Why are Jiang Zemin and the Chinese Communist Party persecuting Falun Gong?
It must first be understood that the Chinese Communist Party (CCP) is officially atheist, so anything of a spiritual nature is discouraged and often outlawed because it is not in keeping with Communist ideology. For those of us in nations with democratically elected governments, freedom of belief is considered to be one of the most basic universal rights, but in China such fundamental human rights are rarely protected. Since its introduction in 1992, the number of Falun Gong practitioners simply grew too large in the eyes of a faction of the Party leadership, led by the dictator Jiang Zemin. Falun Gong’s 70-million-plus practitioners in China far outnumbered CCP members. Jiang ordered the persecution out of personal jealousy, and a sense that he could not totally control the people’s hearts and minds. Other, smaller groups that are not under compete control of the Communist Party, such as Protestants, Roman Catholics, and Tibetan Buddhists, have also been persecuted. How many people ha
