Ask No Questions (2020) Movie Script
1
(282)
LISA:
It was a very cold day.
There was snow
on the Square,
and the snow
had been shoveled up
and packed into
these little pyramids.
We were wandering around,
just keeping an eye out.
Myself and my cameraman,
each with a camera,
but concealed.
And we heard
from behind us
this whooshing sound.
(People shouting indistinctly)
LISA:
I turned around
and I could see some smoke
on the horizon,
just a little trail.
I got my camera out
and got
about 20 seconds,
25 seconds
of shaky video.
Before any of us knew it
somebody was on him,
a military policeman,
and he didn't resist.
I made a run for it.
I thought maybe I could get
to the other side
of the square and outrun,
and, of course, I couldn't.
But it gave me a window
of opportunity
to get a small tape
out of my camera
and into my bra.
They ended up taking us
through the scene.
I could clearly see
three people,
um, on fire.
And it was absolutely
the strangest thing
I'd ever seen.
(282)
(Females reporter
talking indistinctly)
MALE REPORTER #1:
China's Communist leaders today
escalated their campaign
against the popular
spiritual movement
called Falun Gong.
They vowed to crush
what they say is a cult.
Members of China's
Falun Gong religious group
attempted
a fiery mass suicide
last week in Beijing.
This whole thing
was a dramatic change
in tactics for the sect
which has staged
many non-violent protests.
The Chinese government
is punishing Falun Gong,
protecting the Chinese people's
peaceful and happy lives.
This is a truly
responsible government,
truly protecting human rights.
You know, first
I was distrustful
of the whole thing
that actually happened.
It burst out of nowhere.
FEMALE REPORTER #1:
Just who they were
is now in dispute.
The Chinese Government
news agency
says they were
Falun Gong followers.
But spokespeople
for the movement
outside of China say
that can't be true
because a suicide protest
goes against
Falun Gong principles.
(282)
(Inaudible conversation)
JASON:
I have some
first-hand experience
with protests
in Tiananmen Square.
Stop persecuting Falun Gong.
Falun Gong is good.
JASON:
That's me
nearly 20 years ago,
protesting the persecution
of Falun Gong in China.
FEMALE REPORTER #2:
Jason Loftus watches
more than 50 practitioners
of Falun Gong,
who have come
to Queen's Park
to urge the government
to help stop
China's persecution
of the ancient
spiritual practice.
You know,
the police there
they treat the practitioners
of Falun Gong
very brutally.
It's just too horrifying
what's going on there.
I mean, good people
are being killed every day.
So how does a small-town
Canadian kid
get involved in a struggle
between the Chinese Government
and an eastern spiritual group
that was largely unknown
in the West?
I trace it back
to an RV trip
with my family
in my early teens.
It was a long drive.
So I brought an old paperback
that I found
that promised to cover
the entire history of the world.
The brief summary
of Buddhism caught my eye.
It said
the Buddha had discovered
an alternative path
to happiness.
Rather than satisfying
every human desire
he found you could be happy
by removing longings
and desires themselves.
That blew my mind.
So I read a ton of books
while working a local
gas station after school,
from yogis, Sufis
and self-help gurus,
all in search of
how to transcend human desire.
Some of my friends
couldn't relate.
But I was on a mission.
And then at 18,
I came across Falun Gong.
Also called Falun Dafa.
It was a series
of slow-moving exercises
and a promise that
I could reach fulfillment
by measuring each of
my thoughts and actions
against three criteria:
Is it truthful?
Is it compassionate?
And is it tolerant?
(Indistinct conversation)
JASON:
When I took up Falun Gong
in 1998,
millions in China
were doing the same.
Hello and thanks for watching
Guangdong TV, Sports News.
The Falun Gong practice
can not only heal
but improve body and mind.
JASON:
At first,
the Chinese Government
praised and endorsed
the practice
but as Falun Gong's
numbers swelled
the Communist Party's
attitude toward it changed.
So you had a situation
by the late 1990's
that Falun Gong
was not only
the second most popular
spiritual or religious group
after Chinese Buddhism,
uh, but it was also,
going by those figures,
more popular than
the Communist party.
You actually had a large number
of people within the party
and the party apparatus
who were practicing Falun Gong.
And given the spiritual
and ideological differences
between Falun Gong
and Marxist-atheist thought,
a number of leaders
in the Communist Party
felt that
that really posed a problem.
Hello, viewers.
The Chinese Ministry
of Civil Affairs
has decided to ban
the Falun Dafa Association.
(People shouting indistinctly)
JASON:
I didn't know anything
about Chinese politics,
and they were saying that
Falun Gong was an evil cult.
I questioned if there was
something I'd missed
about Falun Gong
and the people involved.
Had I unwittingly
joined a cult?
But what I saw were people
who seemed to be
trying to better themselves
through meditation
and spirituality.
(Speaking inaudibly)
JASON:
The Chinese Government
seemed intent on wiping out
Falun Gong entirely.
Adherents were being sent
en masse
to forced labor camps
and to what were called
reeducation facilities.
To inmates, these were known
as brainwashing centers.
The Falun Gong practitioners
held there
faced many counts
of torture and abuse.
They were pressured
and forced to watch
government propaganda
until they agreed
to recant their beliefs.
One Chinese Government
advisor
explained the strategy
to The Washington Post.
"Pure violence doesn't work,"
he said,
"The brainwashing was needed,
but wasn't enough, either.
He said, "None of it
would be working
if the propaganda
hadn't started to change the way
the general public thinks."
I wanted to help
clear the air
and provide a voice to those
who were suffering.
So I spoke up,
meeting with media
and government where I lived.
Then the self-immolation
happened.
It was horrific.
Innocent lives lost,
others destroyed.
I couldn't explain it.
It was alien to everything
I knew about Falun Gong.
(Laughing and talking
indistinctly)
JASON:
Time passed,
and the event faded
from the public consciousness
in the West.
And I was fine with that.
I was tired of worrying
whether people might think
I was going
to set myself on fire
just because
I did Falun Gong.
But then I met a man whose story
would lead me to face
the self-immolation event
again.
(282)
My name is Chen Ruichang.
I worked at Guangdong TV
from 1987 to 2013.
(282)
Mr. Chen, please tell us
about your arrest.
I was arrested several times.
Which one are you referring to?
(Laughs)
JASON:
Chen Ruichang worked high up
in one of China's largest
state television networks.
He was responsible
for research
into making government
propaganda more persuasive.
And Chen took up Falun Gong
like I did in 1998
amidst its boom
and popularity
and favorable coverage
in China.
But when
the persecution began,
and the state media
that employed Chen
turned on Falun Gong,
pressure mounted.
They all knew
I was practicing Falun Gong.
The provincial propaganda
department said:
"Guangdong TV is holding
a Falun Gong time bomb."
JASON:
Days before the self-immolation
would take place
Chen was arrested
at his workplace
and taken to a special
reeducation facility
specifically for staff
of the state media
and government.
There he describes
a prolonged campaign
to force him
to abandon Falun Gong
and to have him accept
the Chinese state's narrative
on the self-immolation.
I was in the
brainwashing center
when the self-immolation
aired on TV.
They forced us to watch it.
Five infatuated
Falun Gong members
set themselves on fire
in Tiananmen Square.
As we were watching it,
I immediately
thought it was fake.
(Man speaking in Mandarin
on TV)
I'ma TV professional.
It's just like we used to do
at the TV station.
All the departments
are connected.
When the police have a case,
they tell the TV station
what to produce.
So they were really worried
and made me a key target
to be converted.
They used every method
to force me to give up.
They forced me
to sitin frontofa TV
(Inaudible)
For eight hours a day.
The volume was over 97 decibels.
They forced my eyes open.
I tried to resist.
They did this for 22 days.
After 22 days,
the TV speakers broke.
Very cruel.
Some prisoners lost their minds.
They force you to watch nonstop
so the pressure mounts.
Will your mind accept it?
They played it endlessly.
If you hear it a thousand times,
you might let your guard down.
Oh, maybe it's true.
And once a crack forms
in your logical thinking,
they will drill into it
until they break your will.
(High-pitched ringing)
Many people in the brainwashing
center were deceived
and they gave up
their belief.
REPORTER:
After seeing the self-immolation
news on TV
Falun Gong practitioners
who are imprisoned
for their illegal activities
are deeply moved.
JASON:
Chen made me see
that for practitioners
of Falun Gong in China,
the self-immolation
never really passed
into the rearview mirror.
It wasn't a scar
so much as an open wound
and they were dealing
with the consequences of it
every day.
SARAH:
Even today,
the self-immolation incident
shapes the way many
Chinese people think
about Falun Gong.
You had wall-to-wall coverage
of very graphic,
emotional footage.
WOMAN #1:
Very cruel.
Inhumane.
Seeing what Falun Gong
did to this little girl,
I think Falun Gong
is so repulsive.
JASON:
The self-immolation became
part of the school curriculum
and then, in so-called
anti-cult rallies
organized by the government,
it became evidence,
that Falun Gong was
the enemy next door
that needed
to be wiped out.
Their purpose was to sustain
this persecution.
So they carefully planned
the self-immolation
to incite hatred
in people's hearts.
JASON:
I felt compelled to revisit
the self-immolation,
and to investigate Chen's claim
that it had been staged.
According to Chinese
state media,
on January 23, 2001,
seven people attempted
to set themselves on fire
in Beijing's Tiananmen Square.
to reach
an afterlife paradise.
JASON:
It was said that each planned
to conceal two bottles
of gasoline
beneath their clothes
and use razor blades
to cut holes
allowing the fuel to soak in,
before setting
themselves alight.
You could say
we were well prepared.
JASON:
They had agreed
to take action together
at 2:30 p.m.,
and were equipped
with watches.
However, that's not
how things played out.
This woman tells state TV
she drank 20 ounces
of gasoline
and poured the remainder
on her clothes.
This cop says
he saw the woman
drinking from
a Sprite bottle
and that set him
into action.
Shortly after,
police on the Square
said they saw
a man on fire.
White smoke
is shown emanating
from behind
a security vehicle.
After the smoke
had cleared,
someone filmed the seated man
shouting a slogan.
(Man shouting indistinctly)
JASON:
Then, security camera footage
shown in the state
media broadcast
shows four figures on fire.
They are identified
in the program
as two sets of mothers
and daughters.
Nineteen minutes
after the agreed 2:30 time,
this man,
the seventh participant,
has not acted.
Police say they spot him
pouring gasoline
on his clothes,
and stop him before
he can set himself alight.
(Inaudible)
JASON:
One woman,
Liu Chunling
reportedly dies on-site.
The other six survive
and give interviews
with state-run media,
some from
their hospital beds.
If the event was not
as the Chinese Government
had claimed,
I figured
a good place to start
would be speaking with those
who were closest.
My team and I reached out
to journalists
who were stationed
in Beijing
at the time
of the self-immolation.
But we had trouble
finding people
willing to speak with us.
MAN #1: (On phone)
In my heart I really want to
tell the story but it's just ...
it's something that I have
to be very careful about,
not only because of my own
beliefs but also because...
I still have family in China.
JASON:
Some spoke on background,
and some declined,
citing ongoing work in China.
(282)
JASON:
But looking through
the initial coverage
on the self-immolation
I see several reports
quoting a CNN journalist
named Lisa Weaver
and she appears
to have witnessed
the burning directly.
We really went to see
just to check it out, um,
and we were simply
in the right time
at the right place,
stayed a little longer
got a little colder.
(Indistinct clamoring)
LISA:
They ended up taking us
through the scene
in order to get
to the bus.
So we crossed
the center of the Square...
Once we were put
on the bus,
no one was preventing us
watching this,
which really surprised me.
We were questioned
on the bus
by a couple
of different policemen.
