Misplaced Pages

Revision as of 20:34, 28 July 2020

This is the talk page for discussing improvements to the Persecution of Falun Gong article. This is not a forum for general discussion of the article's subject.

Put new text under old text. Click here to start a new topic. New to Misplaced Pages? Welcome! Learn to edit; get help. Assume good faith Be polite and avoid personal attacks Be welcoming to newcomers Seek dispute resolution if needed Article policies Neutral point of view No original research Verifiability

Find sources: Google (books · news · scholar · free images · WP refs) · FENS · JSTOR · TWL

Archives: Index, 1, 2, 3, 4Auto-archiving period: 2 months

The contentious topics procedure applies to this page. This page is related to Falun Gong, which has been designated as a contentious topic. Editors who repeatedly or seriously fail to adhere to the purpose of Misplaced Pages, any expected standards of behaviour, or any normal editorial process may be blocked or restricted by an administrator. Editors are advised to familiarise themselves with the contentious topics procedures before editing this page.

This article was nominated for deletion on 16 October 2009. The result of the discussion was no consensus.

This article has not yet been rated on Misplaced Pages's content assessment scale. It is of interest to multiple WikiProjects.

Please add the quality rating to the {{WikiProject banner shell}} template instead of this project banner. See WP:PIQA for details. Religion: Falun Gong / New religious movements High‑importance This article is within the scope of WikiProject Religion, a project to improve Misplaced Pages's articles on Religion-related subjects. Please participate by editing the article, and help us assess and improve articles to good and 1.0 standards, or visit the wikiproject page for more details.ReligionWikipedia:WikiProject ReligionTemplate:WikiProject ReligionReligion High This article has been rated as High-importance on the project's importance scale. This article is within the scope of Falun Gong work group, a work group which is currently considered to be inactive. This article is supported by New religious movements work group (assessed as High-importance). Please add the quality rating to the {{WikiProject banner shell}} template instead of this project banner. See WP:PIQA for details. China High‑importance This article is within the scope of WikiProject China, a collaborative effort to improve the coverage of China related articles on Misplaced Pages. If you would like to participate, please visit the project page, where you can join the discussion and see a list of open tasks.ChinaWikipedia:WikiProject ChinaTemplate:WikiProject ChinaChina-related High This article has been rated as High-importance on the project's importance scale. Please add the quality rating to the {{WikiProject banner shell}} template instead of this project banner. See WP:PIQA for details. Human rights This article is within the scope of WikiProject Human rights, a collaborative effort to improve the coverage of Human rights on Misplaced Pages. If you would like to participate, please visit the project page, where you can join the discussion and see a list of open tasks.Human rightsWikipedia:WikiProject Human rightsTemplate:WikiProject Human rightsHuman rights ??? This article has not yet received a rating on the project's importance scale.

This topic contains controversial issues, some of which have reached a consensus for approach and neutrality, and some of which may be disputed. Before making any potentially controversial changes to the article, please carefully read the discussion-page dialogue to see if the issue has been raised before, and ensure that your edit meets all of Misplaced Pages's policies and guidelines. Please also ensure you use an accurate and concise edit summary.

A fact from this article was featured on Misplaced Pages's Main Page in the On this day section on July 20, 2014, July 20, 2019, and July 20, 2020.

Persecution vs Suppression

Was raised as an issue on the Falun Gong talk page Talk:Falun_Gong on 1 March 2015. There was no debate and it is now in Talk:Falun_Gong/Archive_39. In addition to Persecution of Falun Gong being the more commonly used term (as mentioned in March), the definition of suppress is not clear when applied to FG. http://dictionary.reference.com/browse/suppress has 7 meanings of which a number could apply. Definition of persecute - to pursue with harassing or oppressive treatment, especially because of religious or political beliefs, ethnic or racial origin, gender identity, or sexual orientation. This seems to be appropriate for FG. But I think discussion should be transferred to main FG talk page as it affects many articles with FG information, including articles about Chinese politicians. Suppression has been replaced in many articles with persecution. Aaabbb11 (talk) 10:29, 1 June 2015 (UTC)

