 2006 (UTC)

If you are saying it that way even Falungong teaching material eventually are unsourced. Li made up the stuff from his brain. Ideas are not necessarily fact and opinions to address these ideas can't be sourced to a fact. It's the opinion of a few learned individual that makes sense to us that we use to defend our stance. We can only write what's out there and the ideas currently circulating in the media. If the argument has been resolved then there is no problem. If the ideas are not resolved than both side gets put into the contraversy part. You can't stifle the critics by saying there is no source because ideas have no source beside the people that wishes to put out the idea. You can of course use reasoning to support both side of the argument. 24.189.163.169 13:16, 29 May 2006 (UTC)

Well, not really, Falun Gong teaching material isn't unsourced, because in that case you can say that Tai Chi, Bagua, Christianity, Buddhism, and Daoism is unsourced. You can even say God and people who believe in God are unsourced right? Well it isn't exactly like that, because it is individual belief. Falun Gong has a belief in something, for example that Truth-Compassion-Forbearence is a path to ones higher self. If it is like that or not, the reader can decide for themself. Nobody say it is or isn't like that. But what the critics that Tomananda uses say is: "It isn't like that, it isn't like that because I don't believe in it." This means that they are forcing their own opinions on others, do you understand what I mean? Falun Gong practitioners only show people what they believe in, what others want to believe is up to themself. Thanks for your understanding. /Omido 14:57, 29 May 2006 (UTC)

You are beginning to sound like a commercial again. You don't need to repeat your Truth-Compassion_forbearance lecture again. I can add 3 word together and still get the same thing. Loyalty-Duty-Honor US armies' motto? Anyways as I've stated religion/cults/etcs are all ideas and sometimes you can't have a "source" the way you want it. When someone criticize an idea, you don't necessarily have to have a "source" the way you want it. FLG is an idea and so is the criticism to FLG teaching. 24.189.163.169 03:50, 30 May 2006 (UTC)

An idea cannot cause "Drastic system-level changes of gene expression". Repetitive motion or relaxation or yoga is not known to alter gene expressions. Please note that the study by Quan-Zhen Li, Richard Johnson et al which states "the genes that are regulated in a consensus fashion among the practitioners can be grouped into several functional clusters, which are directly linked to PMN functions in anti-viral immunity, apoptotic property and possibly longevity based upon a much more economical balance of protein synthesis and degradation".. an "idea" cannot really achieve all this. I myself have witnessed recovery from disease which I can only describe as "miraculous". Dilip rajeev 08:00, 30 May 2006 (UTC)

I suggest you read Quan-Zhen's study again. He specifically stated healthy Qigong practitioners in his conclusion. exercise and mediation as I've said before has been accepted by the general medical society as being good for the body. You're using the study out of context and drawing your own conclusions. 24.189.163.169 15:13, 30 May 2006 (UTC)
Friend, the gene expression changes were seen on Falun Gong practitioners. In the JACM version of the paper[24], "qigong" refers to falun gong practice to be specific as all six volunteers were falun gong practitioners and had never practiced another system. Such changes have never been seen in any other qi gong system. It shows Falun Gong does cause "drastic system level changes in gene expression". I was just pointing out that it really is not possible that something made up (or just relaxed motion) cannot cause such systemic changes at the molecular level.

Dilip rajeev 15:28, 30 May 2006 (UTC)

Dilip, the quote you gave uses a qualification "possibly" that shows speculation on the part of the reseachers on the changes they describe. Many organic and inorganic (ionising radiation, for example, sunlight) processes cause "Drastic system-level changes of gene expression". The simple application of heat causes molecular change. To imply that no other qigong system has these effects you want to ascribe to FLG is impossible to prove without studying every single system that exists, and engages in a sort of no true Scotsman to promote a POV. A study has to show reliably reproducible results over time in other studies before it can be said to more than suggest anything, suggestion which is indicated by qualifiers such as "possibly". --Fire Star 火星 16:20, 30 May 2006 (UTC)
Fire Star, I didnt intent to compare Falun Gong with any other system I am sorry if the way I put it suggested so. I just wanted to point out that the research was conducted on Falun Gong practitioners. Certainly Qi Gong has well established healing benefits. Ionizing radiation can cause chance mutation or Cancer but there is certainly something much more happening here when researchers say.. "Most interestingly, the genes that are regulated in a consensus fashion among the practitioners can be grouped into several functional clusters, which are directly linked to PMN functions in anti-viral immunity, apoptotic property and possibly longevity based upon a much more economical balance of protein synthesis and degradation."

Dilip rajeev 17:13, 30 May 2006 (UTC)

As stated in the article from JACM. It's conclusion was (Although our findings may establish some molecular cellular links to healthy phenotypes in Qigong practitioners, many more questions remain to be addressed. and Although the mechanisms and generalizability remain unclear, our pilot study provides the first evidence suggesting that Qigong practice may exert effects on immunity, metabolic rate, and cell death, possibly through transcriptional regulation.) It does not say it's exclusive to FLG practices. The problem with the article is they used FLG practitioners only. They could have used a group of other qigong practitioners instead of FLG practitioners if they want to show exclusive benefits of FLG. As stated before, exercise and mediation are supported by the medical community. I don't understand why you quoted that statement and the points you are trying to dicuss. 24.189.163.169 17:42, 30 May 2006 (UTC)
As long as it is a refereed journal, it is a high quality source. The paper's goal has nothing to do with comparing Falun Gong with other Qigong. Fnhddzs 01:29, 2 June 2006 (UTC)