They were just very interested
in what I'd seen,
when I'd seen it.
"Do you have a tape?
Are you hiding a tape?"
And I said,
"No, I'm not hiding a tape."
At one point,
the person who was
talking to me, uh, left,
and came back with a very brief,
written account
that looked to me to be like
a Xinhua News Agency copy.
Four people
immolated themselves
earlier this afternoon
on Tiananmen Square
and, you know,
just the facts.
JASON:
Xinhua was quoted widely
in the reports.
Apparently the news release
that Lisa had initially reviewed
and confirmed.
And I see other details
attributed to Lisa, herself.
She's said to have witnessed
the seated man on fire
as police put his flames out.
She's also said to have seen
the four women ablaze,
to have witnessed them
douse themselves in gasoline.
And then, after
setting themselves alight,
hold their arms up
in a Falun Gong pose.
But when we spoke
with her,
Lisa didn't claim
to have seen these details.
INTERVIEWER:
You said that
you saw three people,
three people
self-immolating in total?
Is that right, or...
I saw three people
in total,
not really
at the same time.
(Stammering)
I-- the first one I saw was one.
I got some footage of that.
Then tried to run away--
Run away with the tape,
was caught, apprehended,
brought back.
It wasn't until I was a lot--
Brought closer to the center
of the square and the bus
that they put us on
that I saw, um,
three people, two of whom
were In flames,
and one of whom wasn't.
He was already--
Already seated.
INTERVIEWER:
Did you know--
would you be able to say
if they were men,
women, children?
No.
The only person
who I could identify as a man
was Wang Jindong, um,
as he was sitting there,
the flames out,
you know, his clothes
were smoking.
The other two were
just too far away.
My recollection
as to whether these people
were Falun Gong practitioners,
I would say,
at first glance,
yes, because they were
yelling the slogans,
and, uh, you know,
doing those gestures
uh, that Falun Gong
members do.
It was clear to me,
personally,
that they couldn't have been
very representative.
JASON:
After our interviews
with Chen and Lisa,
my wife heard from
her family members in China.
The Public Security Bureau
had contacted them
saying they knew what
we were up to overseas.
No details
on what we'd done wrong,
no explicit threat.
Perhaps a warning
or hint to make us worry
what they might know
and what they might do.
(Sizzling)
JASON:
So my wife deleted her
Chinese social media accounts
used to contact family,
in an effort to shield them
from any further pressure.
(282)
The guards told me...
a high-ranking official
from the central government
wanted to see me.
They told me to dress well.
When I entered the room,
as I can remember,
his head was down.
It looked like he was
reading something.
I entered the room,
then halted.
He looked up and said,
"Oh, there you are."
"My surname is Li.
What's yours?"
I said, "Chen."
He asked,
"Which year were you born?"
I said,
"l was born in a dragon year."
"Ah, I'll call you
Older Brother Chen."
I said, "Then, I'll address
you as Brother Li."
From what I know,
Li Dongsheng
was the Vice President of
China Central Television.
He oversaw the news.
Then he changed the topic
and said:
"There's this rumor that
the Tiananmen self-immolation
was staged."
"What do you think?"
I said,
"You're a TV professional."
So am I.
"They shot it just like
we would."
He said, "It's not like that."
"CNN shot that footage,
and we took it from them."
JASON:
I see this claim that
CNN was behind the footage
repeated in the Chinese press.
And I look at the man Chen says
came to meet with him,
Li Dongsheng.
As Chen described,
Li was the vice president
at China Central Television.
But there's more about him
that catches my eye.
According to articles
in the state run press,
Li oversaw
China Central Television's
flagship news magazine program
Focus Report...
Hello everyone,
welcome to Focus Report.
JASON:
...the program that produced
the expose on self-immolation,
and many of the follow-ups.
But Li wasn't only a propaganda
and censorship official.
He had another role
central to the party's campaign
against Falun Gong.
When the Communist Party
launched its crackdown
on Falun Gong in 1999,
Li had been named
the first deputy director
of something called
the 610 Office.
When the decision was made
to persecute Falun Gong
the 610 Office was created.
A special, extra-legal
party mechanism
and essentially
a secret police force.
It really pulls the strings
behind the scenes.
Judges, legal apparatus,
prisons to labor camps,
to elements of the media
and guiding the
propaganda campaign
with regards to Falun Gong.
The Chinese Communist Party
tightly controls the media.
The media is called
the "mouthpiece of the Party."
Falun Gong
is spreading heretical ideas.
The censorship department
would send us directives.
What to report,
what not to report.
Falun Gong is spreading
heretical ideas.
I feel regret.
I feel guilty.
Because I helped them
deceive the people.
JASON:
Chinese media had claimed
the closeup footage
was shot by CNN journalists.
But we obtained
a copy of the footage
Lisa smuggled out of the Square
in her clothing
and it seems
she and her cameraman
were filming far
from the action.
The assertion that we had
any footage other than
the smoke on the horizon
from my camera was, you know,
just really ridiculous.
They-- they had plenty of people
taking video.
JASON:
In the footage shown
in state media
we can see what looked
like security personnel
holding cameras.
In the top left of the screen,
a figure appears to be filming.
He enters running
then slows to a walk.
He seems to be
steadying his shot
just as an experienced
videographer might.
I can see what looks like
a camera bag
slung over his left shoulder.
But the security personnel
rushed past him
without seizing
his equipment.
LISA:
It was a very fluid,
fast-moving situation.
A pro would probably
be shooting
the way
that they were shooting.
Some of those
really closeup shots
of the people
burning themselves,
in particular,
the fellow who was sitting
cross-legged on the ground.
Those tight shots
definitely came from
security personnel,
because I saw them
take those images
and there's no way
it could've been us
as the state media
later asserted
because we were
being escorted to the bus.
JASON:
This individual is facing
the seated man
who was said
to have set himself on fire,
and he appears to be
holding a camera.
Was this the man
who Lisa described?
Did he wait for
the smoke to clear
and then shoot the footage
of the seated man?
JASON:
While examining this scene,
we notice something else.
An officer places a blanket
over the seated man's mouth.
But we can hear
his voice very clearly.
JASON:
And the recording is free
of environmental sounds
like wind and ambulance sirens.
Unlike in this interview
with a police officer
describing the event
into a nearby microphone.
- (Speaking in mandarin)
- (Wind gusting)
(Recording stops)
JASON:
It seems the audio could
have been recorded separately
and dubbed to the footage.
Then presented as evidence
that the immolation
was inspired by a belief
in Falun Gong.
Everyone must practice
Falun Dafa.
REPORTER:
This tragedy clearly shows
an evil cult in this world
is a demon that ruins lives.
It's all slander.
When I heard the reports,
I compared it to the
teachings of Falun Gong.
Falun Gong teaches one thing,
but these people
did the opposite.
JASON:
In a follow-up
CCTV's Focus Report
then visits the home
of Liu Baorong,
the woman who claimed
to drink gasoline.
Very lucky, very lucky!
Extraordinarily lucky!
Of the seven, I'm the luckiest.
I made it home safe,
look how great my situation is.
Look how well my family
is treating me.
You guys are also treating me
really well.
It just doesn't match up
with a Falun Gong practitioner,
let alone a dedicated
Falun Gong practitioner,
which is what
the Chinese Government
was trying to paint her as.
JASON:
Levi Browde volunteers
for the Falun Info Centre
which tracks the
human rights situation
of Falun Gong in China.
He was at the other end
of the banner I held
in Tiananmen Square
in 2002.
You're talking about individuals
who, apparently,
were so fanatic,
but they are suddenly
saying exactly
what the Chinese Government
would want them to say.
"I did this crazy thing
because of Falun Gong,
and now the government
is going to save me.
And I'm so glad
they're here to save me."
Maybe I would have
burned myself.
I was the first
to drink the gas.
If there was a flame, I would
have burned to death.
For sure, I'd have lost my life.
LEVI:
And there was no sense
of protest.
There was no statement
from them
of the grievances they have
for the Chinese Government
for torturing them,
putting them in prison.
JASON:
As someone who had protested
for Falun Gong
in Tiananmen Square myself,
this is one of the first things
that struck me.
The lack of any complaint
about the Chinese regime's
ongoing persecution.
It was the reason behind
every other Falun Gong protest
but here it was missing
completely.
I said,
"We are both professionals."
Let's be frank.
"How could he be a real
Falun Gong practitioner...
...If his meditation position
is wrong?"
JASON:
The footage seems to show
the seated man
failing to perform
the hand gesture
that begins every
Falun Gong exercise
called Jieyin.
In Jieyin, the thumb tips
are touched lightly together.
But the man appears
to be overlapping his thumbs.
He also didn't correctly
cross his legs.
In Falun Gong
seated meditation,
the two legs are folded
on top of each other
in what's called
the lotus position.
Beginners can
fold one leg up
in what's called
half-lotus.
But this man
folds nether leg up.
It's like someone claiming
to have dedicated
their life to yoga
but being unfamiliar
with a basic position
like downward dog.
He was sitting in a manner
that is not how Falun Gong
sit in meditation,
was saying things
that no Falun Gong would say.
Everyone must practice
Falun Dafa.
LEVI:
And there's a policeman
standing next to him...
holding a fire blanket,
doing nothing,
just holding it there
until this man says something.
And then the policeman
puts the blanket on to this man.
JASON:
On the surface, we see a man
said to have been on fire
now shouting a slogan,
and an officer
covering him
with a fire blanket.
But the rescue effort
appears to be on hold.
The officer's
not in a rush to cover the man,
or hurry him
into an ambulance.
And he appears to be facing
the direction of the camera
that is shooting the scene
rather than the man
who was supposedly on fire.
Is he waiting for a cue?
It's a stark contrast
to the police response
to every other
Falun Gong protest
I'd seen on Tiananmen Square,
where we see officers rushing
to prevent
the participants' messages
from being heard or seen.
As to, you know, sort of
the deeper question
of whether or not these were
Falun Gong members...
We didn't have time
for that, at the time.
Also, by this stage, uh,
CNN was an accomplice
to murder,
according to
the Chinese Communist Party.
Because the state-run media
test-floated that headline
in a Hong Kong newspaper
as it happens,
during a big conference
with a lot of CNN head honchos
in Hong Kong.
JASON:
I see no evidence
that Lisa was involved
in the immolations.
This accusation
floated in Chinese press
seems instead like it could
be a scare tactic,
an attempt to deter Lisa
and CNN
from pursuing the story.
CNN was taking that allegation
very seriously.
Not that they believed it
but, you know,
they were taking
the reality seriously
that maybe the bureau
would be closed down,
maybe we'd all
be kicked out of China
and CNN
would have no presence.
CNN had told us to not even
talk to the other reporters.
I mean, I had my friends
and my colleagues
who worked at other
news organizations calling.
But we were really under orders
to be very quiet
about the whole thing.
It's unlikely that
their true identities
will ever be
independently confirmed.
(Inaudible)
DAVID:
Foreign correspondents work
for news organizations
that have
a very different agenda
than the one
that is required,
if you are to carry out
a major investigation.
JASON:
Writing for
The Financial Times,
David Satter's efforts
to investigate
a government conspiracy
led him to become
the first American journalist
expelled from Russia
since the Cold War.
News organizations
usually are seeking
to have a stream
of coverage from a country
over a period of time
and across a wide variety
of subjects.
There's a big investment
in terms of bureau equipment,
staff, resources,
all of which
can be put in jeopardy
by pursuing a story
which seems implausible
and which is fiercely resisted
by the authorities.
JASON:
But one foreign correspondent
continued to pursue
the self-immolation story.
In an article entitled
Human Fire Ignites
Chinese Mystery,
Washington Post journalist
Philip Pan
reported unusual findings
from the hometown
of the alleged immolators,
Kaifeng city.
