Talk:Falun Gong

Tiananmen Square Incident needs to be properly referenced

Under the media campaign section, in the final paragraph, there's a line which reads "much the same rhetoric employed by the party during Tiananmen in 1989". Since this is referencing the Tiananmen Square protests, please refer to it as such so as not to confuse the incident with the name of the square itself. Please change this line to "much the same rhetoric employed by the party during Tiananmen Protests of 1989". — Preceding unsigned comment added by Sheikh25 (talk • contribs) 10:48, October 1, 2020 (UTC)

Should it be categorized as a "cult"?

Some governments have categorized it as a cult, particularly China's government. Should we mention this in the categories? And also the introduction? WizardGamer775 (talk) 23:23, 1 April 2024 (UTC)

You can try this edit, but you expect to have to deal with edit warring even harassment with thier editors, as editors of Falun Gong has been using various means to deny being designated a cult by the Chinese government. 重庆轨交18 (talk) 07:37, 8 April 2024 (UTC)

Yes, they certainly have motivated editors. But so does the Chinese government.

Articles on topics like this should just state that there are two views, and what those views are. Like, "This is a religious movement, adherents say this, and opponents say this". The reader can read between the lines and understand for themselves that it's a cooky belief system.

The current tone just seems off for an encyclopedia. Eg, stating the "members are instructed to lie" based on citations of second-hand reports that don't even have direct quotes stating that members are instructed to lie...

You can still include this stuff, just say "Ex-member Susan had stated that members are instructed to lie...". That's just as effective, and comes off as more credible. 2605:B100:72E:4A89:E01C:426D:EB37:E6D5 (talk) 01:02, 14 April 2024 (UTC)

Regarding the International Coalition to End Transplant Abuse in China

I've just been skimming through this article and noticed this sentence in the last paragraph of the section on allegations of organ harvesting: "In June 2019, the China Tribunal — an independent tribunal set up by the International Coalition to End Transplant Abuse in China — concluded that [...]". I attempted to do further research into this group but came up rather short in terms of reliable secondary sources assessing their credibility and neutrality. What I did notice, however, is that the article for China Tribunal notes that several Falun Gong practitioners are members of this group, citing the group's own judgements. Here's the text from the judgement, located as a footnote on page 10[1]:

"The International Coalition to End Transplant Abuse in China (ETAC) began in 2014 as a web platform providing a comprehensive information source on the issue of forced organ harvesting of prisoners of conscience in China. The website features independent reports, lectures, testimonies, government action, latest news, press coverage and videos. Its website says ‘ETAC is an independent, non-partisan organisation. We are not aligned with any political party, religious or spiritual group, government or any other national or international institution. Our members are from a range of backgrounds, belief systems, religions and ethnicities. We share a common commitment to supporting human rights and ending the horror of forced organ harvesting.’ It is not an organisation of Falun Gong practitioners. None of its Advisory Board members is a Falun Gong practitioner. A minority of its committee members are practitioners."

While the group states that it is independent, the presence of Falun Gong members on its committee is of interest. Should this be noted in the article, and if so, how? I do believe that further elaboration is warranted here, but this topic is well outside my wheelhouse so I will defer the issue to editors more knowledgeable on Falun Gong.

Cheers, Ethmostigmus (talk | contribs) 10:35, 21 May 2024 (UTC)

Hi @Ethmostigmus: You're right in noting Falun Gong practitioners' presence on ETAC's committee. But this statement on China Tribunal's webpage clarifies their separation:

Whilst ETAC initiated the Tribunal, there is a necessary and scrupulous separation between ETAC and the Tribunal. ETAC manages some of the logistics for the Tribunal (such as arranging the public hearings in London) however ETAC is not, and will not be, privy to the Tribunal’s internal deliberations and consideration of the evidence save to the extent those deliberations are revealed in the Tribunal’s final public decision.

The China Tribunal itself, as you might've noted too, is free of any conflict of interest. Its final judgement says

All members of the Tribunal, Counsel to the Tribunal, volunteer lawyers and the editor of this Judgment have worked entirely pro bono publico (for the public good) which for those unfamiliar with the term or practice means completely without financial return of any kind. None of the members of the Tribunal, Counsel to the Tribunal, the editor or the volunteer lawyers working with Counsel to the Tribunal is a Falun Gong practitioner or has any special interest in Falun Gong.

And just as an aside to help diversify your wheelhouse, peer-reviewed medical journal articles do regard China Tribunal's final judgement highly. For example, The Journal of Thoracic and Cardiovascular Surgery published this article, which described the China Tribunal as such:

The most devastating blow to China’s pretentions of adherence to international ethical standards in transplantation was delivered in 2020 by The China Tribunal, an independent and diverse group of investigators who studied organ transplantation in the PRC. The Tribunal is chaired by Sir Geoffrey Nice, a British barrister known for his work as a prosecutor of international criminal activity. Other members include British cardiothoracic surgeon Martin Elliott and noted American historian of China Arthur Waldron.

