True Face of Li Hongzhi Exposed

Facts have demonstrated that Li Hongzhi, the founder of Falun Gong, is in fact an evil figure who, by deceiving, has been seriously disrupting social order and sabotaging the hard-earned social stability.

Li, 47, is also accused of establishing illegal organizations to erode and harm people in body and soul using fraudulent methods.

Li was born on July 7, 1952 in the city of Gongzhuling (formerly Gongzhuling Town of Huaide County) in northeast China's Jilin Province. He studied at primary and junior high middle schools in Changchun, the provincial capital, between 1960 and 1969. From 1970 to 1978, he first worked at an army stud farm, and then acted as a trumpet player at a forest police unit in Jilin Province and afterwards served as an attendant at a hotel attached to the same police unit. In 1982 he was transferred to civilian work and became a worker at the security department of the Changchun Cereals Company. In 1991 he quit this job and became involved in the practice of Qi Gong. In May 1992 he began teaching and propagating Falun Gong.

On his fabricated resume, Li proclaimed that he was enlightened by Buddhist and Taoist masters when he was a child, and that they had raised his power to a high level. He also claimed that he possesses supernatural power. He even changed his date of birth to make it coincide with the birthday of Sakyamuni, the founder of Buddhism, in an attempt to show that he was the "reincarnation of Sakyamuni."

In fact, Li didn't begin learning Qi Gong until 1988. Based on the doctrines of two Qi Gong forms, and by emulating certain styles of foreign dances, Li pieced together Falun Gong. The " experiences" he has boasted of are sheer fabrications and outrageous lies.

Li set up the Research Society of Falun Dafa in Beijing and proclaimed himself as the "president", shortly after the concoction of Falun Gong in 1992. Since then, he has established 39 general teaching centers with more than 1,900 instruction stations and more than 28,000 exercise spots in different provinces, autonomous regions, and municipalities. Thus, a complete and systematic organization was formed.

At the same time, he drew up a series of rules and regulations which standardized and institutionalized Falun Gong and its activities. This tightly constructed system has enabled Li to enforce his orders and instructions in a timely manner.

The Research Society of Falun Dafa and its teaching stations periodically or irregularly held various mass activities, and they have several times created plots and instigated a certain number of Falun Gong followers to besiege and attack some media and publication units and Party and government departments, seriously affecting people's normal activities and social order in these institutions, and disrupting the country's hard-won stability.

All these facts show that Falun Gong is a highly organized, fully functional, and unregistered illegal organization headed by Li Hongzhi.

Li Hongzhi has taken advantage of Falun Gong to amass huge amount of money and evaded large sum of taxes. When he began to " spread Falun Gong", Li collected "benevolent money" from his followers in the name of curing diseases. In 1993 and 1994 alone, Li Hongzhi collected 1.217 million yuan by giving courses and selling books, according to incomplete statistics. With this money Li purchased luxury residences and expensive cars in Beijing and Changchun under the names of his relatives.

On April 25 this year, more than 10,000 Falun Gong followers gathered outside Zhongnanhai, the compound housing the headquarters of the Communist Party of China Central Committee in downtown Beijing, seriously disrupting social order and affecting people's daily lives in this area, and creating an extremely harmful impact at home and abroad. After this incident, Li lied to the international media when he said, "I knew nothing about it beforehand."

In fact, Li Hongzhi flew into China on April 22 and stayed in Beijing for 44 hours. On the second day of his entry, the gathering of Falun Gong followers at the Tianjin Normal University escalated. On the morning of April 24, while Li was still in China, many Falun Gong centers received a notice calling on followers to "collectively practice Falun Gong" outside Zhongnanhai. When the " April 25 Incident" took place, Li Hongzhi was in Hong Kong.

Li's evil instructions and fallacious ideas are extremely harmful. According to Li, practicing Falun Gong will enable the human spirit to exist forever and help people enter a heavenly paradise. He has proclaimed that diseases are punishments for the debts a person owed in his previous life, and those who oppose Falun Gong are "demons."

Cheated and hoodwinked by Li's malicious fallacy, some followers refused to go to the hospital for medical treatment when they became ill, and a number of them died as a result. Some people committed suicide or became psychopathic after practicing Falun Gong, and others even turned into cold-blood killers. There are numerous cases demonstrating the disastrous effects of Falun Gong.

China daily
1999/ 07/22