Pan visits the home
of Miss Liu Chunling,
the woman who died
on the square
and the mother of
the 12-year-old girl.
But a man at the door
sends him away
and directs him
to the government
for any questions.
Miss Liu's neighbors say
they were not just surprised
by what she was said
to have done
they were caught off-guard
by the claim that
she had taken up
Falun Gong at all.
None had ever seen her practice.
"I'm not saying I don't
believe the government,
but I'm not saying
I believe it, either,"
said one local woman
who was interviewed.
"The government controls
the news.
We all know that now."
WOMAN #2: (Over phone)
I'm really sorry about that,
but this is something
that I have to tell you,
and I have to like do it.
JASON:
"To do" what?
WOMAN #2: (Over phone)
To terminate the contract.
JASON:
My company makes video games.
And our latest title
was being published
by Tencent,
one of China's largest
media companies.
The release of the game
was taking place
just in the midst
of my work on this film.
WOMAN #2: (Over phone)
They just say
we have to terminate
any business relationship
with Lofty Sky.
So this is not
about the game,
it's about the company.
JASON:
You mean like
the censorship office
that reviewed the game?
There's someone
in the government
who told you
to cancel a contract?
Our game was pulled
from storefronts in China.
And a Chinese mobile deal
was killed as well.
WOMAN #2: (Over phone)
I really want you to find out
what happened in your company.
Maybe there are staff
in the company,
or, I don't know,
maybe your business partners
that is not working
in the direction aligned
with the government direction.
I don't know.
I can't really tell anything.
JASON:
Considering the participants
I've examined so far
I start to form a theory...
One man who doesn't seem
to know Falun Gong.
A woman whose neighbors
suggest never practiced.
And another woman
who was never on fire
but co-operatively
relays her plans
to the government
and praises the authorities.
It all seems
to point to one thing...
That they were actors
and it was all a stunt.
The important part
is insulating the body
from the heat of the fire.
So we use these high-tech
fabrics as undergarments
and different layers,
like base layers,
kinda like when you're climbing
a mountain in winter
you use different layers
to keep yourself
from getting cold.
I'm using different layers
in a different way
to keep myself
from getting too warm.
JASON:
Tom Comet is known
as Danger Boy,
and he's been setting himself
on fire in stunts for years.
Tom finds it plausible
that the seated man
may have been layered up
for a fire stunt.
TOM:
One of the things
you see in this
is what this guy
is wearing.
It's sort of natural fibers,
bigger, cloaky-type garments.
JASON:
But he can't say the same
about the women
shown on fire
or the little girl
shown in close ups.
That was a very legitimate
third-degree, deep-tissue burn.
Like, I know, that skin
is the outer layers of skin
and they will literally
peel off.
Like you can just peel
those off like layers of,
you know, whatever.
I don't know,
this is all looking
fairly legitimately like a burn.
That person
is in a terrible state.
Oofl!
Oh!
JASON:
Tom finds the footage
of the mother and daughter
on the square
in the aftermath,
and of the four burning figures
very convincing.
He's right
that the flames
engulfing the figures
are enormous
and the human cost of that
would seem to be real,
not an act.
CHEN:
Many people in the
brainwashing center
had been transformed.
They might have broadcast
my conversion that night.
The police told me:
"Your wife has been arrested."
She will be jailed five
or six years.
At that moment,
I felt I could barely hold on.
So my wife was also detained.
What about our son?
My mother was ill.
I thought a lot.
It was at that moment
that I shed tears.
(Inaudible)
I only had to say three words:
"l won't practice."
Then I could reunite
with my family.
And I could take care
of my child.
But I couldn't do it.
I watched the self-immolation
news in the labor camp.
We were forced to watch.
(Sniffles)
(Speaking in Mandarin)
We couldn't bear watching
those horrifying images.
But they made us watch it
over and over.
I totally believed it.
I'd been tortured badly.
I was deceived
and gave up my faith.
The police brought Chen
to the labor camp
where I was held.
They wanted me to convert him.
I was deceived,
but I thought I was right.
I was sure
I could convince him.
He rushed to hug me.
I pushed him away.
He said,
"l haven't seen her in so long."
"But she won't even
let me hug her."
I said, "Why don't we recant?"
"Look at the self-immolation."
He was adamant.
"It's fake.
Absolutely fake."
I said, "How can it be fake?"
"It's so clearly shown on TV."
He said: "I'm a professional.
Trust me."
I tried everything
but couldn't convince him.
I was frustrated,
so I threatened divorce.
He pleaded: "Let's not divorce."
"You can recant,
though I won't."
"We can still be together."
I said, "No, I want a divorce."
JASON:
It's remarkable to me
that Chen wouldn't bend
in the face of all this,
with all this pressure,
the threats and brainwashing.
How wasn't Chen swayed
that he wouldn't go along
with what the party
wanted him to say,
at least on the surface?
(Man giving commands
in Mandarin)
I was transferred from
the brainwashing center
to the labor camp.
The deputy director there said:
A senior official in Beijing
is watching you.
"He's called three times
to check on you."
RICHARD CHEN:
What information we can get
is from Minghui net.
And then, we always
try to see, uh...
I don't want to see
my brother's name
in there be killed.
I don't want to see
my brother's name is missing.
But...
one day...
we see it.
He's missing.
When he's being transferred
from the brainwash class
to an actual labor camp,
um, it's a big worry
about his safety.
We know how bad it is.
Like, people being tortured
to death.
You cannot even like imagine
what they're gonna do.
We do whatever we could,
talk to the government officials
and telling the media
that we believe
to expose this is the only way
to keep him safe.
(282)
At the time
this incident occurred
there were probably 50,000 practitioners
of Falun Gong
in Chinese jails
or propaganda camps,
so to speak.
And the issue
had been raised
by non-governmental
organizations
and some governments
at the United Nations
Human Rights forums.
China really needed
to have
the international community
against Falun Gong.
(Trumpeting)
JASON:
The timing of
the self-immolation
was very fortuitous
for the Communist Party.
And it's not just that Beijing
had been attempting
to root out Falun Gong.
The foreign media's attention
to the on-going crackdown
was standing in the way
of the Chinese regime's
immediate political goals.
A year before
the self-immolations,
uh, the Falun Gong,
they gathered on
Tiananmen Square,
New Year's Eve
for the Chinese.
And they threw pamphlets
into the air
and shouted,
"Falun Gong is great!"
And had some banners.
(Indistinct clamoring)
JASON:
Chinese New Year's Eve
in Tiananmen Square
had been the site of
a peaceful Falun Gong protest.
It was harshly repressed
by Beijing
and captured
by the western press.
We were able to film it
from inside the car.
The police were on to us,
and what ensued
was a high-speed chase.
We had the cops behind.
I floored it.
(Sirens wailing)
LISA:
So, we got this footage.
We got it on the air.
FEMALE REPORTER #3:
U.S. officials say
one of the key items
on President Clinton's agenda
when he meets with
Chinese President
Jiang Zemin
later this week
will be China's
deteriorating record
of religious tolerance.
At that time China was trying
to emerge onto the world stage.
When you have pictures
on a daily basis
of ordinary citizens
being beaten up
on Tiananmen Square,
that really undermines
the Chinese Government's efforts
to display itself
as a modern government,
as a rising, peaceful power,
and as one that is worthy
of getting access
to international
institutions or awards
like the Beijing Olympics.
MALE NEWS ANCHOR #1:
Whatever happened
at the labor camp,
the timing could not
have been worse for China.
This country is obsessed
with the Olympics.
One thing that could
jeopardize Beijing's bid
is China's Human Rights record.
JASON:
Beijing had lost out to Sydney
for the 2000 Olympics.
In part, because of concerns
over its Human Rights record.
For the 2008 games,
the IOC's evaluation committee
was due to arrive in Beijing
in February, 2001,
less than a month
after the
self-immolation occurred.
The self-immolation
managed to completely flip
the narrative on Falun Gong.
Within two weeks
of the incident,
an IOC executive announced
that Falun Gong
would not stand in the way
of Beijing's Olympic bid.
They likened the group
to the violent cult
in Waco, Texas,
that had not prevented
the U.S.
from hosting the Olympics
in Atlanta
and landing another
in Salt Lake City.
In July, 2001,
Beijing was granted
the 2008 Olympic Games.
In December of that year,
China was made a member
of the WTO.
Self-immolation had enormous
political consequences,
shifting the Falun Gong matter
from human rights concern
to internal political issue.
If you look at how the campaign
against Falun Gong was going,
uh, the self-immolation
was really kind of a gift
to the Communist Party.
It gave them
the perfect opportunity
to turn public opinion
against Falun Gong,
uh, to get international media
to maybe also question
whether this group
was worthy
of the kind of reporting
that it was receiving.
The idea
of this self-immolation
was to demonstrate,
you know, that Falun Gong
was encouraging
this practice,
even if they weren't,
to make it appear
as if they were.
And this is
what was behind it.
I mean, we have had
self-immolations
in Vietnam, for example,
before the Vietham--
as the Vietnam War got underway.
MALCOLM:
The monks were telephoning
the foreign
correspondents in Saigon
to warn them that something
big was going to happen.
That they were going
to pull off
something spectacular
by way of protest.
A car drove up,
two young monks got out of it.
And an older monk,
leaning a little bit on
one of the younger ones,
also got out.
They poured the liquid
all over him.
He got out a matchbook,
lighted it and dropped it
in his lap,
and was immediately
engulfed in flames.
Everybody who witnessed this
was horrified.
DAVID HALBERSTAM:
It hit the headlines
all over the world.
It had enormous
political consequences,
uh, outside of Vietham
and inside of Vietnam.
...city under attack.
JASON:
President Kennedy,
at the time
called the image,
"The most impactful
news photo in history".
It caused the populous
to change sympathies
nearly overnight.
And for the U.S.
to cut allegiances
with the Vietnamese president,
who was blamed
for the monk's sacrifice.
Instead,
the Americans backed a coup
that would see
the Viethamese president
ousted months later,
and executed.
The photographer
behind the photo,
the AP's Malcolm Brown, said...
The image was used
as a form of propaganda
against the U.S.
and its anti-Communist allies
in Vietnam.
I find a reference
to another self-immolation
and this one takes place
right in Beijing's
Tiananmen Square,
but it's not
a real-life event.
It comes from
a work of fiction
that was written
a full decade
before the self-immolation
incident.
Author Wang Lixiong's
political novel, Yellow Peril,
was known
to the censorship authorities
in China.
They had banned his book,
and put Wang under house arrest.
The novel lays out
an eerie blueprint
for how communist officials
would incite chaos
and justify the ongoing
repression of a targeted group
by staging a self-immolation
in their name.
The novel was published shortly
after the dramatic
demonstrations
for democracy
in 1989 in Beijing.
And in the book,
the party is concerned
with growing public sympathy
for the democracy
activists' cause.
In this passage,
one official hatches a plan
to turn the tide
of public perception.
"How to set the trap?"
it reads...
The book describes
many automatic cameras
being set up
in Tiananmen Square.
They were connected
to a control center.
"The Minister of Public Security
was awaiting the arrival
of the foreign press,"
it said.
The participant
who would die in the plot
was a young woman.
And just as
with the seated man,
there was a clear way
to identify the group
to be blamed for the action.
"The deal was that
she had to yell some slogans,
it said.
And then the similarities
become so striking
that the novel can
be mistaken for a telling
of the real-life self-immolation
ten years later in 2001.
She was wearing
several layers of clothes
to ensure that the gasoline
would be fully absorbed.
A female foreign reporter
arrives on the scene
and the Minister of
Public Security gives the cue.
"The girl became a fireball,"
the book said.
The woman finally falls
to the ground
right at the foot
of the People's Heroes Monument
in the center
of Tiananmen Square.