So are we back to editing the article? Please remind me which section, paragraph or citation we're discussing here. CovenantD 02:37, 2 June 2006 (UTC)

Text that needs to be deleted, verified or re-written

We cannot have a double standard on the issues of sources or the prohibition against original research. Dilip has recently deleted all quotes from the Deng and Fang paper presented at the 2000 Seattle, Washington conference of the American Family Foundation because the present citation is to a private website. While the Deng and Fang paper (once verified) will meet the source standard previously proposed by Covenenant and agreed to by several other editors (see above discussion), there are significant portions of pro-Falun Gong edits which do not meet that standard. Unless agreement is reached on some kind of compromise standard among all the editors, we will have no other choice than to delete a significant amount of material from the auxiliary pages. Here is a partial list: 

Seattle, Washington conference of the American Family Foundation because the present citation is to a private website.  While the Deng and Fang paper (once verified) will meet the source standard previously proposed by Covenenant and agreed to by several other editors (see above discussion), there are significant portions of pro-Falun Gong edits which do not meet that standard.  Unless agreement is reached on some kind of compromise standard among all the editors,  we will have no other choice than to delete a significant amount of material from the auxiliary pages.  Here is a partial list:

1. Medical claims from Dr. Lili Feng and others contained in: “An Ancient Cultivation Practice Falun Gong Improves Neutrophil Functions and Causes System-level Gene Regulation” This is a self-published source and there is no evidence that the paper was presented at a conference or published elsewhere. The paper appears at: [25] The home page is clearly a private Falun Gong web page at: [26]

This material currently on page called: Research into health benefits of Falun Gong in the main page at: Falun Gong

2 Surveys conducted on practitioners which report unusually high cure rates of disease for those who practice Falun Gong. A private website (Falun Dafa Australia) is provided as the source: [27]

This material is currently appears in section called Research into health claims on the main Falun Gong page.

3. Report from Dr. Lili Feng, a Falun Gong practitioner, claiming that Falun Gong exercises boost the immune system and significantly increase life expectancy.

This material is currently reported in the section called Research into health claims appearing on the main Falun Gong page. No citation is provided, but I believe the source for this material is one of Falun Gong’s own websites. If Dr. Feng’s research was not presented at a conference or published somewhere other than a Falun Gong website, it must be removed based on the new Dilip standard for sources.

4. Self-reported claims about what Falun Gong practitioners do and believe: For example, material reported in the section called Teachings of Falun Gong:

  • Practitioners encourage studying the books or listening to the lectures, first-hand, to gain a good understanding of the principles and the cultivation system. All teachings, Exercise instruction videos and Lecture Videos are available for free download from www.falundafa.org
  • It is generally believed by practitioners that Falun Gong requires in-depth and repeated study of the books, especially Zhuan Falun, in order to gain a good understanding of its content. Practitioners point out that their own understanding keeps deepening with the repeated study of the books, and also comes from as well personally experiencing the "miraculous" effects of Falun Gong practice, including health benefits.

Dilip states that the primary source for this material is [www.falundafa.org], but that is a private website and the material, even if it exists as Dilip claims, amounts to original research. Editors who are Falun Gong practitioners cannot maker personal representations about what other practitioners, in general, do or believe. This topic was discussed at great length more than a month ago in the context of Li’s views on homosexuality.

5. - 10. Moved to Persecution of Falun Gong talk page by CovenantD per discussion and agreement by editors there.

--Tomananda 21:53, 29 May 2006 (UTC)

Tomanda,Wikipedia doesnt work like that. We dont copy content sentence by sentence from websites. Please remember that the health survey mentions the researchers and medical institutions involved.

I am taking the from discussion on the criticism page:

As for the research paper by Richard Johnson et al, it is a scientific medical paper. Solid genome profiling done by experts in the field from Microarray Core, Center for Immunology at University of Texas Southwestern Medical Center , Baylor College of Medicine and Benaroya Research Institute at Virginia Mason. I will get you a list of journals in which the paper has appeared these include the JACM. A similar, version of the paper that appeared in JACM is: http://pkg.dajiyuan.com/pkg/2005-04-08/genomic%20profiling.pdf ( not exactly the same paper but drawing upon results from genome profiling done on Falun Gong practitioners and the micro-array analysis of gene expression levels of PMNs in Falun Gong practitioners.) Another source for the paper is http://www.asianresearch.org/articles/2397.html Dilip rajeev 22:10, 29 May 2006 (UTC) This specifically is what I would like to point out. What we are looking at is research material by experts in the field. We are interested in what Steve Hassan says but what is presented at a family association conference, in which anybody (including you and me) may present their opinions, is of little significance to an encyclopaedia article. For instance, Samuel presented something at that "conference", can we use that? Certainly not. No personal offense intented I am just pointing out that wikipedia standard dont allow such material. For instance, practitioners present their experiences in Fa conferences around the world. Many practitioners are prominent medical scientists, martial artists, professors and so on.. We can get an opinion from the professors in the Falun Dafa practice groups of Yale or Harvard ... but we really cant present all their opinions here.... what qualifies as a paper, in my understanding, is something accepted by the academic community or something that has appeared in a reputed journal. Dilip rajeev 22:10, 29 May 2006 (UTC)

Sorry Dilip but your post fails to address the specific problems cited in items #1-10 above, and I don't remember saying anything about the Richard Johnson source you talk about, or for that matter anything about Samuel's presentations at annual AFF conferences. Right now, I request that you focus on the actual issues I have raised. --Tomananda 22:24, 29 May 2006 (UTC)

The research was done by Quan-Zhen Li, Richard J. Johnson, Gabriela E.Garcia, Ping Li, Tongwen Wang, and Lili Feng Dilip rajeev 22:47, 29 May 2006 (UTC)

I also want to point out that there is no need to vandalize the whole article saying not every sentence is copied from other websites. But since you insist, I will provide the sources. Consider for instance these : Leavy, Mark J. Note. Discrediting human rights abuse as an "act of state": a case study on the repression of the Falun Gong in China and commentary on international human rights law in U.S. courts. 35 Rutgers L.J. 749-823 (2004)

The Harvard Human Rights Journal.