They can be used interchangeably in the article body. Just like practitioner/adherent/devotee, etc. It's really not a big deal.—Zujine|talk 13:29, 7 June 2015 (UTC)

To me there is a big difference between them which is why I raised it as a topic both here and on the main talk page. I've seen a banner with 1 million killed on it. Falun Gong from China know how many of their FG friends have gone missing, which to me indicates organ harvesting may only be responsible for a small proportion of FG killed.

So far I've met 2 FG who don't know how many times they were arrested in put in jail. This seems to be the most common form of persecution. One had an electric baton used on her face, but was fortunate to have enough money to pay a bribe and got out. Her sister didn't have enough money to pay a bribe and suffered more. The other FG who told me about what happened to her spent 9 months in a labour camp working 14 hours a day 7 days a week eating food we would throw out and only cold showers. She was kept awake for long periods. An attractive young FG woman I know seems to be too traumatized by her experience in China to want to talk about it. I can recommend asking a few FG from China what happened to them in China. Aaabbb11 (talk) 12:55, 13 June 2015 (UTC)

Purgatoryoflife (talk) 00:22, 25 March 2017 (UTC)Ok so really Aaabbb11, how come all I have seen in all my years living in China and all those people around me has seen is the fact that people who practice FG tend to die of diseases that could have being cured. and it's not a persecution, it's a ban on an unscientific teaching made by a man with no valid proof of anything that he teaches. So letting people live a lie is the right thing to do? I believe this page needs some edit, same with the FG page. Just to reiterate, when people that you love gets some disease and refuse the proper treatment then dies because they practiced FG, you would want a ban as wellPurgatoryoflife (talk) 00:22, 25 March 2017 (UTC)

It may be that FG practices are not healthy or sensible, but that does not account for the extreme reaction to FG by the Chinese government. China has exported the persecution of FG members to other countries, with Chinese secret police abducting FG members (Who initially came to the US as students and became illegal residents) in California, for example. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 50.1.214.5 (talk) 17:38, 10 December 2019 (UTC)

Semi-protected edit request on 24 April 2019

This edit request has been answered. Set the |answered= or |ans= parameter to no to reactivate your request.

"The Flourishing of Religion in Post-Mao China and the Anthropological Category of Religion" from Andrew Kipnis was published in 2001, and not in 1979, as the article states it. Change the date of this reference from "1979" to "2001" 137.50.170.247 (talk) 18:19, 24 April 2019 (UTC)

 Done NiciVampireHeart 21:43, 24 April 2019 (UTC)

No Chinese Rationale

I've noticed that the "Rationale" subsection of "Statewide Persecution" does not list any sources from China itself or its foreign offices which have covered this subject intensively. The Chinese government and the CCP has stated their rationale for banning Falun Gong multiple times to many different countries, however, the "Rationale" section does not include ANY of these translated Chinese sources. For starters a something should be added that states:

"The Chinese government and the CCP have stated that the persecution against Falun Gong is justified because the group denounces the use of science, denounces the ability of any government to rule, promotes the leader Li Hongzi to a messianic and infallible figure, and organizes its followers against the Chinese state apparatus."

This might be a bit condensed, but it reflects the accurate sentiment of the Chinese Communist Party on why Falun Gong is undergoing persecution. At the moment, the rationale listed in the subsection is something guessed at by "foreign observers". The "Rationale" subsection should contain the rationale of the Chinese Communist Party as they themselves state it and not the guesses of "foreign observers". There are multiple sources to back up the aforementioned statement as well, all sites are the official Chinese embassy websites for a variety of countries:

Though some of these pages are older, Falun Gong was outlawed in 1999 and the rationale presented in these articles is likely the same rationale used to ban the group and is likely the continuing framework that the Chinese Communist Party uses to justify its persecution.