In general, searching the topic of China's forced organ harvesting in peer-reviewed medical journals shows an academic concensus that the issue exists, leading to some journals' publication ban on transplantation research from China altogether e.g. The Journal of Heart and Lung Transplantation (official statement), Journal of Clinical Investigation (official statement). Hope that you find this post worth your time reading. Best, Thomas Meng (talk) 03:36, 24 May 2024 (UTC)

We need to include that the Falun Gong is involved and that this is not a neutral source. :bloodofox: (talk) 03:39, 15 June 2024 (UTC)

Recent Changes Discussion

Hi, recently User:Augend made some big changes to the lead section. I made a revert based on WP:NOR and WP:NPOV but was reverted back. I will share my reasonings below:

Augend added "The Falun Gong has also received substantial criticism and heavy scrutiny by observers for its

1. "[...] extreme founder veneration" and cited Adam Frank's book chapter to justify. The cited work does not appear to support the claim. It says (p.256):

   Even before the crackdown, differing degrees of commitment to Li Hongzhi and the manner in which followers publicly demonstrated that commitment sometimes prompted disagreement. Judy, for example, criticized those who worshiped Li Hongzhi too zealously, noting “Master Li said ‘treat me as a human.’” Freddy agreed, pointing out that far from seeking worshipers, Li admonished followers to not “get caught up in the images. Don’t fall into attachments"

   This shows that even among Falun Gong practitioners, opinions differ on founder veneration, and Li himself discourages that.
2. "[...] influence operations to secure United States government contracts, thereby increasing its revenue using US federal funds." Augend cited a 2010 WaPo that says the U.S. government gave funding to firewall circumvention tools developed by Falun Gong practitioners. The article mentioned Hudson Institute fellow Michael Horowitz advocating for Global Internet Freedom Consortium (GIFC) to receive funding, but it did not say that Horowitz was a Falun Gong practitioner. The article does not support the broad claim that "Falun Gong used influence operations to secure government contracts". Also, the funding was provided to GIFC, not to Falun Gong per se.
3. Augend changed "Falun Gong experiences repression in China" to "Falun Gong has been notable in receiving substantial government scrutiny in China", but sources overwhelmingly describe the treatment of Falun Gong practitioners in China as persecution or repression. We can't call well-documented torture and school expulsion due to one's peaceful belief in Falun Gong "government scrutiny". (Source: last article, Death Trap, in this series https://www.pulitzer.org/winners/ian-johnson)
4. Augend changed "[Falun Gong] criticizes the purportedly self-imposed limits of modern science" to "denying the truthfulness of science". But criticizing science's limitations is not the same as denying its truthfulness.
5. Augend added "involvement with political information operations and disinformation campaigns in the United States and Europe." and cited two media articles about The Epoch Times. But ET says that it does not represent Falun Gong, and these two articles did not generalize ET's coverage to the entire Falun Gong community, whose vast majority of practitioners are in China and have no connections with ET.

For full explanation, please go to my talk page discussion with Augend where my reasonings are more detailed but too long to post here. Thomas Meng (talk) 02:33, 23 June 2024 (UTC)

@Thomas Meng Thank you for your commentary. I am traveling in the near term so I will make my comments brief. I agree with you on points 1 & 3; perhaps the language can be revised to be more neutral, but I do not believe omission altogether of these important facets is the best treatment. 2 & 5 are both involving organizations that sources describe as substantially connected to the movement's organization & leadership and I believe they should be treated as such. 4 is a matter of semantics. However it is my opinion that reliable sources are more consistent with the notion that the movement denies the faculty of science rather than merely questioning it. Augend (drop a line) 05:15, 23 June 2024 (UTC)

@Augend, there are a number of issues with your edits to the lede, and @Thomas Meng has a well reasoned summary of why he reverted it, which I largely agree with.

@Augend, some of the sources that you were trying to add, such as the Washington Post article, New York Times one, New Yorker one, and Adam Frank's 2004 book chapter, are already on the page. So this isn't a question of omitting material, but putting it in the proper place on the page. This is an article about a minority religious group indigenous to China that is facing severe, well documented persecution. It should be treated as such. This does not mean that it should avoid criticism, but the criticisms of a group are not what define it.