That's precisely
where Liu Chenling
is said to have fallen
to her death
from self-immolation
in 2001.
"Her body shrank to
a sizzling charcoal, it read.
According to Yellow Peril...
Even calling on
the government...
It reads like a screenplay.
But a question remains...
What would have motivated
the woman to participate?
In Yellow Peril, they found
a terminally-ill woman
and offered to pay her family
3 million Chinese Yuan.
So I start looking for clues
with Miss Liu Chunling,
the woman who died
in the fire.
The Washington Post
interviews with her neighbors
describe a woman
who led a troubled life
and suffered
psychological problems.
She was abusive to both
her mother and daughter.
They say she worked
in a nightclub
and took money
to keep men company.
I keep looking for clues
in Kaifeng City,
the hometown of Miss Liu
and the other immolators.
And I find an article
written within months
of the self-immolation
incident in 2001.
The government in Kaifeng
had been building blood banks
and offering residents money
in exchange for their plasma
which officials sought
to sell overseas for profit.
But when tainted equipment
is used
and AIDS spreads widely,
the government
suppresses the news
to the extent that
the local peasants know HIV
only as the "strange illness"
or "nameless fever."
To be clear,
there's nothing specific
to connects Miss Liu
to an AIDS epidemic,
but that's not
what intrigues me.
It's that the government
in Kaifeng
was luring residents
with money and a promise,
and then casting them aside
when things went wrong.
I go back to something
I read in Yellow Peril...
In the book's
self-immolation scheme,
the Minister
of Public Security
had also made a promise
to the woman
to convince her
to set herself on fire.
He promised she'd
be given anesthetics
so she wouldn't feel pain.
But after her frantic death,
he's asked,
"Didn't you give her
the drugs?"
"That was just
to console her..."
the book read...
And it hits me.
What if Miss Liu was promised
something else?
Perhaps something dangerous
but not deadly.
What if she didn't sign up
to die?
(Button clicks)
(Indistinct clamoring)
JASON:
When we slow
the footage down,
the woman appears
to have been struck.
A bent-shaped object
is seen flying into the air
from where she is hit.
As the camera pans back,
we see a man
who seems to be standing
in the same place
the woman was
just a few seconds before.
The hairline and collar
of this figure
appear to match a man
seen earlier in the footage.
As he enters the shot,
he seems to be pointing
and directing
the other officers.
Was he in command?
Could he have struck
Miss Liu?
The important thing that
people need to understand
about authoritarian
and totalitarian systems
is that the individual
human being
in these systems
has very little value.
And they are not averse
to killing people
for no reason whatsoever
except to further
their political goals,
including killing
their own people.
CHEN:
Look at Chinese history.
The Cultural Revolution,
the Tiananmen Square Massacre.
The Communist Party's approach
to dissidents is very cruel.
JASON:
There's no way to confirm
if Liu Chunling
was indeed tricked
into participating
as the woman died
on-site.
But her daughter survived
and was rushed to hospital.
She is featured prominently
in the reports that follow,
but only state media
was able to speak with her.
I don't know
that any foreign journalist
could have got access
uh, to the victims
who were in hospital.
And I remember
being surprised
the doctors let
the Chinese journalists in,
because they have
these horrible burns
and, you know,
there's risk of infection
and, you know, to say
nothing of the trauma
and what purpose
are you serving...
You didn't know the flames
would be painful?
LIU SIYING:
I didn't know.
JASON:
The nurse interviews
the little girl
for the television cameras.
Meanwhile,
the doctor said
she needed
an immediate tracheostomy
inserting a tube into her throat
to allow breathing.
We needed to operate
on the trachea immediately.
It's unusual
to see somebody speaking
with a tracheostomy
in place
shortly after the injury.
They would not be able
to generate the force required
through the mouth
to form words.
So, I think
it is fairly unlikely
that somebody,
shortly after their injury,
would be speaking normally
unless the tracheostomy
wasn't required
in the first place.
My name is Dr. Alan Rogers.
I'm a plastic
and reconstructive surgeon
with an interest
and fellowship training
in burn surgery.
I also manage complex wounds.
We are very vigilant
about infection,
prevention, and control.
Several questions
arise in my mind
as to, firstly,
the management
of burn injuries
at the setting.
And then, secondly,
whether in fact this was staged.
JASON:
Dr. Rogers finds several things
unusual here.
All four surviving immolators
are kept together
in a single room.
The nurse and reporter
are not wearing gloves
and next to
the badly burnt little girl
we see a fuzzy teddy bear.
He's also suspicious
of how certain wounds
are dressed.
DR. ROGERS:
This image
is a little bit unusual,
given the very thick nature
of the dressing at the wrist
with no dressing
on the arm or hand.
Perhaps that bulky structure
around the wrist
is in fact concealing
the patient's hand
and that what appears to be
a very deep, mummified hand
is in fact
a very effective prop
because I cannot see the purpose
of that bulky structure.
The little girl is said
to be recovering well
and nearing release.
But then she, too,
suddenly dies.
It's reported to be
a heart attack.
CHEN:
People hope she'll recover.
But their hope is shattered.
And their anger is directed
at Falun Gong.
They played
with people's emotions
to achieve their goals.
JASON:
I can't prove Chen's claim
that it was all designed
this way for an effect.
But its impact is undeniable.
I felt it myself
when I first heard the news
and I still feel it today.
Such a deeply-disturbing
reversal
of the mother archetype.
The one who is supposed
to nurture
and love and care for
instead leading her child
to a violent death.
And tied together with it,
the accusation
that this horror
was somehow connected
to Falun Gong.
And that accusation itself
was enough to frame
the discourse.
Even those who distrusted
the government
and sought to question
what they were being told,
did so from within the influence
of the state narrative.
"Could Falun Gong
have done this?"
"Why would Falun Gong
lead people to burn themselves?"
Once you ask those questions,
you've already begun
to unwittingly operate
from within
the party's narrative.
People see things
that are presented
on their television screen
and they try to parcel out
uh, what they can believe
and they shouldn't believe.
But this effort
has the pernicious effect
of drawing them in
and, in fact, indoctrinates them
only further.
JASON:
I see now that
the self-immolation
didn't need
to be irrefutable.
It simply needed
to muddy the waters
on Falun Gong.
LEVI:
After the self-immolation
and the media blitz,
suddenly there's a question.
"Are these people
the kind of people
that would light themselves
on fire to go to heaven?"
No matter
how objective you are
as a Human Rights worker,
at some point it comes down
to what you feel.
There was something in the air
anytime you met with
these people about...
The enthusiasm was down.
The immolation event
eventually changed
my thoughts.
In part, because,
you know, the obvious point,
if these were
Falun Gong practitioners,
and if they had been directed,
which the Falun Gong
outside of China denied,
uh, but if they had,
this organization
was really willing
to let people
burn themselves alive
to make a political point.
Now which is ironic,
because it plays
right into the Chinese
Communist Party narrative
of what the problem is.
JASON:
Lisa presumed
it was Falun Gong contacts
directing the participants.
But the Chinese press,
and the participants themselves,
in full confession mode,
make no claims
of any Falun Gong contacts
directing them.
Instead, they offer
a more unusual explanation
for the origin of their plan.
When I looked in the mirror...
...I saw Li Hongzhi.
So I believed that
I was the Master
and the Master was me.
JASON:
Liu Yunfang,
the seventh participant
in the self-immolation
appears in a government
organized press conference.
A strange thing happened.
I dreamed that...
I drank gasoline
in Tiananmen Square.
Then I poured gasoline
all over myself.
In the blazing fire,
a shining Buddha
emerged from me.
I said, "It is a sign that
we should self-immolate
in Tiananmen Square."
JASON:
It seems designed to showcase
the harmful delusions
of what are purported
to be Falun Gong followers:
Following dreams
to commit acts of violence,
believing oneself
to be the incarnation
of Falun Gong's founder,
Li Hongzhi,
a man who is still alive
and living in New York.
I'd seen nothing like this
anywhere in Falun Gong.
But buried inside
this narrative
was an admission that
the idea for self-immolation
came from this man,
Liu Yunfang.
Liu Yunfang says
he lured other to join him
on the basis
of his visions.
The state was holding
all of Falun Gong culpable
for this one man's
alleged dream.
It gets stranger.
The dream shares
a very specific detall
with the immolation plot
in the book, Yellow Peril.
In both, the immolator wears
a special auto-ignition device
that's planted
in their clothes
and is used
to set them alight.
But I also had
the auto-ignition device.
JASON:
Yellow Peril reads...
In my review of examples
of self-immolation,
I hadn't found any others
that mentioned
using an auto-ignition device
which sounds like
a very elaborate piece
of technology
if your plan was
to set yourself on fire.
It appears once in
this banned work of fiction
about a state conspiracy
to frame a repressed group,
and then again
in Liu Yunfang's dream.
A dream that would also become
the justification
for a continued repression
of millions.
And this from the man
who didn't manage
to ignite his own fire
nearly 20 minutes
after the group's agreed time.
LIANG:
I called my husband
when I was released.
I knew the police were with him
when he answered the phone.
I couldn't say much
over the phone.
He said:
"Oh, you're home."
I said,
"Yes, how about you?"
He must have thought
that I meant:
"Why don't you give up
and come home?"
He thought I was trying
to convert him again.
He said, "I don't care."
We'd been married so long.
He'd never been so cold.
He said, "Whatever you want."
"I don't care.
Go ahead."
Then he hung up.
I really respected him.
He thought
I was trying to convert him.
But actually
I admired his resolve.
I'd been detained for two years,
but I hadn't converted.
They kept me awake
five days straight.
"Do you still believe
in Falun Gong?"
They forced me to spit
on pictures of Master Li.
(Sighs)
Don't you want to practice
Falun Gong?
(Men grunting)
"Okay, now practice!"
Then they push your head
down to your legs.
- (Men talking indistinctly)
- (Man whimpering)
I'm not the one who suffered
the worst torture.
On October 12, 2012
I came to the U.S.
I said to my sister-in-law:
"We need to appeal to
the US government immediately."
I don't speak English
so my sister-in-law
went with me.
CELIA QU:
We talked
to our local government
which is the City
of Port Jervis.
LIANG:
My sister-in-law went up
and gave a speech.
Suddenly,
everyone turned to look at me.
They started taking my picture.
(Inaudible conversation)
(282)
INTERVIEWER:
I mean, how does it feel looking
back on these articles
and what you've achieved?
Big success.
No, I think that, you know,
that shows that it's true
that the evil is very afraid
of being exposed.
And, um...
And that's what we do.
And that works.
(Helicopter whirring)
Several months after the event,
I was in Geneva.
I was shown a video
debunking the Chinese claims.
MAN #2: (On video)
How is it possible
that a plastic bottle
filled with gasoline
encompassed by
a burning man's legs
remains in perfect condition?
I thought the Chinese version
of the events was just...
for want of a better term,
unbelievable.
It just didn't
add up at all.
And we made comments
and statements
in the Human Rights
Council Session
condemning the Chinese
Government's version
of the events.
China harassed us.
They tried
to play little games.
They would sort of
hover and pace
and make comments, etc.
They expected to be threatening
and intimidating.
And some NGOs
are intimidated by it
but I'm not, particularly.
But China is such
a major power.
We have been unable
to get a single resolution
on China, condemning China
for anything.
That would require
ultimately
going to
the Security Council,
and China has a veto.
It doesn't mean
that people agree with China.
But it also means
that people know
they cannot get
anything with teeth
against China.
(Phone ringing)
My son called eagerly
and told me
Chen had been released.
Ah, I felt a big weight
off my shoulders.
RICHARD:
Finally when I know,
I said, "Okay, great.
"Get out of there quick.
As soon as possible.
Forget your property,
forget your money,
just get out,
because in there,
you are a piece of meat..."