Cincinnatin (talk) 16:28, 17 May 2020 (UTC)

References

1. http://www.china-embassy.org/eng/zt/ppflg/t263446.htm
2. http://lt.china-embassy.org/eng/zt/jpflg/t125332.htm
3. http://lv.chineseembassy.org/eng/zt/jpxjflg/
4. http://www.chinese-embassy.org.uk/eng/zt/jpxjflg/

@Cincinnatin: The reason for not including the Chinese Communist Party’s rationale is that its sources are generally unreliable as they are state-sanctioned and WP:QUESTIONED sources. In the case of persecution, they are designed specifically to demonize and eradicate Falun Gong. For example, China scholars Daniel Wright and Joseph Fewsmith wrote that for several months after Falun Gong was outlawed, China Central Television's evening news contained little but anti-Falun Gong rhetoric; the government operation was "a study in all-out demonization",

Fewsmith, Joseph and Daniel B. Wright. "The promise of the Revolution: stories of fulfilment and struggle in China", 2003, Rowman and Littlefield. p. 156

This is why the Falun Gong related Misplaced Pages articles do not use CCP biased sources,but use reliable third-party findings for references.--Thomas Meng (talk) 19:21, 25 May 2020 (UTC)

The purpose of wiki is to give information, it's ok to quote Hitler in an article about Nazi policies and viewpoints, how is this any different? Quoting CCP sources isn't suggesting they are right, it is just showing what they say and leaves space for what response has been made on those statements.Czarnibog (talk) 04:43, 31 May 2020 (UTC)

@Czarnibog: Yes, but wiki is not a place to disseminate demonizing propaganda WP: SOAP. The persecution of Falun Gong is different from the Holocaust in the way that the Holocaust is already over and universally condemned, and that its lies have been thoroughly exposed, while the persecution of Falun Gong is still ongoing and the CCP's propaganda still deceives people. So, putting this CCP propaganda here will only give credit to its false narratives and in turn lend support to the ongoing human rights atrocities that it commits.

Also, WP: IS recommends independent findings. So we should keep them.--Thomas M. (talk) 23:06, 18 June 2020 (UTC)

Isn't it possible to use the words The Chinese Communist Party Claims and summarize or paraphrase, surely there are third party statements out there. Refusing to even infer what CCP claims is a form of propaganda that puts Falun Gong in a strange position among fringe religious movements of being validated on exempt from any form of criticism. We don't have to justify any of the persecution to be free of bias, but outright refusing to cover part of the issue is extreme lack of impartial reporting.

Czarnibog (talk) 17:41, 23 June 2020 (UTC)

@Czarnibog: I understand your concern. Actually, the statewide persecution section covers this. It quotes Jiang's own words and clearly states the real reason why Jiang launched the persecution based on Jiang's own letter. It says: "On the night of 25 April 1999, then-Communist Party General Secretary Jiang Zemin issued a letter indicating his desire to see Falun Gong defeated. The letter expressed alarm at Falun Gong's popularity, particularly among Communist Party members.".

So this covers the CCP rationale, stated by Jiang himself.

But for the rationale that user Cincinnatin proposed, I think it fits in the category of "demonizing propaganda" that multiple scholars have already identified, which only serves as a coverup for the real rationale behind the persecution.--Thomas Meng (talk) 18:38, 26 June 2020 (UTC)

Proper image to include in Background section for letting readers know what Falun Gong is.

@Binksternet: In your edit here, you deleted a photo in the Background section that has Falun Gong practitioners meditating in it (image on the right) , saying that it's irrelevant to the persecution.

