Xinhua Blasts America's Double Standard on Cults

People's Daily 4/21/00

Xinhua News Agency issued a commentary criticizing some anti-China elements in the United States for their interference in China's internal affairs under the guise of "safeguarding human rights" and their double standard on the issue of cults.

Since July 1999, when the Chinese government banned Falun Gong in accordance with law, the U.S. anti-China forces have used the cult as a new card to play in the ongoing human rights game, the article says, listing the following examples:

On November 18, the U.S. House of Representatives adopted a resolution demanding that the U.S. government pressure China on the issue of Falun Gong. The proposal was passed "unanimously" in the presence of only seven or eight congressmen, as the Congress was about to recess.

On March 23, 2000, representative of the U.S. government attacked all the countries that it clashes with at the UN Human Rights Commission Conference in Geneva, and during the attack on China, the representative linked the Falun Gong cult with the issue of human rights.

It is widely known that the Falun Gong is a cult that has forcibly indoctrinated its practitioners with its dangerous theories and brainwashed them with its peculiar "spiritual" beliefs, which have done irreparable emotional and physical damage to them.

To date, more than 1,500 Falun Gong practitioners have died as a result of the teachings of cult founder Li Hongzhi, while many other Falun Gong believers have gone insane, been disowned by their families, and even committed murder, according to the article.

Meanwhile, Falun Gong members have frequently held illegal gatherings to protest against those who have proclaimed different views, infringing on others' human rights and endangering social stability. Some in the United States willingly support the Falun Gong cult that is acting against human rights and humankind. "Have they forgotten the slogan of 'protecting human rights' that they chant every day?" the Xinhua commentator asks.

The U.S. government, which is clear-minded on the infringement of American people's human rights by cults, has never been softhearted when cracking down on cults in the United States, the article says

On May 13, 1985, in a siege against a local cult group, the U.S. police in Philadelphia used helicopters to drop C-4 explosives, killing 11 people including five children. A total of 60 families were destroyed during the police action.

On February 28, 1993, dozens of U.S. federal marshals and FBI agents, together with 450 armed police officers and soldiers, scores of tanks, armored vehicles and helicopters, joined in a massive assault on a branch of the Davidian cult organization at Waco, Texas. Eighty-six cult members died in fires.

The U.S. government, which is keenly aware of the threat cults pose to social order, has turned to judicial and administrative means and even used armed forces to crack down on domestic cult groups.

The "human rights guardians" in the United States are well-aware of the dangerous nature of cults and they did not put forward any human rights proposals when there was a heavy presence of armed police officers, tanks, armored vehicles and helicopters in the attacks against cults and even the headquarters of the cult groups was leveled, the article says, adding that all these are acceptable for the "human rights guardians" in the United States. However, it says, anti-China forces in the United States roared when the Chinese government legally banned a cult group that had not followed legal registration procedures.

"You'e infringing on human rights," shouted anti-China elements in the United States.

"While the United States is allowed to set a fire, China is not allowed to light a lamp," the commentary says.

The United States has adopted a double standard on the issue of human rights, it points out, stressing that the aim of the double standard is to serve the interests of the U.S. itself.

Sensible people know that cults threaten normal social order and must not be allowed to spread in any country. The U.S. government has been vigilant against the formation of cults and has taken preventive measures to stop them. As for those cult groups that have become powerful enough to endanger the society, the U.S. government has taken measures to restrict or prohibit them, and even used armed forces to attack them.

The article goes on to criticize the U.S. government for its double standard on the issue of human rights, noting that some in the U.S. are inordinately fond of Falun Gong, not because they believe in the mystical powers of Li Hongzhi, but because the issue just gives them another opportunity to interfere in China's internal affairs.

Some Americans like to give the Chinese people lessons on human rights. In their eyes, the article stresses, Li Hongzhi does not infringe upon human rights when he threatens, controls and violates his followers with his evil thinkings; Falun Gong practitioners are practicing "freedom in belief" when they, bewitched by Li, refuse medical treatment when they fall ill, when numerous Falun Gong practitioners are going insane, injuring themselves, committing suicide or murder, and being disowned by their families -- or killed.

The Chinese government has banned Falun Gong and helped the practitioners rid themselves of the spiritual chains of Li's teachings, helped them return to a normal life and recover their health and dignity. "Is it a protection of human rights for the people, especially the Falun Gong practicers?" it asks.

In the eyes of those Americans, there are many kinds of human rights, and they adopt different criteria for different human rights, the article says, adding that the U.S. government has adopted a criterion for its own human rights issue, and used another one for the human rights issues in countries that are not obedient to it.

The Xinhua commentator says that those people have vilified China on "human rights" pretexts, because China has implemented an independent foreign policy of peace, because China has always made decisions by its own, and because China has refused to dance to the baton of some others.

In fact, the article says, some Americans have long practiced the double standard on the issue of human rights. The U.S. State Department produces an annual report on human rights conditions in different countries, which is politically biased and criticizes China and some other countries. But the report has ignored human rights problems that are prevalent in the United States.

One fourth of the prisoners in the world are housed in the U.S. prisons; 49 percent of U.S. prisoners are black people who account for 13 percent of the country's total. In the United States, the infant mortality rate of the black people is three times that of the white; fifteen out of every 100,000 young people are killed a year. In the American city of Chicago, 3,000 people have sued local police for police brutality, but none of the police accused have been fired. The United States remains among a handful of nations that have not joined the Convention on Children's Rights and the Convention on the Elimination of All Forms of Discrimination against Women.

The article tells those Americans who have worked so hard to attack China's human rights situation, even linking it with cults, to take a hard look at the reality of life in the United States. "Why don't they do something substantial to improve the human rights situation in their own country?" it asks.

The article says those Americans who have launched eloquent attacks on other countries for "infringing on human rights" might have forgotten that in March last year the U.S.-led NATO bombed Yugoslavia, a sovereign country, killing more than 2,000 civilians and leaving almost one million others homeless. In the same war, the largest in Europe since World War II, U.S. aircraft assaulted the Chinese embassy in Belgrade, with the Chinese National Flag flying above, slaughtering three Chinese journalists.

The article condemns some Falun Gong members in China who have taken the side of the anti-China forces in the Untied States when the issue of Falun Gong is used by those anti-China elements to attack the Chinese government. Since the second half of last year, some Falun Gong elements have begun lobbying across the United States, spreading rumors and slanders against the Chinese government, though the cult group is supposed to have upheld "truth, mercy and tolerance" and claims that it "will not participate in politics."

On March 20 this year, when the UN Human Rights Commission Conference was inaugurated, a follower of Li Hongzhi held a news briefing in Geneva and issued an announcement claiming that they were very glad to see that the U.S. government was ready to raise a proposal at the conference to criticize China's human rights records in 1999. The follower also said that human rights violations could not be regarded as internal affairs.

In recent years, cult groups of various kinds have been rampant in some countries including China, the United States, France, Japan and Uganda, says the article. It calls cults a "malignant tumour in the world community".

The Xinhua commentator advises anti-China elements who have acted under the name of protecting human rights and actually used the cult to oppose China, not to continue moving against social progress and conscience. Those who have attempted to make use of Falun Gong are certain to fall victims to the cult. Appeasement brings disaster, it says.