Meat on a cutting board.
They can kill you.
The knife is in their hand.
They can kill you anytime.
I asked my son: "Are you willing
to let your dad come overseas?"
He said, "Yes, of course."
I said, "But you will be alone."
He said, "It's OK."
I have been living in fear
for so many years.
Although we'll be apart...
...I won't have to
worry about your safety."
I applied for a passport
many times,
but it was not approved.
I was blocked from going abroad.
(Inaudible)
The fear is unimaginable.
You're under Red Terror.
We could be persecuted any time.
JASON:
In December, 2013,
the Communist Party
puts Li Dongsheng
under investigation
for unrelated charges of
bribery, and abuses of power.
It's part of what is said
to have been a power struggle
between factions at high levels
of the Communist Party.
Li is removed from his post
which then include Vice Minister
of Public Security,
and Head of
the Central 610 Office
for handling Falun Gong.
In January 2016,
he is sentenced
to 15 years in prison.
When I heard Li Dongsheng
was arrested,
the first thing that
came to my mind
was an old Chinese saying:
"Misdeeds lead
to self-destruction."
Retribution.
It is his retribution.
I also realized that maybe
I could get out of China now.
I was pretty happy.
(Inaudible conversation)
KAREN:
Say we work and work and work
on a certain issue
and it looks like
there's an impasse,
and then something
will happen
that completely changes
the dynamic.
And, for instance,
Nelson Mandela was freed.
The USSR fell apart.
The Berlin Wall came down.
- I mean, these...
- (Indistinct conversation)
KAREN:
There are little hints
that something might happen.
But...
sometimes there's
a sea change overnight.
And those sea changes are--
are inspirational, actually.
Okay.
- Ready?
- Chen, 14.
JASON:
I had hoped to find
all the answers
of what happened in
Tiananmen Square that day.
But I don't think
that's possible.
The clues and
the circumstantial evidence
suggest a government
conspiracy
to frame Falun Gong.
But there also
isn't a smoking gun.
And considering the environment
in mainland China,
it seems unlikely
that one will ever emerge.
Just being
a foreign journalist
covering the facts
as you see them in China,
was hard enough
with this story.
You know,
we weren't even gonna look
at the competing theories.
JASON:
There were times
I was frustrated
that the foreign press
hadn't dug deeper
to uncover the inconsistencies
in this story
that were hiding
in plain sight.
But Lisa
had also taken risks
to cover
Falun Gong protests before,
and she'd smuggled
her footage
out of Tiananmen Square.
Given that she'd gone looking
for another Falun Gong
protest that day,
I'm not surprised
she viewed it in that light.
And as questions did emerge
about the state narrative,
Lisa and CNN
were quickly off the story.
That photographer behind
the burning monk photo,
Malcolm Brown,
had written something once.
He described seeing
a newspaper image
of an elephant
on water skis
passing under
the Brooklyn Bridge.
An ad for toothpaste was printed
on the side of the elephant.
He said...
It's difficult
to imagine a world
in which a government
could devise
a self-immolation scheme
to frame a religious group.
But it was also difficult
to imagine soldiers opening fire
on unarmed students
who were appealing
for democracy.
12 years after
the 1989 massacre in Beijing,
as China was ascending
on the international stage,
it was more concerned
about its global standing.
It's conceivable
that party leaders
would have felt a bold
character assassination
was a smaller risk than
the continued visible bloodshed.
DANNY:
If you'd been arguing
that Falun Gong
is encouraging suicides,
what better way
to show that
than to actually
stage an event
in which people
burn themselves publicly
in a prominent place
like Tiananmen Square?
DAVID:
The people are swayed
by their emotions
and their desire not to have
to deal with a problem
that they think
they can avoid.
Once you accept
that your government
has been involved
in a conspiracy
involving the murder
of hundreds of innocent people,
you then have to come
face-to-face
with your own helplessness.
And that's not something
that a lot of people want.
JASON:
There are often
many good reasons
not to ask questions,
especially when doing so
might challenge
an imposing authority.
But there's also
something remarkable
about those who still dare
to speak truth to power,
even in the face
of great risks.
PETER LI:
I remember Chen Ruichang
is one of the practitioners
who was specially,
I mean, how do I say...
under strict supervision.
We can see
how much suffering
he experienced, right?
But they never change.
His words encouraged me
and strengthened my belief.
Many years later, we met again
in this free society.
There's joy in my heart.
I'm very touched.
(282)
(Inaudible conversation)
(282)
(282)
LISA:
It was a very cold day.
There was snow
on the Square,
and the snow
had been shoveled up
and packed into
these little pyramids.
We were wandering around,
just keeping an eye out.
Myself and my cameraman,
each with a camera,
but concealed.
And we heard
from behind us
this whooshing sound.
(People shouting indistinctly)
LISA:
I turned around
and I could see some smoke
on the horizon,
just a little trail.
I got my camera out
and got
about 20 seconds,
25 seconds
of shaky video.
Before any of us knew it
somebody was on him,
a military policeman,
and he didn't resist.
I made a run for it.
I thought maybe I could get
to the other side
of the square and outrun,
and, of course, I couldn't.
But it gave me a window
of opportunity
to get a small tape
out of my camera
and into my bra.
They ended up taking us
through the scene.
I could clearly see
three people,
um, on fire.
And it was absolutely
the strangest thing
I'd ever seen.
(282)
(Females reporter
talking indistinctly)
MALE REPORTER #1:
China's Communist leaders today
escalated their campaign
against the popular
spiritual movement
called Falun Gong.
They vowed to crush
what they say is a cult.
Members of China's
Falun Gong religious group
attempted
a fiery mass suicide
last week in Beijing.
This whole thing
was a dramatic change
in tactics for the sect
which has staged
many non-violent protests.
The Chinese government
is punishing Falun Gong,
protecting the Chinese people's
peaceful and happy lives.
This is a truly
responsible government,
truly protecting human rights.
You know, first
I was distrustful
of the whole thing
that actually happened.
It burst out of nowhere.
FEMALE REPORTER #1:
Just who they were
is now in dispute.
The Chinese Government
news agency
says they were
Falun Gong followers.
But spokespeople
for the movement
outside of China say
that can't be true
because a suicide protest
goes against
Falun Gong principles.
(282)
(Inaudible conversation)
JASON:
I have some
first-hand experience
with protests
in Tiananmen Square.
Stop persecuting Falun Gong.
Falun Gong is good.
JASON:
That's me
nearly 20 years ago,
protesting the persecution
of Falun Gong in China.
FEMALE REPORTER #2:
Jason Loftus watches
more than 50 practitioners
of Falun Gong,
who have come
to Queen's Park
to urge the government
to help stop
China's persecution
of the ancient
spiritual practice.
You know,
the police there
they treat the practitioners
of Falun Gong
very brutally.
It's just too horrifying
what's going on there.
I mean, good people
are being killed every day.
So how does a small-town
Canadian kid
get involved in a struggle
between the Chinese Government
and an eastern spiritual group
that was largely unknown
in the West?
I trace it back
to an RV trip
with my family
in my early teens.
It was a long drive.
So I brought an old paperback
that I found
that promised to cover
the entire history of the world.
The brief summary
of Buddhism caught my eye.
It said
the Buddha had discovered
an alternative path
to happiness.
Rather than satisfying
every human desire
he found you could be happy
by removing longings
and desires themselves.
That blew my mind.
So I read a ton of books
while working a local
gas station after school,
from yogis, Sufis
and self-help gurus,
all in search of
how to transcend human desire.
Some of my friends
couldn't relate.
But I was on a mission.
And then at 18,
I came across Falun Gong.
Also called Falun Dafa.
It was a series
of slow-moving exercises
and a promise that
I could reach fulfillment
by measuring each of
my thoughts and actions
against three criteria:
Is it truthful?
Is it compassionate?
And is it tolerant?
(Indistinct conversation)
JASON:
When I took up Falun Gong
in 1998,
millions in China
were doing the same.
Hello and thanks for watching
Guangdong TV, Sports News.
The Falun Gong practice
can not only heal
but improve body and mind.
JASON:
At first,
the Chinese Government
praised and endorsed
the practice
but as Falun Gong's
numbers swelled
the Communist Party's
attitude toward it changed.
So you had a situation
by the late 1990's
that Falun Gong
was not only
the second most popular
spiritual or religious group
after Chinese Buddhism,
uh, but it was also,
going by those figures,
more popular than
the Communist party.
You actually had a large number
of people within the party
and the party apparatus
who were practicing Falun Gong.
And given the spiritual
and ideological differences
between Falun Gong
and Marxist-atheist thought,
a number of leaders
in the Communist Party
felt that
that really posed a problem.
Hello, viewers.
The Chinese Ministry
of Civil Affairs
has decided to ban
the Falun Dafa Association.
(People shouting indistinctly)
JASON:
I didn't know anything
about Chinese politics,
and they were saying that
Falun Gong was an evil cult.
I questioned if there was
something I'd missed
about Falun Gong
and the people involved.
Had I unwittingly
joined a cult?
But what I saw were people
who seemed to be
trying to better themselves
through meditation
and spirituality.
(Speaking inaudibly)
JASON:
The Chinese Government
seemed intent on wiping out
Falun Gong entirely.
Adherents were being sent
en masse
to forced labor camps
and to what were called
reeducation facilities.
To inmates, these were known
as brainwashing centers.
The Falun Gong practitioners
held there
faced many counts
of torture and abuse.
They were pressured
and forced to watch
government propaganda
until they agreed
to recant their beliefs.
One Chinese Government
advisor
explained the strategy
to The Washington Post.
"Pure violence doesn't work,"
he said,
"The brainwashing was needed,
but wasn't enough, either.
He said, "None of it
would be working
if the propaganda
hadn't started to change the way
the general public thinks."
I wanted to help
clear the air
and provide a voice to those
who were suffering.
So I spoke up,
meeting with media
and government where I lived.
Then the self-immolation
happened.
It was horrific.
Innocent lives lost,
others destroyed.
I couldn't explain it.
It was alien to everything
I knew about Falun Gong.
(Laughing and talking
indistinctly)
JASON:
Time passed,
and the event faded
from the public consciousness
in the West.
And I was fine with that.
I was tired of worrying
whether people might think
I was going
to set myself on fire
just because
I did Falun Gong.
But then I met a man whose story
would lead me to face
the self-immolation event
again.
(282)
My name is Chen Ruichang.
I worked at Guangdong TV
from 1987 to 2013.
(282)
Mr. Chen, please tell us
about your arrest.
I was arrested several times.
Which one are you referring to?
(Laughs)
JASON:
Chen Ruichang worked high up
in one of China's largest
state television networks.
He was responsible
for research
into making government
propaganda more persuasive.
And Chen took up Falun Gong
like I did in 1998
amidst its boom
and popularity
and favorable coverage
in China.
But when
the persecution began,
and the state media
that employed Chen
turned on Falun Gong,
pressure mounted.
They all knew
I was practicing Falun Gong.
The provincial propaganda
department said:
"Guangdong TV is holding
a Falun Gong time bomb."
JASON:
Days before the self-immolation
would take place
Chen was arrested
at his workplace
and taken to a special
reeducation facility
specifically for staff
of the state media
and government.
There he describes
a prolonged campaign
to force him
to abandon Falun Gong
and to have him accept
the Chinese state's narrative
on the self-immolation.
I was in the
brainwashing center
when the self-immolation
aired on TV.
They forced us to watch it.
Five infatuated
Falun Gong members
set themselves on fire
in Tiananmen Square.
As we were watching it,
I immediately
thought it was fake.
(Man speaking in Mandarin
on TV)
I'ma TV professional.
It's just like we used to do
at the TV station.
All the departments
are connected.
When the police have a case,
they tell the TV station
what to produce.
