loading…
Falun Gong protest banners reading stop forced organ harvesting in China are displayed in Hong Kong. Photo/REUTERS
BEIJING – China's harsh crackdown on minority religious groups is nothing new and continues to increase every year.
Starting from banning and modifying the Koran to suppressing Buddhists in Tibet, China is seen as obsessed with suppressing certain religious groups and ethnic minorities.
This time, the pressure was felt by the Falun Gong religious movement, also known as Falun Dafa.
Based on information on the Minghui website and quoted by The HK Post on Thursday (8/2/2024), at least 209 Falun Gong practitioners have been killed by the Chinese Communist Party (CCP) until 2023.
Among them, 114 deaths were reported throughout 2023, while 88 cases were between 2002 and 2022. In 2022, at least 49 Falun Dafa practitioners lost their lives in China, purely because of their faith. Among those killed, there were 25 to 30 year olds.
Once widely supported by the CCP throughout the 1990s, Falun Gong or Falun Dafa has millions of followers throughout China.
Falun Dafa founder Li Hongzhi's rising status and influence among society was seen as a threat by China's then leader, Jiang Zemin, who launched a campaign of violence against members of the religious movement. Since then, thousands of Falun Gong practitioners have been killed or thrown into prison.
Another report published by Minghui as of January 17 stated that approximately 6,514 Falun Dafa practitioners had been arrested or harassed. Of the 3,629 new arrest cases reported between 2021 and 2023, 3,457 people (95 percent) were arrested in 2023 alone.
The same pattern was also seen in the number of deaths reported in 2023. Most incidents of harassment and arrest occurred in Shandong (1,061), Jilin (914), Hebei (673), Sichuan (576) and Heilongjiang (546).