[quantumpotato_]

I talked with a Chinese person who told me why. His explanation:

Falun Gong exercises (Tai-Chi like) improved the health of their practicioners. The communist party supported Falun Gong practice because it lowered their healthcare costs.

Until there were more members of Falun Gong than Communist party officials. So the latter began hunting the former.

Some Chinese fled China, and that's how the West know about Falun Gong.

Very sad state of affairs.

http://en.falundafa.org/

[est]

Falun was banned by mainland China simply because it's a Taiwan backed cult organization to gather intel & support coup in government seniors and military. The rest is media propaganda.

[wmt]

Yeah right. Until 1999 it received wide support from Chinese officials, but then decided it was too big and started a silly propaganda campaign feeding the gullible with lies like you just told at the same time when they started a violent persecution.

At least they had learned something from the bloody Tienanmen massacre, and this time instead sending military to murder piles of unarmed civilians carried out the murders a bit more covertly.

[elvinyung]

Does this remind anyone else of Order 66?

[seivan]

Jedis aren't defenseless. Falun aren't trained fighters with powers. So no.

Order 66 is Hitler shutting down the SA for the SS.

I just had to "correct" you. Also I do enjoy finding similarities with the empire and Jedis.

[sigterm]

> Until 1999 it received wide support from Chinese officials

Even some famed academy of science fellow believed in "special human body functions". 90s was just a really weird time in China. Chinese government is far from perfect, but I honestly don't know anyone from China who doesn't support the banning of FLG.

[est]

Quick quiz for you: exactly how many people died on that square you mentioned? If not, where are the killing happened? Which side draw first blood?

[aaronbrethorst]

Just for fun, let's compare search engine results for the term "tiananmen square":

Google: https://www.google.com/search?q=tiananmen+square&safe=off&cl...

Baidu: http://image.baidu.com/search/index?tn=baiduimage&ps=1&ct=20...

Most estimates I see put the number of casualties in the 1000's, caused by the side that happened to have, y'know, tanks.

[peterwwillis]

You don't know?

The estimates for the civilians killed in the Tiananmen Square protests of 1989 range from hundreds to thousands - no exact count is available.

In terms of "which side drew first blood", you could say the "side" of the student protesters, though there's no evidence of "blood" in their actions (as they had no weapons).

The morning of June 3, protesters clashed with unarmed soldiers trying to force them out of the square, momentarily forcing the army to retreat. By 10pm that night, the army began firing live ammunition at the protesters and the fatalities commenced.

[Tomte]

est probably means that while we "know" that people were killed on Tiananmen Square, they were actually killed in the streets around the square, not on the square itself.

(Other sources say that there were indeed deaths on the square, but less than five or so, not the main massacre)

But it doesn't really matter where exactly the deaths happened.

Only insofar as it reminds us of the fallibility of the human mind (cf. witnesses in court): many people actually believe they have seen in TV how people were slaughtered on the square, which is demonstrably incorrect.

[jruroc]

Are you implying that the Tiananmen Square massacre did not happen?

[ptaipale]

Not speaking for the previous poster, but it is worth noting that talking about "Tiananmen Square massacre" may be misleading, because AFAIK the majority of fatalities, both of protesters and soldiers, happened outside the square, in the streets.

[celticninja]

does it matter if it was 1 or 1000? They were killed because they wanted democracy and the state wanted to retain their power and ability to enrich themselves at the cost of the general population.

[EliRivers]

Don't forget that it wasn't just on the square. Soldiers fired in the surrounding area as well. so those deaths should be part of the total. Your tone gives the impression that you're either part of the PRC's internet army, or one of the tin-foil hat crowd. Which is it?

[chris_wot]

Getting your information from Baidu?