So they were really worried
and made me a key target
to be converted.
They used every method
to force me to give up.
They forced me
to sitin frontofa TV
(Inaudible)
For eight hours a day.
The volume was over 97 decibels.
They forced my eyes open.
I tried to resist.
They did this for 22 days.
After 22 days,
the TV speakers broke.
Very cruel.
Some prisoners lost their minds.
They force you to watch nonstop
so the pressure mounts.
Will your mind accept it?
They played it endlessly.
If you hear it a thousand times,
you might let your guard down.
Oh, maybe it's true.
And once a crack forms
in your logical thinking,
they will drill into it
until they break your will.
(High-pitched ringing)
Many people in the brainwashing
center were deceived
and they gave up
their belief.
REPORTER:
After seeing the self-immolation
news on TV
Falun Gong practitioners
who are imprisoned
for their illegal activities
are deeply moved.
JASON:
Chen made me see
that for practitioners
of Falun Gong in China,
the self-immolation
never really passed
into the rearview mirror.
It wasn't a scar
so much as an open wound
and they were dealing
with the consequences of it
every day.
SARAH:
Even today,
the self-immolation incident
shapes the way many
Chinese people think
about Falun Gong.
You had wall-to-wall coverage
of very graphic,
emotional footage.
WOMAN #1:
Very cruel.
Inhumane.
Seeing what Falun Gong
did to this little girl,
I think Falun Gong
is so repulsive.
JASON:
The self-immolation became
part of the school curriculum
and then, in so-called
anti-cult rallies
organized by the government,
it became evidence,
that Falun Gong was
the enemy next door
that needed
to be wiped out.
Their purpose was to sustain
this persecution.
So they carefully planned
the self-immolation
to incite hatred
in people's hearts.
JASON:
I felt compelled to revisit
the self-immolation,
and to investigate Chen's claim
that it had been staged.
According to Chinese
state media,
on January 23, 2001,
seven people attempted
to set themselves on fire
in Beijing's Tiananmen Square.
to reach
an afterlife paradise.
JASON:
It was said that each planned
to conceal two bottles
of gasoline
beneath their clothes
and use razor blades
to cut holes
allowing the fuel to soak in,
before setting
themselves alight.
You could say
we were well prepared.
JASON:
They had agreed
to take action together
at 2:30 p.m.,
and were equipped
with watches.
However, that's not
how things played out.
This woman tells state TV
she drank 20 ounces
of gasoline
and poured the remainder
on her clothes.
This cop says
he saw the woman
drinking from
a Sprite bottle
and that set him
into action.
Shortly after,
police on the Square
said they saw
a man on fire.
White smoke
is shown emanating
from behind
a security vehicle.
After the smoke
had cleared,
someone filmed the seated man
shouting a slogan.
(Man shouting indistinctly)
JASON:
Then, security camera footage
shown in the state
media broadcast
shows four figures on fire.
They are identified
in the program
as two sets of mothers
and daughters.
Nineteen minutes
after the agreed 2:30 time,
this man,
the seventh participant,
has not acted.
Police say they spot him
pouring gasoline
on his clothes,
and stop him before
he can set himself alight.
(Inaudible)
JASON:
One woman,
Liu Chunling
reportedly dies on-site.
The other six survive
and give interviews
with state-run media,
some from
their hospital beds.
If the event was not
as the Chinese Government
had claimed,
I figured
a good place to start
would be speaking with those
who were closest.
My team and I reached out
to journalists
who were stationed
in Beijing
at the time
of the self-immolation.
But we had trouble
finding people
willing to speak with us.
MAN #1: (On phone)
In my heart I really want to
tell the story but it's just ...
it's something that I have
to be very careful about,
not only because of my own
beliefs but also because...
I still have family in China.
JASON:
Some spoke on background,
and some declined,
citing ongoing work in China.
(282)
JASON:
But looking through
the initial coverage
on the self-immolation
I see several reports
quoting a CNN journalist
named Lisa Weaver
and she appears
to have witnessed
the burning directly.
We really went to see
just to check it out, um,
and we were simply
in the right time
at the right place,
stayed a little longer
got a little colder.
(Indistinct clamoring)
LISA:
They ended up taking us
through the scene
in order to get
to the bus.
So we crossed
the center of the Square...
Once we were put
on the bus,
no one was preventing us
watching this,
which really surprised me.
We were questioned
on the bus
by a couple
of different policemen.
They were just very interested
in what I'd seen,
when I'd seen it.
"Do you have a tape?
Are you hiding a tape?"
And I said,
"No, I'm not hiding a tape."
At one point,
the person who was
talking to me, uh, left,
and came back with a very brief,
written account
that looked to me to be like
a Xinhua News Agency copy.
Four people
immolated themselves
earlier this afternoon
on Tiananmen Square
and, you know,
just the facts.
JASON:
Xinhua was quoted widely
in the reports.
Apparently the news release
that Lisa had initially reviewed
and confirmed.
And I see other details
attributed to Lisa, herself.
She's said to have witnessed
the seated man on fire
as police put his flames out.
She's also said to have seen
the four women ablaze,
to have witnessed them
douse themselves in gasoline.
And then, after
setting themselves alight,
hold their arms up
in a Falun Gong pose.
But when we spoke
with her,
Lisa didn't claim
to have seen these details.
INTERVIEWER:
You said that
you saw three people,
three people
self-immolating in total?
Is that right, or...
I saw three people
in total,
not really
at the same time.
(Stammering)
I-- the first one I saw was one.
I got some footage of that.
Then tried to run away--
Run away with the tape,
was caught, apprehended,
brought back.
It wasn't until I was a lot--
Brought closer to the center
of the square and the bus
that they put us on
that I saw, um,
three people, two of whom
were In flames,
and one of whom wasn't.
He was already--
Already seated.
INTERVIEWER:
Did you know--
would you be able to say
if they were men,
women, children?
No.
The only person
who I could identify as a man
was Wang Jindong, um,
as he was sitting there,
the flames out,
you know, his clothes
were smoking.
The other two were
just too far away.
My recollection
as to whether these people
were Falun Gong practitioners,
I would say,
at first glance,
yes, because they were
yelling the slogans,
and, uh, you know,
doing those gestures
uh, that Falun Gong
members do.
It was clear to me,
personally,
that they couldn't have been
very representative.
JASON:
After our interviews
with Chen and Lisa,
my wife heard from
her family members in China.
The Public Security Bureau
had contacted them
saying they knew what
we were up to overseas.
No details
on what we'd done wrong,
no explicit threat.
Perhaps a warning
or hint to make us worry
what they might know
and what they might do.
(Sizzling)
JASON:
So my wife deleted her
Chinese social media accounts
used to contact family,
in an effort to shield them
from any further pressure.
(282)
The guards told me...
a high-ranking official
from the central government
wanted to see me.
They told me to dress well.
When I entered the room,
as I can remember,
his head was down.
It looked like he was
reading something.
I entered the room,
then halted.
He looked up and said,
"Oh, there you are."
"My surname is Li.
What's yours?"
I said, "Chen."
He asked,
"Which year were you born?"
I said,
"l was born in a dragon year."
"Ah, I'll call you
Older Brother Chen."
I said, "Then, I'll address
you as Brother Li."
From what I know,
Li Dongsheng
was the Vice President of
China Central Television.
He oversaw the news.
Then he changed the topic
and said:
"There's this rumor that
the Tiananmen self-immolation
was staged."
"What do you think?"
I said,
"You're a TV professional."
So am I.
"They shot it just like
we would."
He said, "It's not like that."
"CNN shot that footage,
and we took it from them."
JASON:
I see this claim that
CNN was behind the footage
repeated in the Chinese press.
And I look at the man Chen says
came to meet with him,
Li Dongsheng.
As Chen described,
Li was the vice president
at China Central Television.
But there's more about him
that catches my eye.
According to articles
in the state run press,
Li oversaw
China Central Television's
flagship news magazine program
Focus Report...
Hello everyone,
welcome to Focus Report.
JASON:
...the program that produced
the expose on self-immolation,
and many of the follow-ups.
But Li wasn't only a propaganda
and censorship official.
He had another role
central to the party's campaign
against Falun Gong.
When the Communist Party
launched its crackdown
on Falun Gong in 1999,
Li had been named
the first deputy director
of something called
the 610 Office.
When the decision was made
to persecute Falun Gong
the 610 Office was created.
A special, extra-legal
party mechanism
and essentially
a secret police force.
It really pulls the strings
behind the scenes.
Judges, legal apparatus,
prisons to labor camps,
to elements of the media
and guiding the
propaganda campaign
with regards to Falun Gong.
The Chinese Communist Party
tightly controls the media.
The media is called
the "mouthpiece of the Party."
Falun Gong
is spreading heretical ideas.
The censorship department
would send us directives.
What to report,
what not to report.
Falun Gong is spreading
heretical ideas.
I feel regret.
I feel guilty.
Because I helped them
deceive the people.
JASON:
Chinese media had claimed
the closeup footage
was shot by CNN journalists.
But we obtained
a copy of the footage
Lisa smuggled out of the Square
in her clothing
and it seems
she and her cameraman
were filming far
from the action.
The assertion that we had
any footage other than
the smoke on the horizon
from my camera was, you know,
just really ridiculous.
They-- they had plenty of people
taking video.
JASON:
In the footage shown
in state media
we can see what looked
like security personnel
holding cameras.
In the top left of the screen,
a figure appears to be filming.
He enters running
then slows to a walk.
He seems to be
steadying his shot
just as an experienced
videographer might.
I can see what looks like
a camera bag
slung over his left shoulder.
But the security personnel
rushed past him
without seizing
his equipment.
LISA:
It was a very fluid,
fast-moving situation.
A pro would probably
be shooting
the way
that they were shooting.
Some of those
really closeup shots
of the people
burning themselves,
in particular,
the fellow who was sitting
cross-legged on the ground.
Those tight shots
definitely came from
security personnel,
because I saw them
take those images
and there's no way
it could've been us
as the state media
later asserted
because we were
being escorted to the bus.
JASON:
This individual is facing
the seated man
who was said
to have set himself on fire,
and he appears to be
holding a camera.
Was this the man
who Lisa described?
Did he wait for
the smoke to clear
and then shoot the footage
of the seated man?
JASON:
While examining this scene,
we notice something else.
An officer places a blanket
over the seated man's mouth.
But we can hear
his voice very clearly.
JASON:
And the recording is free
of environmental sounds
like wind and ambulance sirens.
Unlike in this interview
with a police officer
describing the event
into a nearby microphone.
- (Speaking in mandarin)
- (Wind gusting)
(Recording stops)
JASON:
It seems the audio could
have been recorded separately
and dubbed to the footage.
Then presented as evidence
that the immolation
was inspired by a belief
in Falun Gong.
Everyone must practice
Falun Dafa.
REPORTER:
This tragedy clearly shows
an evil cult in this world
is a demon that ruins lives.
It's all slander.
When I heard the reports,
I compared it to the
teachings of Falun Gong.
Falun Gong teaches one thing,
but these people
did the opposite.
JASON:
In a follow-up
CCTV's Focus Report
then visits the home
of Liu Baorong,
the woman who claimed
to drink gasoline.
Very lucky, very lucky!
Extraordinarily lucky!
Of the seven, I'm the luckiest.
I made it home safe,
look how great my situation is.
Look how well my family
is treating me.
You guys are also treating me
really well.
It just doesn't match up
with a Falun Gong practitioner,
let alone a dedicated
Falun Gong practitioner,
which is what
the Chinese Government
was trying to paint her as.
JASON:
Levi Browde volunteers
for the Falun Info Centre
which tracks the
human rights situation
of Falun Gong in China.
He was at the other end
of the banner I held
in Tiananmen Square
in 2002.