Your version diminishes the religious aspects of falungong and frames the practice from a very American point of view. The businesses, organizations, and affiliations in the United States are part of the group's public profile (and are certainly important because Li Hongzhi lives in America), but this current introduction is very unbalanced in my opinion. Even the version @Thomas Meng is trying to revert to needs work in my opinion. Furthermore, per WP:LEAD, "Apart from basic facts, significant information should not appear in the lead if it is not covered in the remainder of the article." The lede is supposed to summarize the most important points of the article, thus we need to be selective what to include in the lead.

Moving on from the tone, I think you misrepresented a number of the sources you cited. @Thomas Meng detailed these in your discussion, and I concur with his points on there. If you'd like me to detail my own assessment, I can do that as well. There are multiple points where you went beyond paraphrasing what the original sources say to attribute your own opinions to those authors. This is a significant issue that you need to avoid when editing articles.

I suggest we go back to the previous stable version for now, and move forward with edits in a more consensus-seeking way. —Zujine|talk 04:54, 25 June 2024 (UTC)

Lead suggestions

There has been some discussion regarding this page's lead recently. The current lead seems to be a moderate size and covers a wealth of info. However, after taking a closer look, I realized that it might be missing some key info fully elaborated in later sectio​ns. Currently, the lead mainly talks about Falun Gong's headquarters and organizations in the U.S., their beliefs that have been criticized by some media, and how they face discrimination in China. However, based on the rest of the article, I believe the lead is missing key info like: what the practice actually looks like and is about; its history and developments inside China; how they're being persecuted and what led to it, etc. I think these would provide a more complete picture of this topic, especially considering that not every religion is persecuted in China. Happy to discuss and reach consensus. 23impartial (talk) 14:22, 29 June 2024 (UTC)

@23impartial This information had been in the lede for years and only recently was taken out. I agree that it should be added back in. It's important that this section be an introduction to the full article and give a complete picture of what falungong is. —Zujine|talk 14:29, 30 June 2024 (UTC)

I see. If no other objections, I will add some of this info to the lead. I will be mindful of the length and try to be concise. 23impartial (talk) 19:09, 30 June 2024 (UTC)

We're not burying that the org is centered on Li Hongzhi and is very active via its various orgs. And we're certainly not going to try to obscure this with the usual persecution narrative the org would prefer we highlight instead. :bloodofox: (talk) 02:14, 2 July 2024 (UTC)

Hello @Bloodofox. What I added was simply a short summary of topics that were discussed extensively in the article itself. Nothing was buried or highlighted, especially considering that the first paragraph says Falun Gong was founded by Li. The new additions were at most proportionate to the topics elaborated in the article itself. Much more could be added based on the article but I only selected what was clearly missing. 23impartial (talk) 12:23, 2 July 2024 (UTC)

The group's history is nowhere near as notable as its current activities and the group has always been centered around Li Hongzhi. I suggest you review the history of this article before inserting a paragraph on top of this core information about the group. :bloodofox: (talk) 04:09, 3 July 2024 (UTC)

@Bloodofox if you think someone's edit was missing something, you can try adding the information and not reverting the editor summarily. @23impartial's edit didn't bury any information. The edits were an overall improvement in multiple ways. You seem to be committed to a specific narrative about this group based a few recent articles in the highly politicised American media landscape. Your views and the views of these articles are not representative of academic and religious studies of falungong over the past 25 years. The articles you rely on (though rarely cite accurately) are important and should be included on this page, so please don't suggest that I'm trying to bury information. However, you are under the false impression that the priority of information on this page should be determined by you and you alone. —Zujine|talk 13:07, 2 July 2024 (UTC)

You're well aware of the history of this article, where we even have scholars writing about the Falun Gong's attempts at influencing it. As a result, you're also well aware that the tolerance for anything that can be read as in-step with the group's preferred presentation is unacceptable here and will be swiftly escalated and exposed yet again. Stick to WP:RS and save your complaints about this (extremely politically active) new religious movement's media reception for some other forum. :bloodofox: (talk) 04:09, 3 July 2024 (UTC)

Thank you Bloodofox for the suggestion. Following your advice, I took a look at the page’s history over the past 10 years. Back in 2014, 2019, 2021, and 2023, the lead all had info about the Falun Gong’s history in China, the appeal to the gov by 10,000 people, what led to the persecution, as well as the scope of the persecution. I saw that you removed 3 paragraphs of such info from the lead on Nov. 8 of last year, without offering a clear justification other than stating that the lead was too long.

I’ve read the latest archive of talk page discussions during that time. There were lots of heated debates. But among them, there was a reasonable and objective suggestion by Horse Eye's Back: “In many of these cases dating the statement might be more appropriate than removing it.” And it seemed that ScottishFinnishRadish also considered it a viable compromise. The history part that I added to the lead was no more than half of the size of what used to be there, and all events were dated.