But keep in mind that it's the Background section wherein it introduces what Falun Gong is to unfamiliar readers. The first sentence of this section says: "Falun Gong, also known as Falun Dafa, is a form of spiritual qigong practice that involves meditation, energy exercises, and a moral philosophy..." So it would be good to include this image as it will help readers know what Falun Gong meditation/energy exercise looks like.--Thomas Meng (talk) 04:57, 6 July 2020 (UTC)

No. The photo is rah-rah cheerleading stuff, a blatant promotion of Falun Gong. (See, it's so beautiful. Why would anybody persecute these nice people.) I have nothing against meditation and health exercise, but I definitely have something against right-wing political forces masquerading as a religion and dumbing down the world with pseudoscience. Binksternet (talk) 05:15, 6 July 2020 (UTC)

@Binksternet: Those are all your opinions. Also, the photo had been here for a long time before you deleted it. Can you point to the policy that it violates? Do you have a better proposal? You can't just list your own biased, personal, and political opinions to justify editing the page. Please respond with something substantive so that we can continue the discussion --Thomas Meng (talk) 20:52, 10 July 2020 (UTC)

WP:Neutral point of view has a bearing on the matter, in keeping the article to a neutral narrative. WP:Conflict of interest comes into play with pro-Falun Gong editors adding promotional text and images. WP:PEACOCK is about promotional words but I think images can be just as promotional. The gist of PEACOCK can be seen at Misplaced Pages:What Misplaced Pages is not#Misplaced Pages is not a soapbox or means of promotion, which says we should not be trying to promote a cause or advertise for an organization. Binksternet (talk) 21:02, 10 July 2020 (UTC)

@Binksternet: So you've accused me of having a COI. Consider this: for the Nazi's persecution of the Jews, would you say that I have COI issues simply because I positively describe Jewish people? Or, for the article that I'm editing now, Ni Yulan, a human rights lawyer persecuted in China, would you say that I'm promoting her because her image on the page is beautiful?

By saying that I'm "promoting" Falun Gong only because adherents in the picture are good-looking, you suggest that only ugly and uneducated people practice Falun Gong. This is false. According to David Ownby's study, there are roughly 77% of adherents holding at least a university degree in Toronto (image on the right), Montreal, and Boston. Also, Ownby says: "Chinese practitioners include many engineers, scientists, computer programmers, accountants, and professors."

And "right-wing political forces" definitely won't gain as much all-party parliamentary&congressional support as Falun Gong does.

Overall, I think your source of information aligns too much with the communist propaganda. It might be very helpful for you to do a comprehensive research on what Falun Gong actually is using reliable sourcesnot influenced by the Communist regime's propaganda.--Thomas Meng (talk) 21:18, 12 July 2020 (UTC)

References

1. Ownby, David. Falun Gong and the future of China. p. 136.
2. "In the House of Representatives, U. S." congress.gov.
3. "MPs Applaud Falun Gong And Adherents' Peaceful Advocacy Amid Adversity". brandscovery.com.
4. "Falun Gong: Religious Freedom in China". freedomhouse.org.
5. "The Gong Heard Around the World". haaretz.com.

My wife and I got a good laugh at the idea that I was purposely helping the Chinese Communist Party. Thanks for that moment of hilarity.

I was not accusing you of adding a promotional photo showing people meditating. Other editors have done that. The first I could find was this photo added by Devives in January 2015.

You are putting false words into my mouth. I never said anything about photos having to show "ugly and uneducated people". But I am certainly of the opinion that beautiful photos are not appropriate in any article about persecution. Binksternet (talk) 21:51, 12 July 2020 (UTC)

@Binksternet:I never said, nor implied, that you "purposely helped" the regime. I only said that your sources of information are potentially in line with the regime's propaganda. This is according to a quote from a congressional testimony that states:​​​​ "...media inadvertently repeat the Party line and may plant the thought in readers’ minds that a repressive campaign that has turned millions of lives upside down might be justified".

Both the image on the right (added by me) and the image added by Devives in 2015 show Falun Gong adherents doing FLG excercises. So your COI accusation did seem to direct at me as well. But this accusation is based on your own bias, as shown in your sarcasm: "See, it's so beautiful. Why would anybody persecute these nice people"  It's not a good idea to label users departing from your view as having a COI. 