You're talking about individuals
who, apparently,
were so fanatic,
but they are suddenly
saying exactly
what the Chinese Government
would want them to say.
"I did this crazy thing
because of Falun Gong,
and now the government
is going to save me.
And I'm so glad
they're here to save me."
Maybe I would have
burned myself.
I was the first
to drink the gas.
If there was a flame, I would
have burned to death.
For sure, I'd have lost my life.
LEVI:
And there was no sense
of protest.
There was no statement
from them
of the grievances they have
for the Chinese Government
for torturing them,
putting them in prison.
JASON:
As someone who had protested
for Falun Gong
in Tiananmen Square myself,
this is one of the first things
that struck me.
The lack of any complaint
about the Chinese regime's
ongoing persecution.
It was the reason behind
every other Falun Gong protest
but here it was missing
completely.
I said,
"We are both professionals."
Let's be frank.
"How could he be a real
Falun Gong practitioner...
...If his meditation position
is wrong?"
JASON:
The footage seems to show
the seated man
failing to perform
the hand gesture
that begins every
Falun Gong exercise
called Jieyin.
In Jieyin, the thumb tips
are touched lightly together.
But the man appears
to be overlapping his thumbs.
He also didn't correctly
cross his legs.
In Falun Gong
seated meditation,
the two legs are folded
on top of each other
in what's called
the lotus position.
Beginners can
fold one leg up
in what's called
half-lotus.
But this man
folds nether leg up.
It's like someone claiming
to have dedicated
their life to yoga
but being unfamiliar
with a basic position
like downward dog.
He was sitting in a manner
that is not how Falun Gong
sit in meditation,
was saying things
that no Falun Gong would say.
Everyone must practice
Falun Dafa.
LEVI:
And there's a policeman
standing next to him...
holding a fire blanket,
doing nothing,
just holding it there
until this man says something.
And then the policeman
puts the blanket on to this man.
JASON:
On the surface, we see a man
said to have been on fire
now shouting a slogan,
and an officer
covering him
with a fire blanket.
But the rescue effort
appears to be on hold.
The officer's
not in a rush to cover the man,
or hurry him
into an ambulance.
And he appears to be facing
the direction of the camera
that is shooting the scene
rather than the man
who was supposedly on fire.
Is he waiting for a cue?
It's a stark contrast
to the police response
to every other
Falun Gong protest
I'd seen on Tiananmen Square,
where we see officers rushing
to prevent
the participants' messages
from being heard or seen.
As to, you know, sort of
the deeper question
of whether or not these were
Falun Gong members...
We didn't have time
for that, at the time.
Also, by this stage, uh,
CNN was an accomplice
to murder,
according to
the Chinese Communist Party.
Because the state-run media
test-floated that headline
in a Hong Kong newspaper
as it happens,
during a big conference
with a lot of CNN head honchos
in Hong Kong.
JASON:
I see no evidence
that Lisa was involved
in the immolations.
This accusation
floated in Chinese press
seems instead like it could
be a scare tactic,
an attempt to deter Lisa
and CNN
from pursuing the story.
CNN was taking that allegation
very seriously.
Not that they believed it
but, you know,
they were taking
the reality seriously
that maybe the bureau
would be closed down,
maybe we'd all
be kicked out of China
and CNN
would have no presence.
CNN had told us to not even
talk to the other reporters.
I mean, I had my friends
and my colleagues
who worked at other
news organizations calling.
But we were really under orders
to be very quiet
about the whole thing.
It's unlikely that
their true identities
will ever be
independently confirmed.
(Inaudible)
DAVID:
Foreign correspondents work
for news organizations
that have
a very different agenda
than the one
that is required,
if you are to carry out
a major investigation.
JASON:
Writing for
The Financial Times,
David Satter's efforts
to investigate
a government conspiracy
led him to become
the first American journalist
expelled from Russia
since the Cold War.
News organizations
usually are seeking
to have a stream
of coverage from a country
over a period of time
and across a wide variety
of subjects.
There's a big investment
in terms of bureau equipment,
staff, resources,
all of which
can be put in jeopardy
by pursuing a story
which seems implausible
and which is fiercely resisted
by the authorities.
JASON:
But one foreign correspondent
continued to pursue
the self-immolation story.
In an article entitled
Human Fire Ignites
Chinese Mystery,
Washington Post journalist
Philip Pan
reported unusual findings
from the hometown
of the alleged immolators,
Kaifeng city.
Pan visits the home
of Miss Liu Chunling,
the woman who died
on the square
and the mother of
the 12-year-old girl.
But a man at the door
sends him away
and directs him
to the government
for any questions.
Miss Liu's neighbors say
they were not just surprised
by what she was said
to have done
they were caught off-guard
by the claim that
she had taken up
Falun Gong at all.
None had ever seen her practice.
"I'm not saying I don't
believe the government,
but I'm not saying
I believe it, either,"
said one local woman
who was interviewed.
"The government controls
the news.
We all know that now."
WOMAN #2: (Over phone)
I'm really sorry about that,
but this is something
that I have to tell you,
and I have to like do it.
JASON:
"To do" what?
WOMAN #2: (Over phone)
To terminate the contract.
JASON:
My company makes video games.
And our latest title
was being published
by Tencent,
one of China's largest
media companies.
The release of the game
was taking place
just in the midst
of my work on this film.
WOMAN #2: (Over phone)
They just say
we have to terminate
any business relationship
with Lofty Sky.
So this is not
about the game,
it's about the company.
JASON:
You mean like
the censorship office
that reviewed the game?
There's someone
in the government
who told you
to cancel a contract?
Our game was pulled
from storefronts in China.
And a Chinese mobile deal
was killed as well.
WOMAN #2: (Over phone)
I really want you to find out
what happened in your company.
Maybe there are staff
in the company,
or, I don't know,
maybe your business partners
that is not working
in the direction aligned
with the government direction.
I don't know.
I can't really tell anything.
JASON:
Considering the participants
I've examined so far
I start to form a theory...
One man who doesn't seem
to know Falun Gong.
A woman whose neighbors
suggest never practiced.
And another woman
who was never on fire
but co-operatively
relays her plans
to the government
and praises the authorities.
It all seems
to point to one thing...
That they were actors
and it was all a stunt.
The important part
is insulating the body
from the heat of the fire.
So we use these high-tech
fabrics as undergarments
and different layers,
like base layers,
kinda like when you're climbing
a mountain in winter
you use different layers
to keep yourself
from getting cold.
I'm using different layers
in a different way
to keep myself
from getting too warm.
JASON:
Tom Comet is known
as Danger Boy,
and he's been setting himself
on fire in stunts for years.
Tom finds it plausible
that the seated man
may have been layered up
for a fire stunt.
TOM:
One of the things
you see in this
is what this guy
is wearing.
It's sort of natural fibers,
bigger, cloaky-type garments.
JASON:
But he can't say the same
about the women
shown on fire
or the little girl
shown in close ups.
That was a very legitimate
third-degree, deep-tissue burn.
Like, I know, that skin
is the outer layers of skin
and they will literally
peel off.
Like you can just peel
those off like layers of,
you know, whatever.
I don't know,
this is all looking
fairly legitimately like a burn.
That person
is in a terrible state.
Oofl!
Oh!
JASON:
Tom finds the footage
of the mother and daughter
on the square
in the aftermath,
and of the four burning figures
very convincing.
He's right
that the flames
engulfing the figures
are enormous
and the human cost of that
would seem to be real,
not an act.
CHEN:
Many people in the
brainwashing center
had been transformed.
They might have broadcast
my conversion that night.
The police told me:
"Your wife has been arrested."
She will be jailed five
or six years.
At that moment,
I felt I could barely hold on.
So my wife was also detained.
What about our son?
My mother was ill.
I thought a lot.
It was at that moment
that I shed tears.
(Inaudible)
I only had to say three words:
"l won't practice."
Then I could reunite
with my family.
And I could take care
of my child.
But I couldn't do it.
I watched the self-immolation
news in the labor camp.
We were forced to watch.
(Sniffles)
(Speaking in Mandarin)
We couldn't bear watching
those horrifying images.
But they made us watch it
over and over.
I totally believed it.
I'd been tortured badly.
I was deceived
and gave up my faith.
The police brought Chen
to the labor camp
where I was held.
They wanted me to convert him.
I was deceived,
but I thought I was right.
I was sure
I could convince him.
He rushed to hug me.
I pushed him away.
He said,
"l haven't seen her in so long."
"But she won't even
let me hug her."
I said, "Why don't we recant?"
"Look at the self-immolation."
He was adamant.
"It's fake.
Absolutely fake."
I said, "How can it be fake?"
"It's so clearly shown on TV."
He said: "I'm a professional.
Trust me."
I tried everything
but couldn't convince him.
I was frustrated,
so I threatened divorce.
He pleaded: "Let's not divorce."
"You can recant,
though I won't."
"We can still be together."
I said, "No, I want a divorce."
JASON:
It's remarkable to me
that Chen wouldn't bend
in the face of all this,
with all this pressure,
the threats and brainwashing.
How wasn't Chen swayed
that he wouldn't go along
with what the party
wanted him to say,
at least on the surface?
(Man giving commands
in Mandarin)
I was transferred from
the brainwashing center
to the labor camp.
The deputy director there said:
A senior official in Beijing
is watching you.
"He's called three times
to check on you."
RICHARD CHEN:
What information we can get
is from Minghui net.
And then, we always
try to see, uh...
I don't want to see
my brother's name
in there be killed.
I don't want to see
my brother's name is missing.
But...
one day...
we see it.
He's missing.
When he's being transferred
from the brainwash class
to an actual labor camp,
um, it's a big worry
about his safety.
We know how bad it is.
Like, people being tortured
to death.
You cannot even like imagine
what they're gonna do.
We do whatever we could,
talk to the government officials
and telling the media
that we believe
to expose this is the only way
to keep him safe.
(282)
At the time
this incident occurred
there were probably 50,000 practitioners
of Falun Gong
in Chinese jails
or propaganda camps,
so to speak.
And the issue
had been raised
by non-governmental
organizations
and some governments
at the United Nations
Human Rights forums.
China really needed
to have
the international community
against Falun Gong.
(Trumpeting)
JASON:
The timing of
the self-immolation
was very fortuitous
for the Communist Party.
And it's not just that Beijing
had been attempting
to root out Falun Gong.
The foreign media's attention
to the on-going crackdown
was standing in the way
of the Chinese regime's
immediate political goals.
A year before
the self-immolations,
uh, the Falun Gong,
they gathered on
Tiananmen Square,
New Year's Eve
for the Chinese.
And they threw pamphlets
into the air
and shouted,
"Falun Gong is great!"
And had some banners.
(Indistinct clamoring)
JASON:
Chinese New Year's Eve
in Tiananmen Square
had been the site of
a peaceful Falun Gong protest.
It was harshly repressed
by Beijing
and captured
by the western press.
We were able to film it
from inside the car.
The police were on to us,
and what ensued
was a high-speed chase.
We had the cops behind.
I floored it.
(Sirens wailing)
LISA:
So, we got this footage.
We got it on the air.
FEMALE REPORTER #3:
U.S. officials say
one of the key items
on President Clinton's agenda
when he meets with
Chinese President
Jiang Zemin
later this week
will be China's
deteriorating record
of religious tolerance.
At that time China was trying
to emerge onto the world stage.
When you have pictures
on a daily basis
of ordinary citizens
being beaten up
on Tiananmen Square,
that really undermines
the Chinese Government's efforts
to display itself
as a modern government,
as a rising, peaceful power,
and as one that is worthy
of getting access
to international
institutions or awards
like the Beijing Olympics.
MALE NEWS ANCHOR #1:
Whatever happened
at the labor camp,
the timing could not
have been worse for China.