Investigation Reports on the Persecution of Falun Gong, v.1. Hyde Park, MA

or What the paper titled "The Perseuction of Falun Gong" by Chandra D Smith from the Rutgers Journal of Law says:

http://www-camlaw.rutgers.edu/publications/law-religion/new_devs/RJLR_ND_66.pdf

For instance, this journal says:

"As noted, Falun Gong was introduced to China in 1992. By 1998, there were approximately 70 million practitioners of Falun Gong in China."

"In protest, 10,000 members of Falun Gong gathered outside the Communist Party headquarters in Beijing on April 25, 1999. The members gathered outside the building peacefully, practiced their meditative exercises and then left"

"In 2001, the Chinese government “sanctioned the systematic use of violence against the group, established a network of brainwashing classes and embarked on a painstaking effort to weed out followers neighborhood by neighborhood and workplace by workplace.”

-Rutgers Journal of Law

Infact the above paper in itself substantiates most of the content in the paragraphs you picked out. Please go through it. I will provide detailed sources if you insist.

Dilip rajeev 22:10, 29 May 2006 (UTC)

Dilip, your post above doesn't address the specific issues of verificable sources and no original research which I raised. I would like to see us cooperate, which means that if you can refrain from deleting the Deng and Fang quotes in the Criticism section for now, I will refrain from deleting all the problem material mentioned above in items #1 through 10. If you can provide verificable sources for some of the material above (other than using Falun Gong's own websites) that would be great. In other cases, some of those sentences need to be re-written and I am sure we will wind up with some that just need to be deleted. But for now I'm willing to give you a little time to respond before doing any edits in those three pages. Thanks.--Tomananda 23:06, 29 May 2006 (UTC)


'Moderators, is it in-line with wiki etiquette to threaten to vandalize the article unless material is unconditionally aproved? It is not what you or I feel. The wuestion is wether the material meets wiki standards. And we are not concerned about copying material line for line from other websites... And Wikipedia sets standards on the kind of material that can be used has a source... a personal opinion submitted at a family conference cannot act as a source. Dilip rajeev 04:42, 30 May 2006 (UTC)

The Rutger's Journal oF Law: http://www-camlaw.rutgers.edu/publications/law-religion/new_devs/RJLR_ND_66.pdf

This journal infact, in itself, can act as a source for almost all of the above mentioned material:

"As noted, Falun Gong was introduced to China in 1992. By 1998, there were approximately 70 million practitioners of Falun Gong in China."

"In protest, 10,000 members of Falun Gong gathered outside the Communist Party headquarters in Beijing on April 25, 1999. The members gathered outside the building peacefully, practiced their meditative exercises and then left"

"In 2001, the Chinese government “sanctioned the systematic use of violence against the group, established a network of brainwashing classes and embarked on a painstaking effort to weed out followers neighborhood by neighborhood and workplace by workplace.”

"Fearing the Falun Gong could prove to be a political threat, the Chinese government began a systematic and violent campaign against the spiritual movement. The Chinese crackdown on Falun Gong has proven to be rather successful. However, there is no evidence to suggest that Falun Gong began as anything more than a spiritual exercise. There is no evidence that Falun Gong had any political aspirations."

-Rutgers Journal of Law


Tomananda, the fake slander from criticism has to go, you don't need to come with threats, they don't work on cultivators. We told you why it has to go, so it has to go. It's obvious that you are acting quite irrational and saying some wicked things. Well, so may be. /Omido 05:45, 30 May 2006 (UTC)

Yes, Dilip, it is a matter of how our editing meets Wikipedia standards and I have carefully laid out 10 specific problem areas in the edits which I believe do not meet Wikipedia standards. Unlike what you, Fnhddzs and Omido have just done...delete for the third time significant material from the Criticism page without discussion...I have not deleted anything on your Teachings or Persecution pages. Instead, I have asked you to respond to these issues, but your only response is a message accusing me of threatening to vandalize material, combined with a series of quotes which have no bearing on the specific edits in question. And now we have a new practitioner named Omido making personal accusations towards me and issuing grand statements such as "We told you why( the reasons) it has to go, so it has to go."
At this point I am one person having a dialogue with three Falun Gong practitioners who refuse to offer even a modicum of cooperation in the editing process--and two of you have provoked revert wars which resulted in freezing the article for weeks at a time. You also accuse me of of being irrational because I have introduced critical material into the article. This kinda makes me think about all those media people in China who were besieged with thousands of Falun Gong practitioners in their offices demanding that they retract all criticism of the Falun Gong. Did those thousands of allegedly peaceful and tolerant practioners in Tianjin use the same kind of rhetoric that Omido uses on me today: "We told you why it has to go, so it has to go." ?
Mirabovsky,Fire Star, Covenant and the other editors: what shall we do next? --Tomananda 08:33, 30 May 2006 (UTC)

Tomanda, look at your own edits. Omid's reply was to your apparent threat to vandalzie the article unless the material in unconditionally accepted. Omid, was only emphasizing that the reasons for scrutinizing such a source has been carefully explained... and there is no point in engaging in threats or attacks.. Dilip rajeev 08:48, 30 May 2006 (UTC)