If the lead is only focused on recent events, wouldn’t that be a violation of WP:RECENT, when it has an inflated or imbalanced focus on recent events and its writing without an aim toward a long-term, historical view? Moreover, most of the media articles and scholarly works about Falun Gong itself that I have seen so far all include a large amount of info about its history and the persecution. How can a religious movement’s history be not notable enough to be in the lead of the movement, especially if it’s closely related to the practice’s developments over time? 23impartial (talk) 00:16, 4 July 2024 (UTC)

Yes, I've removed a lot from this article and added a lot. A lot more needs to go and much more needs to be added.

There's no acceptable reason to attempt to bump down Li Hongzhi's total centrality to this topic and, given the Falun Gong's role in attempting to influence this and related articles, any attempts at doing so will naturally be highly suspicious. As Wikipedia WP:RS-acceptable sources make absolutely clear, the group's entire is centered on Li Hongzhi. :bloodofox: (talk) 10:11, 4 July 2024 (UTC)

It is not reasonable or appropriate to say that edits unaligned with with your POV are "highly suspicious." Nor did 23impartial's edits bump down Li Hongzhi's role in falungong. I want to stress this warning that :bloodofox: (User talk:Bloodofox was given to during the last conflict: "All editors in the Falun Gong topic area, and Bloodofox in particular, are warned to not speculate about other editors' religious views, nor to attempt to disqualify others' comments based on actual or perceived religious views." Also, when it comes to stressing the importance of Li Hongzhi, I'd like to draw a comparison to the page on The Catholic Church, and look at how much attention is given to the pope in the lede section. Obviously the papacy is the undisputed high leader of the church, but this article gives a detailed description of the church overall rather than focusing on the pope. Again, I'm not suggesting that mentions of Li Hongzhi as the leader of falungong and his influence be removed or diminished from this article, I'm just suggesting that it be given appropriate weight, and I think that 23impartial's edits were accurate and well sourced. They do not warrant this type of accusation and refusal to collaborate. —Zujine|talk 16:29, 4 July 2024 (UTC)

That comparison seems misleading... The pope is not the founder of catholiscism, Li Hongzhi created Falun Gong. He is both pope and Jesus in that comparison if we're talking due weight. Horse Eye's Back (talk) 16:35, 4 July 2024 (UTC)

You're wasting your time. We're obviously not going to go back to your preferred earlier version, where the article went to pains to downplay the centrality of Li Hongzhi. Our WP:RS make it crystal clear that the Falun Gong is whatever Li Hongzhi says it is and that this has always been the case. Your pope comparison is funny but an appropriate comparison would instead be your pick of new religious movements from the last half century founded on the words and whims of a single charismastic figure. If we're comparing the Falun Gong to the Catholic church, Li Hongzhi would be Jesus, deity, pope, and Bible all in one.

Meanwhile, the Falun Gong consistently seeks to downplay or obscure his role, just like this article used to, because they understand that the reality of Falun Gong = really just an org based around whatever Li Hongzhi wants or says makes the organization immediately unpalatable to many. In turn, it is obviously a major red flag whenever someone suggests that we follow the Falun Gong's lead instead of WP:RS, especially on an article that has a documented, even scholar-discussed history of attempted Falun Gong influence.

Finally, you might also want to stress the "warning" that you highlight above led to a few editors here attempting to remove WP:RS coverage on this topic parmanently blocked from editing in this topic area. :bloodofox: (talk) 19:00, 4 July 2024 (UTC)

Thanks for everyone’s participation. @Bloodofox, it seems like your primary concern is the lead looking like Li Hongzhi isn’t the central figure of Falun Gong. I didn’t realize my edit would be perceived this way, as I thought that was already clear in the article since the first paragraph already stated so, and also that based on other NRM pages I've done, it’s common for NRMs to be centered around the founder (on top of existing religious ideas or new religious dogma by the founder).  I assume you were referring to my edit moving up a paragraph about the persecution, which I did because that would make the lead chronological. However, based on your concern, I would be willing to agree to not moving that paragraph up and also moving my other edits about the history inside China down. 23impartial (talk) 05:44, 5 July 2024 (UTC)

The lead should be a summary of the article's contents and that include's the group's history, so concise coverage of the NRM's history is a given. However, this is a highly sensitive article under constant assault by its subject and it is a good idea to be particularly cautious and sensitive given that reality. :bloodofox: (talk) 01:56, 6 July 2024 (UTC)

Yes it is definitely important to be cautious and make sure things are done right. If you don’t have any other objections, I’ll add back my other edits about the history and keep them and the paragraph about the persecution at the end of the lead. 23impartial (talk) 02:38, 7 July 2024 (UTC)