As I've said before, this kind of images is not promoting anything. It's only a plain and descriptive image informing readers what FLG practitioners do.

Also, in addition to your bias, you said that you "definitely have something against..." This indicates a clear anti-FLG cause. But it violates WP:SOAP , which states that one should not try to promote any cause on wiki, as you've also noted above. With a bias and an anti-FLG cause, it is not a surprise that you consider any nonnegative description or photo of this persecuted group a "promotion". However, biases and agendas do not justify the deletion of this photo.--Thomas Meng (talk) 20:56, 16 July 2020 (UTC)

References

1. "The Origins and Long-Term Consequences of the Communist Party's Campaign against Falun Gong" (PDF). cecc.gov.

You are quoting "a congressional testimony" which is really just anti-Communist think tank lobbyist Sarah Cook talking to Congress on her own initiative. It's not an official position taken by the US Congress.

My involvement here is not because of Falun Gong getting persecuted by China. Of course that's a horrific problem, but I feel it's primarily a Chinese one. As an American, I am responding instead to Falun Gong's pseudoscientific beliefs which are making the world more stupid, and Falun Gong's clumsy intrusion into American politics, pushing a far-right agenda and clinging to Trump as their champion.

The photo is promotional. It helps Falun Gong gain sympathetic thoughts. This article is not about helping one side or the other in a persecution situation. Do we feature beautiful photos of happy Chinese communists? No. Binksternet (talk) 21:25, 16 July 2020 (UTC)

@Binksternet:In my previous post here, I pointed to the issue of you casting aspersions on the FLG belief itself, rather than doing a comprehensive research of it based on facts and prominent scholarship. Also, you are clearly pushing your own POV on the subject matter, and we know that wiki is not a Soapbox WP:SOAP.

Whether or not this photo evokes readers' sympathy is up to their own perception and it’s a completely irrelevant issue. What is relevant here is whether we've presented accurate information by adding this photo, which seems like we did (as suggested by the FLG demographics and my RS's above). 

Besides, I’m a bit puzzled as to why you are so concerned with readers feeling sympathy toward Falun Gong upon looking at the photo. It seems like you want the article to be such that it would make readers feel antipathy toward FLG since you bear some kind of personal grudge against it.--Thomas Meng (talk) 04:51, 18 July 2020 (UTC) 

Neutrality is not the same as antipathy. Neutrality is what we're aiming for here. No promotional photos, please, not of Falun Gong and not of Chinese Communists. Binksternet (talk) 05:07, 18 July 2020 (UTC)

...Which brings up another issue: Why does the "Background" section explain the Falun Gong's position but not the Chinese government's position? Further down in the article there's a section called "Rationale" but this material could be introduced alongside the Falun Gong position to form the background to the conflict. The current layout is clearly not neutral, as it gives the Falun Gong a platform to tell its story. Binksternet (talk) 05:14, 18 July 2020 (UTC)

@Binksternet: It's not promotional, because it conforms to plain facts and accurately describes FLG.

For your second topic, please refer to my points made in the section above this one. If you want, we can discuss it there.--Thomas Meng (talk) 18:13, 21 July 2020 (UTC)

No promo photos. Just no. Binksternet (talk) 18:18, 21 July 2020 (UTC)

@Binksternet: I have provided sufficient evidence proving how this is not a promotional photo, while you have provided none. Here are two more press releases from both the democratic and republican party officials, which further prove that FLG is peaceful and have all-party support. I do not want to waste anymore time replying to your POV advocacy. Please keep in mind that it is not accepted behavior according to WP policies.--Thomas Meng (talk) 23:39, 22 July 2020 (UTC)

References

1. "21st Anniversary of the PRC Government's Persecution of Falun Gong". US department of State. Retrieved 22 July 2020.
2. "Statement On The Persecution Of Falun Gong Practitioners". Leahy.senate.gov.