For myself, I'll say that the FLG editors are going to have to allow criticism of FLG to exist in appropriate places in the articles. The criticism should be sourced and stated in a neutral way, but if it is, it shouldn't be removed. The sources may even be qualified as disputed in the article, if the disputation is also sourced, but I personally will restore what I consider to be removal of information for simple religious reasons. Wikipedia isn't an advertising service. --Fire Star 火星 16:11, 30 May 2006 (UTC)

_______________________________________________________________________________________________

Well Tomananda, that is your way of seeing it. As I see it, we told you why it has to go. And you responded by saying "but Teachings and Persecution are also unsourced, if my critics have to be removed then teaching and persecution also have to be removed".

by Tomananda: "...which means that if you can refrain from deleting the Deng and Fang quotes in the Criticism section for now, I will refrain from deleting all the problem material mentioned above in items #1 through 10."

This sounds like a delete threat to me.

What this is about is a change of standards. My point has always been that if we adopt a stricter standard on sources than we have in the past, then that new standard must apply to everyone. No double standard. There is a lot of self-published or unsourced material on the other pages which must be addressed. --Tomananda 21:25, 1 June 2006 (UTC)

by Tomananda: "Instead, I have asked you to respond to these issues, but your only response is a message accusing me of threatening to vandalize material, combined with a series of quotes which have no bearing on the specific edits in question."

answer from Dilip: "The Rutger's Journal oF Law: http://www-camlaw.rutgers.edu/publications/law-religion/new_devs/RJLR_ND_66.pdf This journal infact, in itself, can act as a source for almost all of the above mentioned material"

As admins can see, Dilip answered his question, but he still says that Dilip responded with "...a series of quotes which have no bearing on the specific edits in question."

Dilip needs to show specific citations for specific problem areas in the text...that is not what he has done. Maybe some other editor can? Meanwhile, Covenant has inserted a whole bunch of citation needed flags in the problem areas that need to be addressed.--Tomananda 21:25, 1 June 2006 (UTC)

by Tomananda: "Unlike what you, Fnhddzs and Omido have just done...delete for the third time significiant sections of the Criticism page without discussion..."

This is a complete lie and you know it. We have discussed with you over and over again that the Fang and Chang and all those "critics say" quotes that you have been getting from personal sites should not be used in this article. You responded with things that you think should be deleted from the Teaching and Persecution section. Dilip gave you the sources for most of those points, and you still accuse him for many things. I think that it is not the right way to handle things, that is why I called you irrational. If you were offended, I apologize, it was not my intention to offend you /Omido 08:56, 30 May 2006 (UTC)

I too am interested in Dilip addressing the 10 points Tomananda has brought up. So far Dilip has just brought up other issues and other points instead of adddressing those 10 points. Please in the context of editing the article and not personal attacks can we address those 10 points please. I think a moderator/judge like figure should moderate this because it'll just go on to be a he said she said senario. 24.189.163.169 16:18, 30 May 2006 (UTC)

Wow, so much has been said. I can’t keep up with everything. I’ll just make one comment concerning the above review of sources. Falundafa.org, clearwisdom.net, faluninfo.net, etc. are all Falun Gong affiliated websites. Since this article is about Falun Gong it is generally fine to cite these websites provided we say something like “according to…” and whatnot. Wiki rules state the following: “"Self-published sources... may be used only as sources of information on themselves, and only in articles about them. For example, the Stormfront website may be used as a source of information on itself in an article about Stormfront, so long as the information is notable, not unduly self-aggrandizing, and not contradicted by reliable, third-party published sources. Self-published sources may never be used as sources of information on another person or topic."” I believe the abovementioned websites and other Falun Gong affiliated sites fall into this category and can be cited in this way. This relates to both the practice and the persecution.Mcconn 17:49, 31 May 2006 (UTC)
Definitely agree, with the understanding that the provisoes mentioned in the example also apply here - notable, not unduly self-aggrandizing, not contradicted by reliable third-party sources. CovenantD 18:01, 31 May 2006 (UTC)
Well yes. No one is challenging the Wiki standard of allowing self-published material when it functions as a source for itself, such as a groups ideas. However, the passages that have been challenged make representations about disputed facts in another country: China. That's the issue!

--Tomananda 21:25, 1 June 2006 (UTC)

Miborovsky: Can you issue a warning to the new practitioner/editor named Omido?

Miborovsky, in the midst of all the above chatter, I have just discovered that Omido exeeded her/his three revert limit between 5:49 and 5:59 on 30 May in the Criticism page. Her/his series of edits were identified as vandalism by Ami Daniel and reverted to an earlier version. In essence, Omido deleted critical material that has been in the article for a long time, including material from Maria Chang who wrote the book: Falun Gong: The End of Days. In doing these deletions you can discover in the History that she deleted the following wording at the end of a sentence: "while commentators generally come to an opposite condlusion. Maria Chang (2004) writes:" But evidently she/he missed that a block quote from Maria Chang's book followed. So the effect of that particular edit was to preserve a block quote, but delete the author's reference. So much for taking care of our sources citations in Wikipedia! Anyway, I think Omido deserves to get some kind of warning for her/his editing behavior...including, by the way, the accusations she/he made to me in an earlier post. --Tomananda 09:24, 30 May 2006 (UTC)

PS: I just discovered that Omido is at it again, doing a series of deletions in the Criticism section, including removing Maria Chang material from her book Falun Gong: The End of Days. I reverted it, but will this ever stop? --Tomananda 09:32, 30 May 2006 (UTC)

Omid is very new to wikipedia. .. I dont think he exceeded his revert limit.. anyway.. please see that he is giving his reasons on the talk page.. he was just deeply concerned with the fact that almost all material in the page was poorly sourced and even personal opinions of the editors were forced into the article. Taking his concerns into consideration we must discuss, in detail the material in the criticism section. I dont think you can label editing a page "vandalism".. we will discuss things in detail on the criticism page.

