Bill Text: IN HR0054 | 2011 | Regular Session | Introduced
Bill Title: Recognizing the Falun Gong of China, a spiritual discipline.
Spectrum: Partisan Bill (Democrat 1-0)
Status: (Passed) 2011-04-21 - First reading: adopted voice vote [HR0054 Detail]
Download: Indiana-2011-HR0054-Introduced.html
A HOUSE RESOLUTION to recognize and call attention
to the Falun Gong of China.
Whereas, Falun Gong is a traditional Chinese spiritual
discipline founded by Li Hongzhi in 1992, which consists of
spiritual, religious, and moral teachings for daily life,
meditation, and exercise, based upon the principles of
truthfulness, compassion, and tolerance; and,
Whereas, according to the 2008 Annual Report of the
Congressional-Executive Commission on China, "tens of
millions of Chinese citizens practiced Falun Gong in the 1990s
and adherents to the spiritual movement inside of China are
estimated to still number in the hundreds of thousands despite
the government's ongoing crackdown," and other estimates
published in Western press place the number of Falun Gong
adherents currently in China at the tens of millions; and,
Whereas, in 1996, Falun Gong books were banned in China
and state media began a campaign criticizing Falun Gong; and,
Whereas, in 1999, Chinese police began disrupting Falun
Gong morning exercises in public parks and began searching
the homes of Falun Gong practitioners; and,
Whereas, on April 25, 1999, over 10,000 Falun Gong
practitioners gathered outside the State Council Office of
Petitions in Beijing, next to the Communist Party leadership
compound, to request that arrested Falun Gong practitioners be
released, the ban on publication of Falun Gong books be lifted,
and that Falun Gong practitioners be allowed to resume their
activities without government interference; and,
Whereas, on the same day, immediately after then-Premier
Zhu Rongji met with Falun Gong representatives in his office
and agreed to the release of arrested practitioners, Communist
Party Chairman Jiang Zemin criticized Zhu's actions and
ordered a crackdown on Falun Gong; and,
Whereas, in June 1999, Jiang Zemin ordered the creation of
the 6-10 office, an extrajudicial security apparatus, given the
mandate to `eradicate' Falun Gong; and,
Whereas, on July 22, 1999, Chinese state media began a
major propaganda campaign to ban Falun Gong for `disturbing
social order' and warning Chinese citizens that the practice of
Falun Gong was forbidden; and,
Whereas, in October 1999, Party Chairman Jiang Zemin,
according to western press articles, `ordered that Falun Gong be
branded as a `cult', and then demanded that a law be passed
banning cults'; and,
Whereas, Chinese authorities have devoted extensive time
and resources over the past decade worldwide to distributing
false propaganda claiming that Falun Gong is a suicidal and
militant `evil cult' rather than a spiritual movement which draws
upon traditional Chinese concepts of meditation and exercise;
Therefore:
SECTION 1. That the Indiana House of Representatives expresses
sympathy to Falun Gong practitioners and their family members who
have suffered persecution, intimidation, imprisonment, torture, and
even death for the past decade solely because of adherence to their
personal beliefs.
SECTION 2. That the House calls upon the Government of the
People's Republic of China to immediately cease and desist from its
campaign to persecute, intimidate, imprison, and torture Falun Gong
practitioners, to immediately abolish the 6-10 office, an extrajudicial
security apparatus given the mandate to `eradicate' Falun Gong, and to
immediately release Falun Gong practitioners, detained solely for their
beliefs, from prisons and re-education through labor (RTL) camps,
including those practitioners who are the relatives of United States
citizens and permanent residents
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