What is the relevance of American politicians to the question of whether we should have beautiful photos of Chinese communists or Falun Gong meditations? Not relevant. Binksternet (talk) 23:42, 22 July 2020 (UTC)

"Truthfulness" as a moral principle

This edit by Thomas Meng re-introduces the disputed idea that Falun Gong teaches "a set of moral principles—truthfulness, compassion, and tolerance—that guide practitioners' daily lives." It's not neutral for Misplaced Pages to parrot this material as if it were objectively true.

Falun Gong teaches that people can levitate, that qigong can cure a disease, that aliens designed our airplanes and computers, that aliens are promoting the mixing of the human races as part of a plan to overtake humankind. None of this nonsense is remotely truthful. Binksternet (talk) 19:01, 21 July 2020 (UTC)

@Binksternet: First of all, my addition is supported by two high-quality sources: 1. a U.S. democrat senator's office 2. Scholar Benjamin Penny. Also, WP:NPOV states that we should represent reliable sources. So, unless you prove that the democrat senator and scholar Benjamin Penny are unreliable, we should not remove their depiction of FLG.

Secondly, your concern is addressed by scholar of religious studies, David Ownby here in his interview at Rice University. 

Ownby says:  "In my reading of what other people have said about Li Hongzhi they are very quick to single out strange remarks that he has made and to make fun of him … too often I feel that the journalists who have done this, or the scholars who have done this, have done this at the expense of careful analysis."

“Modern journalists...find all the discussion about being good to be irrelevant because it’s boring. So they focus  on something else...But when you read Li Hongzhi’s writings, when you talk to Falun Gong practitioners, over and over and over again they come back to the notion of being good … there is a great pleasure in being able to devote oneself to being good.”

Ownby's quote indicates that Falun Gong's moral principles and para-scientific teachings are not mutually exclusive: adherents of Falun Gong can be truthful in their daily lives (not knowingly lie) while having whatever belief in parascience they want.--Thomas Meng (talk) 22:48, 21 July 2020 (UTC)

We cannot simply repeat the Falun Gong teachings as if they were objectively true. We can describe them in terms of scholarly evaluation, for instance Dr Heather Kavan of Massey University who writes in 2008 that the Falun Gong are "evasive" when talking about their beliefs to outsiders, and are instructed to lie to non-believers ("tell them that we're just doing exercises." —Li 2002) Kavan writes that Falun Gong spokespeople use their slogan, "truthfulness, compassion, forbearance", as an evasion, to ward off any deeper investigations. Kavan also says that Li instructs his followers to use stories of persecution as a tool to gain sympathy with the listener, with the unstated goal of recruiting them. Binksternet (talk) 18:49, 22 July 2020 (UTC)

Cite: Kavan, H. (2008). "Falun Gong in the media: What can we believe?". Power and Place: Refereed Proceedings of the Australian and New Zealand Communication Association Conference. (pp. 1 - 23).

a U.S. democrat senator's office Right, because in the US, politicians are authorities on religion. Oh, wait. Ian.thomson (talk) 03:03, 23 July 2020 (UTC)

@Ian.thomson: Good point. I will list some other research by religious studies experts below. Note that I use the democrat senator's press in part as a supplementary response to Binksternet's POV accusation on FLG (he accuses FLG of being a "right-wing political force") in the talk page section above.--Thomas Meng (talk) 20:21, 28 July 2020 (UTC)

Also, it's not like a politician would ever say nice things about one group of people to score points with them, nor would any American politician ever have a reason to demonize the Chinese government, right? Nevermind that Leahy was just repeating FLG's claims verbatim with no critical examination nor really the relevant academic background. Ian.thomson (talk) 03:10, 23 July 2020 (UTC)