Anyway I have temporarily reverted the page to 09:05, 30 May 2006 before omid did the edits.. we will discuss his edits one by one and keep the appropriate edits.. Dilip rajeev 10:10, 30 May 2006 (UTC)

Tomananda, I removed all the Chang and Fang stuff because they are unsourced and personal opinions of private people, and you keep reverting them back. We have discussed this over and over again, and you still put those unsourced material back, please tell me why... Thanks / Omido 10:40, 30 May 2006 (UTC)

If it is in a published book, it can be considered a source. The weight given the source is up to the reader. Li Hongzhi is a private person, according to FLG followers, yet we quote his books. --Fire Star 火星 16:29, 30 May 2006 (UTC)

Anyway, Maria Chang has not been deleted. what was scrutinized was material from xyz.org the "fang, deng" material. Dilip rajeev 16:47, 30 May 2006 (UTC)

Fire star, Deng and Fang are not from published books, they are from private homepages..They were removed it but reverted again. Is it ok if we remove Deng and Fang permanantly? /Omido 19:35, 30 May 2006 (UTC)

that is about another article. Please keep comments on this talk page about this article. EVERYBODY. CovenantD 19:48, 30 May 2006 (UTC)

Almost impossible to keep up

You folks are adding so much on a daily basis that I can't keep up. A lot of it is completely unrelated to the topic at hand, and instead has to do with other articles or accusations of vandalism and bad faith or what sources are good. Try to keep your comments short and direct, please, or you will have to call in somebody who is willing to devote full time to this topic. CovenantD 17:01, 30 May 2006 (UTC)

Covenant: I couldn't agree with you more, but have felt obliged to do some long posts above to defend against a series of deletion edits done in the Criticism section. If you check out the history for that page, you'll get an idea of how far Dilip and other practitioners have gone in deleting large segments of critical material about the Falun Gong. Deng and Fang (2000), Maria Chang (2004), and even Patsy Rahn (2000) have all been deleted in recent edits. The Deng and Fang is a special case, since the existing citation points to a private website, just as one of Lily Feng's medical papers does. In an earlier post, I asked that the Deng and Fang material not be deleted to give me time to verify the source, but that request was not honored. Although the Deng and Fang papers (2000 and 2003) apparently have not been uploaded to the American Family Foundation's website, I have asked them to provide a paper-based verification, perhaps in the form of a published extract.

I have also just discovered that the work of Deng and Fang, including their 2000 paper presented at the annual conference of the American Family Foundation in Seattle, is quoted and cited multiple times by one of the published sources which is used in this article: Noah Porter's book called Falun Gong in the United States: An Ethnographic Study [28] Although the Noah Porter work is very favorable to the Falun Gong, it does acknowledge and attempt to refute the claims of Falun Gong critics such as Deng and Fang. Isn't there a Wikipedia policy which allows for verification of an unpublished work by pointing to it's citations in other published works? Please see the discusion posting on this in the Talk Criticism page.

Meanwhile, I would love to get back to work on this main page if the Falun Gong practitioner editors could agree to a truce in editing wars on the Criticism page for the time being. It is clear that there are many questionable edits in the pro-Falun Gong material on different pages of this article, and I think the pro-Falun Gong editors should be allowed some time to track down their sources before we start deleting material. If we can't at least agree to this simple courtesy among the editors, I am not optimistic about the succes of this process. --Tomananda 19:33, 30 May 2006 (UTC)

This is the third time you are threatening to vandalize the article. The material under scrutiny is the Fang Deng thing.Dilip rajeev 08:43, 31 May 2006 (UTC)

I'm not sure why you keep bringing up that he's threatening to vandalize the page, when in fact you are "vandalizing" it already according to him. You are deleting things that are not agreed by the other authors. If he was not a gentleman about this he would have deleted already instead of warning you to stop doing that to the criticism page. 24.189.163.169 12:27, 31 May 2006 (UTC)

Nobody deleted anything here. Only something from "fang,deng" was removed. This was because fang deng as far as we know doesnt meet wiki standards. Neither chang nor patsy stuff was removed. 202.83.33.224

That is still in discussion ON THE APPROPRIATE PAGE. GO THERE TO DISCUSS THOSE EDITS. CovenantD 15:25, 31 May 2006 (UTC)

"If it is in a published book, it can be considered a source. The weight given the source is up to the reader. Li Hongzhi is a private person, according to FLG followers, yet we quote his books. --Fire Star 火星 16:29, 30 May 2006 (UTC)" Are Deng and Fang from published books? /Omido 19:42, 30 May 2006 (UTC)

If this is about the Criticism page, take your comments there. CovenantD 19:47, 30 May 2006 (UTC)

Praise of Falun Gong page?

If there is a page criticising falun gong, why not also make a page supporting it. On this page, people who have wrote favorably of it, and all the good opinions about it and what it is can be voiced. Perhaps this page could also be used, in part, to clarify some of the issues on the criticism or main page. The main problem I see is that if there is a criticism page why isn't there a page for praise? 2/6/06 —Preceding unsigned comment added by 203.129.42.3 (talk • contribs)


excellent "organ harvesting" BBC News reference.

see here —Preceding unsigned comment added by 87.97.36.84 (talk • contribs)

Personal attacks

At this point in time several personal attacks were posted. These, and the replies, have been removed after a thorough discussion and support from several editors and an admin. To see these attacks, please review the page history. CovenantD 22:44, 1 June 2006 (UTC)

Removal of personal attacks

I'm not comfortable with it, but I'm also very concerned about the disruptive element leaving them allows. It's a common tactic of agent provocateurs to focus attention on discord rather than the issues at hand. Can I get an opinion from an admin or mediator? CovenantD 19:06, 1 June 2006 (UTC)

I agree and apologize for the revert. I'll leave reverts to be done by administrators in the future. Although I am uncomfortable with this guy's childish rants. Personal attacks are not the focus of this talk page as you've stated before. 24.189.163.169 19:14, 1 June 2006 (UTC)

I totally understand - my first reaction was to delete them too. I just don't know what the parameters are. CovenantD 19:56, 1 June 2006 (UTC)
WP:NPA "There is no excuse for personal attacks on other contributors. Do not make them. It is your responsibility to foster and maintain a positive online community in Wikipedia...............Many Wikipedians remove personal attacks on third parties on sight, and although this isn't policy it's often seen as an appropriate reaction to extreme personal abuse."
--Yenchin 20:13, 1 June 2006 (UTC)
If somebody else wants to, I won't object. Since I'm the target of one or more, I think it would be inappropriate for me to do so. CovenantD 20:30, 1 June 2006 (UTC)
I'll remove it and the pro-FLGers can all put up a fit against just me. I'm not even registered anyways. If you guys agree. 24.189.163.169 20:36, 1 June 2006 (UTC)

Since I haven't been hit by the attacks I guess I'm a "third party" member. I removed some obvious ones and leave the rest for you to judge and handle. --Yenchin 20:39, 1 June 2006 (UTC)

I'm of the opinion that personal attacks should be removed on sight, by any editor. A simple edit summary citing WP:NPA is all that is necessary. I commend those who do so. In the case of our anon friend, he or she has been here before and has nothing to say, so his entire message can be removed without further comment. An editor who makes an attack in the middle of a discussion may have just the attack itself removed with a personal attack removed message left in its place and a warning on their talk page. While I won't exercise admin functions for normal content disputes that I am involved in, I will unhesitatingly for repeated, obvious, unrepentant personal attacks. WP:NPA is non-negotiable. --Fire Star 火星 21:34, 1 June 2006 (UTC)
Oho! I just saw the rampage by User:TomandaFirstatttrMiborvovosky. I thought you guys were still talking about when he was here earlier today as an anon editor, User:68.234.176.204. The new account has been blocked indefinitely as an inapproriate username and vandal account. --Fire Star 火星 21:42, 1 June 2006 (UTC)
Thank you Fire Star. I've now finished cleaning up the attacks and placed a note in the appropriate place in the chronology. Back to the article!!CovenantD 22:44, 1 June 2006 (UTC)

I've moved this section to the bottom to help focus our efforts CovenantD

Getting back to main topic: target paragraph for the introduction section

We can talk about the source issue, but shouldn't forget the text re-writing we began. Here's the latest version of the target paragraph which seems to be picking up support (see comments above):

Falun Gong has been the focus of international attention since April 25,1999, when 10,000 practitioners assembled in peaceful protest outside Zhongnanhai, China’s leadership compound. Prior to that, the Falun Gong had staged protests against it’s its media critics all over China. At Tianjin, 7,000 practitioners had protested illegally against an academic article which was critical of the Falun Gong, resulting in the arrest of 45 practitioners. On July 20, 1999 the government banned the Falun Gong for its violation of Chinese laws, citing the unnecessary deaths of 1,404 practitioners, most of whom had abandoned their needed medical treatment in accordance with Li Hongzhi’s teachings, and the threat to social stability caused by the Falun Gong’s many illegal protests. However, the Falung Gong denies any wrongdoing, pointing to declarations made by several international bodies. In particular, the Falun Gong cites US House of Representatives Resolution 188 which it helped to write in 2002. That resolution claims that the CCP itself has violated international laws and its own constitution; and has attempted to eradicate Falun Gong practitioners through organized torture and murder.

We need to hear from more editors on the above wording. --Tomananda 01:13, 29 May 2006 (UTC)

What the US Congress says is not what Falun Gong practitioners say or "cite" in "particular"! That is what the Congress says. Similarly we will have to look at what the United Nations say too. Dilip rajeev 06:57, 29 May 2006 (UTC)

So Dilip, what you're supposed to do at this point is actually suggest a wording change, rather than just make a comment about what you don't like about the existing wording. --Tomananda 08:50, 29 May 2006 (UTC)


Content-wise it seems pretty good, but I've corrected spelling/grammar.
The ending is weak, perhaps because the reasoning of individuals involved in the actual events was weak. If I rob a bank, I am guilty of a felony regardless of whether the police department has been committing its own set of felonies -- and vice-versa. If the reasoning of CCP and FLG advocates is on the "pot and kettle" level, then so be it. If, on the other hand, there are real challenges to the legitimacy of charges (e.g., arguing that one must break unjust laws and then one must take the consequences) then it does individuals involved a disservice (and does not reflect a NPOV) to omit mention of them. P0M 02:15, 29 May 2006 (UTC)
I agree with P0M. We should be critical of FLG's weak justifications for their actions, however we must also understand that CCP does violate many international laws, especially those concerning human right. Omiting this information is not very NPOV and thus it should be put into the article. Besides the paragraph contains facts which are more removed from any POV. Sjschen 06:21, 31 May 2006 (UTC)