And upon further reflection, what functioning society is not going to at least pay lipservice to the idea of honesty? Even hierarchies founded upon lies are going to tell those on the bottom to not lie to them. Some groups (particularly religions) might explain what exceptions are permissible (whether to protect secrets or lives) in ways that even their own members are uncomfortable with, but these are generally the exceptions.
Every religion (with perhaps the exception of some deliberately anti-mainstream fringe and elitist sect) is going to at least not contradict its background society's standards on honesty -- if not exceed them. Indeed, many religions regard Truth an sich as at least an aspect (if not identical to) the Divine -- a fact that our core articles on other religions (much less spin-off articles) either don't mention, barely hint at, or give the briefest and most understated mention possible. It is almost a given that any religion will view itself as true (or at least "true enough") -- the only distinction is to what extent a religion will see other religions as compatibly true. Thus mentioning truthfulness in this article is completely WP:UNDUE. Ian.thomson (talk) 04:29, 23 July 2020 (UTC)

@Ian.Thomson: Since WP:WEIGHT, in this case, is about how extensively FLG's moral principles are covered in RS's, and to what significance do RS's regard FLG's core principles as authentic and legitimate in practice (in FLG adherents' daily lives), we should rather focus on RS coverage instead of comparison with other religions.

Also, just a side note: your comparison of FLG to other religions in terms of hierchichal structure is quite different from the views presented in  this Australian government report. It seems, according to this report, that FLG has very little and informal organizational structure with no hierarchy whatsoever.--Thomas Meng (talk) 20:25, 28 July 2020 (UTC)

The key issue here, is wether Binksternet's deletion of the RS sourced content explaning FLG's  moral principles were justified or not. Kavan's words alone don't justify. In fact, Kavan's view is not even sufficient for inclusion due to its lack of weight WP:UNDUE:

In most notable scholarly researches regarding FLG, researchers often expound on FLG's core moral principles—truth-compassion-tolerance, and none of them share Kaven's view. Here I will list some of the most prominent examples. 

1. Professor Benjamin Penny's book:  "Falun Gong cultivation adherence to the code of truth, compassion, and forbearance is not just regarded as the right and responsible course of action for practitioners;it is an essential part of the cultivation process. " 

2. Professor David Ownby's book: "Falun Gong is profoundly moral. The very structure of the universe, according to Li Hongzhi, is made of of the moral qualities that cultivators are enjoined to practise in their own lives: truth, compassion and forbearance." 

Ownby even emphasizes that it's in part because of those moral principles that so many people practice FLG.

Here are some other books by award-winning journalists that also explained FLG's core moral principles and most certainly do not share Kavan's view.

1. Wild Grass: Three Stories of Change in Modern China By Ian Johnson, a WSJ journalist who won the pulitzer-prize for his reporting on FLG. 

2. Falun Gong’s Challenge to China: Spiritual Practice or “Evil Cult”? By Danny Schechter, former journalist, who possesses a Nieman Fellowship in Journalism at Harvard University. 

Overall, Kavan's view is indeed very rare, and it directly contracdicts the findings of other prominent scholars.--Thomas Meng (talk) 20:34, 28 July 2020 (UTC) 

References

1. Penny, Benjamin. The Religion of Falun Gong. The University of Chicago Press. p. 124.
2. Ownby, David. Falun Gong and the Future of China. Oxford University Press. p. 93.

• All unassessed articles
• B-Class Religion articles
• High-importance Religion articles
• B-Class New religious movements articles
• High-importance New religious movements articles
• New religious movements articles
• WikiProject Religion articles
• B-Class China-related articles
• High-importance China-related articles
• B-Class China-related articles of High-importance
• WikiProject China articles
• B-Class Human rights articles
• Unknown-importance Human rights articles
• WikiProject Human rights articles
• Misplaced Pages controversial topics
• Selected anniversaries (July 2014)
• Selected anniversaries (July 2019)
• Selected anniversaries (July 2020)