My Suggestion

What I want to point out is, this is an introduction to an article on Falun Gong - not why the CCP started to persecute Falun Gong. An introduction to Falun Gong is really not the place discuss, in detail, the events leading to the persecution. There are scholars( for instance, Julie Ching (2001)) who opine that even the protests were orchestrated by Government agencies. We really cant discuss things in detail in the introduction. My suggestion for the introduction is:

Falun Gong (Traditional Chinese: 法輪功; Simplified Chinese: 法轮功; Pinyin: Fǎlún Gōng; literally "Practice of the Wheel of Law") is also known as Falun Dafa (Traditional Chinese: 法輪大法; Simplified Chinese: 法轮大法; Pinyin: Fǎlún dàfǎ; lit. "Great Law of the Wheel of Law") is a system of mind and body cultivation introduced by Li Hongzhi in 1992. Central to Falun Gong are the teachings of "Truthfulness, Compassion and Forbearance" and five sets of meditation exercises (four standing, and one sitting meditation).) The system has been growing in popularity world-over with the teachings translated to over 40 languages and practitioners present in over 80 countries.

On July 20, 1999 the People's republic of China began a Nation-wide Supression of Falun Gong. This has been considered a major Human-rights violation world-over.

There being no concept of organization of membership in Falun Gong, the exact number of practitioners is not known. Falun Gong websites state a figure of 100 million practitioners worldwide including over 70 million in China. After the supression began, the Chinese government presented a figure of 2.1 million. A figure of 70 million was quoted in two NY Times articles before the crackdown began.[29][30] According to the articles, this figure was the estimate of Chinese government.

Please point out anything non-factual or irrelevant to the introduction.

Dilip rajeev 16:20, 29 May 2006 (UTC)

Extreme reversions--explanation requested

Hi. I only now noticed the extreme reversion of several hours work. I don't believe I've ever adopted that approach to editing. The reversions were not even noted as such in the edit summary, so I didn't bother to even check. I didn't actually think, Ohconfucius, that you would actually just do a blanket revert of a whole bunch of changes--talk about assuming good faith, eh? Each edit was done individually, with things added, things removed, things reworded, etc. I don't see how it's fair to just undo all that work in one go. In particular, it's pretty heinous to just delete everything in the cult section except one paragraph, which totally fails to reflect the character of the debate among scholars. This is something that has been hashed out over these pages several times, and we had a giant list at one point, of all the scholars who have weighed in on this, and there were like two on the "yes cult" side, and a stack on the "no cult" and "cult was a propaganda tool" side. But the section here totally fails to reflect that. This seems like really problematic behaviour to me, and I feel it kind of disrupts the idea of working cooperatively and so forth. I'm going to restore the deleted information. The justification is really on the person doing the deleting and so forth, and I'm very happy, and willing, to explain, justify, and back up all my edits. I expect the same of others who are going to edit these pages. I think this is an important point. We can't have people quietly doing big reverts of other peoples' efforts. All this stuff needs to be openly hashed out and argued, if need be. We have wikipedia policies and we have access to the sources, so there shouldn't be much problem.--Asdfg12345 15:12, 4 January 2010 (UTC)

Just to get the ball rolling, I am going through the diff now and will figure out what was changed and what wasn't. Then, I will do edits one at a time removing or adding or rewording things. I'll do like, one action per edit. Then I'll keep a running explanation here of the edits, each with a link to the diff and an explanation of it. We can debate the merits of the changes here, where there is space and time. If there's a better way of structuring the process of change/discussion, I'd be happy to hear it. I just thought of this now. I don't think we should have a situation where no changes can be made until we agree--I think it should be a bit more dynamic and proactive, with the key point being discussion, policy, and so forth. Anyway, so I'm going to do that now.--Asdfg12345 15:17, 4 January 2010 (UTC)

Actually maybe just change that to, there's only some point with that detailed approach if the edit summary does not explain it fully. For this one [31] it seems pretty self-contained, so I guess no point wasting space to elaborate here. Other things I guess need further explanation though.--Asdfg12345 15:26, 4 January 2010 (UTC)

I can't work on this anymore right now, I'm finding that I'm quite disappointed with the simple revert to a bunch of thoughtful edits. The narrative of what happened in China now is really inadequate in presenting a proper picture. It mixes up various strands of things that went on, pulling pieces of information from a number of different sources to construct a novel narrative. This is my reading of it at least. I believe that our narrative of what happened in China should broadly reflect the way it's articulated in a number of sources. Zhao has an okay explanation, for example. We want to show two things, right? How was Falun Gong received in China? What impact did it have on the public, and how did the public and other actors respond? Then, there's the issue of the persecution. The current narrative melds these two issues, making it hard for people to differentiate what is going on. I think things just need to be segregated a bit more clearly and broken down a bit more clearly, with a meaningful narrative from various sources pieced together--which allows for the variety of explanations of things. At the moment what we have limits the discourse to one frame. There are multiple ways that this whole thing has been framed. Wikipedia needs to present this in the most straightforward and open way, and the information almost needs to be presented in a self-reflexive way, I think, so it's clear that what is being presented is not some cherrypicked narrative that suits a particular viewpoint, but just goes through the different points in a neutral way and shows the different major views along the way. Right now this part of the article is in a straightjacket. I have to take a break then come back to this. Also, heaps of the information in the persecution section is kinda detailed and almost extraneous. I think some of it would be useful for the persecution page, where there is space to nail out those issues. But it also blends in two points: the persecution, and the response to the persecution. Why would these two points be posited alongside one another? This is an action-response thing. We need to present a clear narrative of how the persecution was engineered, in its various aspects. There also needs to be stuff about the response. I agree that much of this isn't simple. Anyway, I got to go for now.--Asdfg12345 15:50, 4 January 2010 (UTC)

Your recent edits, deleting the work of multiple authors, has been tantamount to vandalism. Please immediately cease and desist. You do not own the falun gong article set. Simonm223 (talk) 21:41, 4 January 2010 (UTC)
You really need to be more specific. Labeling does not help a bit. Point by point samples can get you a lot further though. --HappyInGeneral (talk) 21:55, 4 January 2010 (UTC)
I need do nothing of the sort. ASDFG goes away. Several editors improve articles. He comes back, firebombs all FLG related articles and goes away again leaving all of us to fix the mess. It's vandalism. It's a pattern that has repeated several times now. And I'm not climbing more textwalls to deal with it. From now on I see pro-flg vandalism it will get two letters from me: RV. Simonm223 (talk) 22:13, 4 January 2010 (UTC)
I hope you do realize that with this attitude you are in breach of Article Probation and seeking consensus. --HappyInGeneral (talk) 23:35, 4 January 2010 (UTC)
Praytell, when was not seeking consensus? Asdfg was bold, Simon reverted. Cool. You were the one who re-reverted (if there is such a word) without discussing. Choyoołʼįįhí:Seb az86556 > haneʼ 23:38, 4 January 2010 (UTC)
To have consensus, there is a need of a point by point discussion which Asdfg did make. Reverting without engaging into discussion is not consensus seeking. But you don't need to take my word for it. --HappyInGeneral (talk) 23:51, 4 January 2010 (UTC)

Yeah, it is the case that you need to point things out specifically and that stuff needs to be hashed out one diff at a time. There are three changes on that page now that you reverted. 1) was removing the Rahn source. 2) was removing a the CCP's post-persecution propaganda about how Li supposedly formulated Falun Gong. 3) was adding in information about Li's awards in China. Let's go through them:

  1. I hold that the "Cultic Studies Review" is not a peer-reviewed, credible publication--not a reliable source on this topic. And Rahn was an undergraduate at the time.
  2. The CCP is not a WP:RS for Falun Gong beliefs and practices. They are a reliable source for their own views--which would be useful in the section that explains what the CCP thinks, or that explains the CCP's portrayal of Falun Gong and Li Hongzhi post July 20, 1999. Then it would be useful to say what they said. But in a regular explanation, they're not reliable.
  3. Multiple sources mention the awards that Li received from government agencies in China. It's important to make sure that both sides of how Li was received in China are included in the article. We need to know that he received awards and was praised; we also need to know that he was criticised. You can't delete the awards part because you don't like it.

If you can advance some arguments for those, I am willing to hear them. For now I'm going to restore the changes I made, because no explanation has been given for why they are problematic--yet I have explained why they should be made, in the edit summary. So, here are three points for you to address.--Asdfg12345 01:07, 5 January 2010 (UTC)

  • You've never hidden your dislike of Rahn, and I don't know if this edit just shows this predisposition. AFAIK, there is no requirement that any scholarly work cited here be "written by a scholar when he/she was a bona fide scholar". The only requirement is that it has been peer reviewed, although I don't know how one would go about proving it. Rahn's work is cited all over the place, even by Ownby. Anyway, the content of the citation in question does not need Rahn. There's mention of early criticism of FLG in other sources, such as Palmer and Ostergaard, so that must surely be moot. The information is there. You may not like it, but it's not a one for the FLG censors in WIkipedia. Ohconfucius ¡digame! 01:46, 5 January 2010 (UTC)
  • I wish the persistent wikilawyering and POV-laden edits would stop. I should not have to revert asdfg again. Much of what he brings up in this dizzying body of text has been extensively addressed in the 30-some archives of this page, others are simply re-cycling arguments that attempt to tip the POV balance in whatever minuscule way. Users with a conflict-of-interest with the subject should not edit the subject, it's simple. Colipon+(Talk) 07:05, 5 January 2010 (UTC)
  • There is no need to engage in "point by point content discussion" over vandalism. Furthermore when a user comes in, makes mass changes and gets reverted the burden lies on them to convince consensus to adopt their proposed changes. The burden does not lie with consensus to justify the reversion. Finally Labeling theory?!? Does the FLG have a class in claiming to be oppressed or something? Seriously. Simonm223 (talk) 14:27, 5 January 2010 (UTC)

This is just a holding note. I'll come back tomorrow, or later, after I've taken stock of things. It's hard to figure out the best way to respond to this stuff now, because I'm really just trying to improve the article, but getting accusations thrown at me and a tacit refusal to engage in debate. Anyway, it could be that this isn't the case and I need to reinterpret the situation, or my notes or edits have come across the wrong way up to now. I've also been wondering whether it would be worthwhile to hold a bi-weekly voice conference--there are some sites that do a free voice thing, where you call a number, then it's just a joint conversation. Some of the wider issues for how the information is to be organised could better suit that form of communication, if other parties are willing to engage. Anyway. Also, there is a real need to engage in point-by-point discussion, because all this boils down to details and stuff that has to be hashed out one bit at a time (most of it). Simon, the burden is on both parties to discuss things. When I make changes and state a reason in the edit summary, it's really up to the person disputing that to take up the discussion about why. It's not okay to revert a whole series of changes, then claim bad faith, and not address any of the specific points that were raised (which is what's happening now).--Asdfg12345 08:48, 6 January 2010 (UTC)

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