This country is obsessed
with the Olympics.
One thing that could
jeopardize Beijing's bid
is China's Human Rights record.
JASON:
Beijing had lost out to Sydney
for the 2000 Olympics.
In part, because of concerns
over its Human Rights record.
For the 2008 games,
the IOC's evaluation committee
was due to arrive in Beijing
in February, 2001,
less than a month
after the
self-immolation occurred.
The self-immolation
managed to completely flip
the narrative on Falun Gong.
Within two weeks
of the incident,
an IOC executive announced
that Falun Gong
would not stand in the way
of Beijing's Olympic bid.
They likened the group
to the violent cult
in Waco, Texas,
that had not prevented
the U.S.
from hosting the Olympics
in Atlanta
and landing another
in Salt Lake City.
In July, 2001,
Beijing was granted
the 2008 Olympic Games.
In December of that year,
China was made a member
of the WTO.
Self-immolation had enormous
political consequences,
shifting the Falun Gong matter
from human rights concern
to internal political issue.
If you look at how the campaign
against Falun Gong was going,
uh, the self-immolation
was really kind of a gift
to the Communist Party.
It gave them
the perfect opportunity
to turn public opinion
against Falun Gong,
uh, to get international media
to maybe also question
whether this group
was worthy
of the kind of reporting
that it was receiving.
The idea
of this self-immolation
was to demonstrate,
you know, that Falun Gong
was encouraging
this practice,
even if they weren't,
to make it appear
as if they were.
And this is
what was behind it.
I mean, we have had
self-immolations
in Vietnam, for example,
before the Vietham--
as the Vietnam War got underway.
MALCOLM:
The monks were telephoning
the foreign
correspondents in Saigon
to warn them that something
big was going to happen.
That they were going
to pull off
something spectacular
by way of protest.
A car drove up,
two young monks got out of it.
And an older monk,
leaning a little bit on
one of the younger ones,
also got out.
They poured the liquid
all over him.
He got out a matchbook,
lighted it and dropped it
in his lap,
and was immediately
engulfed in flames.
Everybody who witnessed this
was horrified.
DAVID HALBERSTAM:
It hit the headlines
all over the world.
It had enormous
political consequences,
uh, outside of Vietham
and inside of Vietnam.
...city under attack.
JASON:
President Kennedy,
at the time
called the image,
"The most impactful
news photo in history".
It caused the populous
to change sympathies
nearly overnight.
And for the U.S.
to cut allegiances
with the Vietnamese president,
who was blamed
for the monk's sacrifice.
Instead,
the Americans backed a coup
that would see
the Viethamese president
ousted months later,
and executed.
The photographer
behind the photo,
the AP's Malcolm Brown, said...
The image was used
as a form of propaganda
against the U.S.
and its anti-Communist allies
in Vietnam.
I find a reference
to another self-immolation
and this one takes place
right in Beijing's
Tiananmen Square,
but it's not
a real-life event.
It comes from
a work of fiction
that was written
a full decade
before the self-immolation
incident.
Author Wang Lixiong's
political novel, Yellow Peril,
was known
to the censorship authorities
in China.
They had banned his book,
and put Wang under house arrest.
The novel lays out
an eerie blueprint
for how communist officials
would incite chaos
and justify the ongoing
repression of a targeted group
by staging a self-immolation
in their name.
The novel was published shortly
after the dramatic
demonstrations
for democracy
in 1989 in Beijing.
And in the book,
the party is concerned
with growing public sympathy
for the democracy
activists' cause.
In this passage,
one official hatches a plan
to turn the tide
of public perception.
"How to set the trap?"
it reads...
The book describes
many automatic cameras
being set up
in Tiananmen Square.
They were connected
to a control center.
"The Minister of Public Security
was awaiting the arrival
of the foreign press,"
it said.
The participant
who would die in the plot
was a young woman.
And just as
with the seated man,
there was a clear way
to identify the group
to be blamed for the action.
"The deal was that
she had to yell some slogans,
it said.
And then the similarities
become so striking
that the novel can
be mistaken for a telling
of the real-life self-immolation
ten years later in 2001.
She was wearing
several layers of clothes
to ensure that the gasoline
would be fully absorbed.
A female foreign reporter
arrives on the scene
and the Minister of
Public Security gives the cue.
"The girl became a fireball,"
the book said.
The woman finally falls
to the ground
right at the foot
of the People's Heroes Monument
in the center
of Tiananmen Square.
That's precisely
where Liu Chenling
is said to have fallen
to her death
from self-immolation
in 2001.
"Her body shrank to
a sizzling charcoal, it read.
According to Yellow Peril...
Even calling on
the government...
It reads like a screenplay.
But a question remains...
What would have motivated
the woman to participate?
In Yellow Peril, they found
a terminally-ill woman
and offered to pay her family
3 million Chinese Yuan.
So I start looking for clues
with Miss Liu Chunling,
the woman who died
in the fire.
The Washington Post
interviews with her neighbors
describe a woman
who led a troubled life
and suffered
psychological problems.
She was abusive to both
her mother and daughter.
They say she worked
in a nightclub
and took money
to keep men company.
I keep looking for clues
in Kaifeng City,
the hometown of Miss Liu
and the other immolators.
And I find an article
written within months
of the self-immolation
incident in 2001.
The government in Kaifeng
had been building blood banks
and offering residents money
in exchange for their plasma
which officials sought
to sell overseas for profit.
But when tainted equipment
is used
and AIDS spreads widely,
the government
suppresses the news
to the extent that
the local peasants know HIV
only as the "strange illness"
or "nameless fever."
To be clear,
there's nothing specific
to connects Miss Liu
to an AIDS epidemic,
but that's not
what intrigues me.
It's that the government
in Kaifeng
was luring residents
with money and a promise,
and then casting them aside
when things went wrong.
I go back to something
I read in Yellow Peril...
In the book's
self-immolation scheme,
the Minister
of Public Security
had also made a promise
to the woman
to convince her
to set herself on fire.
He promised she'd
be given anesthetics
so she wouldn't feel pain.
But after her frantic death,
he's asked,
"Didn't you give her
the drugs?"
"That was just
to console her..."
the book read...
And it hits me.
What if Miss Liu was promised
something else?
Perhaps something dangerous
but not deadly.
What if she didn't sign up
to die?
(Button clicks)
(Indistinct clamoring)
JASON:
When we slow
the footage down,
the woman appears
to have been struck.
A bent-shaped object
is seen flying into the air
from where she is hit.
As the camera pans back,
we see a man
who seems to be standing
in the same place
the woman was
just a few seconds before.
The hairline and collar
of this figure
appear to match a man
seen earlier in the footage.
As he enters the shot,
he seems to be pointing
and directing
the other officers.
Was he in command?
Could he have struck
Miss Liu?
The important thing that
people need to understand
about authoritarian
and totalitarian systems
is that the individual
human being
in these systems
has very little value.
And they are not averse
to killing people
for no reason whatsoever
except to further
their political goals,
including killing
their own people.
CHEN:
Look at Chinese history.
The Cultural Revolution,
the Tiananmen Square Massacre.
The Communist Party's approach
to dissidents is very cruel.
JASON:
There's no way to confirm
if Liu Chunling
was indeed tricked
into participating
as the woman died
on-site.
But her daughter survived
and was rushed to hospital.
She is featured prominently
in the reports that follow,
but only state media
was able to speak with her.
I don't know
that any foreign journalist
could have got access
uh, to the victims
who were in hospital.
And I remember
being surprised
the doctors let
the Chinese journalists in,
because they have
these horrible burns
and, you know,
there's risk of infection
and, you know, to say
nothing of the trauma
and what purpose
are you serving...
You didn't know the flames
would be painful?
LIU SIYING:
I didn't know.
JASON:
The nurse interviews
the little girl
for the television cameras.
Meanwhile,
the doctor said
she needed
an immediate tracheostomy
inserting a tube into her throat
to allow breathing.
We needed to operate
on the trachea immediately.
It's unusual
to see somebody speaking
with a tracheostomy
in place
shortly after the injury.
They would not be able
to generate the force required
through the mouth
to form words.
So, I think
it is fairly unlikely
that somebody,
shortly after their injury,
would be speaking normally
unless the tracheostomy
wasn't required
in the first place.
My name is Dr. Alan Rogers.
I'm a plastic
and reconstructive surgeon
with an interest
and fellowship training
in burn surgery.
I also manage complex wounds.
We are very vigilant
about infection,
prevention, and control.
Several questions
arise in my mind
as to, firstly,
the management
of burn injuries
at the setting.
And then, secondly,
whether in fact this was staged.
JASON:
Dr. Rogers finds several things
unusual here.
All four surviving immolators
are kept together
in a single room.
The nurse and reporter
are not wearing gloves
and next to
the badly burnt little girl
we see a fuzzy teddy bear.
He's also suspicious
of how certain wounds
are dressed.
DR. ROGERS:
This image
is a little bit unusual,
given the very thick nature
of the dressing at the wrist
with no dressing
on the arm or hand.
Perhaps that bulky structure
around the wrist
is in fact concealing
the patient's hand
and that what appears to be
a very deep, mummified hand
is in fact
a very effective prop
because I cannot see the purpose
of that bulky structure.
The little girl is said
to be recovering well
and nearing release.
But then she, too,
suddenly dies.
It's reported to be
a heart attack.
CHEN:
People hope she'll recover.
But their hope is shattered.
And their anger is directed
at Falun Gong.
They played
with people's emotions
to achieve their goals.
JASON:
I can't prove Chen's claim
that it was all designed
this way for an effect.
But its impact is undeniable.
I felt it myself
when I first heard the news
and I still feel it today.
Such a deeply-disturbing
reversal
of the mother archetype.
The one who is supposed
to nurture
and love and care for
instead leading her child
to a violent death.
And tied together with it,
the accusation
that this horror
was somehow connected
to Falun Gong.
And that accusation itself
was enough to frame
the discourse.
Even those who distrusted
the government
and sought to question
what they were being told,
did so from within the influence
of the state narrative.
"Could Falun Gong
have done this?"
"Why would Falun Gong
lead people to burn themselves?"
Once you ask those questions,
you've already begun
to unwittingly operate
from within
the party's narrative.
People see things
that are presented
on their television screen
and they try to parcel out
uh, what they can believe
and they shouldn't believe.
But this effort
has the pernicious effect
of drawing them in
and, in fact, indoctrinates them
only further.
JASON:
I see now that
the self-immolation
didn't need
to be irrefutable.
It simply needed
to muddy the waters
on Falun Gong.
LEVI:
After the self-immolation
and the media blitz,
suddenly there's a question.
"Are these people
the kind of people
that would light themselves
on fire to go to heaven?"
No matter
how objective you are
as a Human Rights worker,
at some point it comes down
to what you feel.
There was something in the air
anytime you met with
these people about...
The enthusiasm was down.
The immolation event
eventually changed
my thoughts.
In part, because,
you know, the obvious point,
if these were
Falun Gong practitioners,
and if they had been directed,
which the Falun Gong
outside of China denied,
uh, but if they had,
this organization
was really willing
to let people
burn themselves alive
to make a political point.
Now which is ironic,
because it plays
right into the Chinese
Communist Party narrative
of what the problem is.
JASON:
Lisa presumed
it was Falun Gong contacts
directing the participants.
But the Chinese press,
and the participants themselves,
in full confession mode,
make no claims
of any Falun Gong contacts
directing them.
Instead, they offer
a more unusual explanation
for the origin of their plan.
When I looked in the mirror...
...I saw Li Hongzhi.
So I believed that
I was the Master
and the Master was me.
JASON:
Liu Yunfang,
the seventh participant
in the self-immolation
appears in a government
organized press conference.
A strange thing happened.
I dreamed that...
I drank gasoline
in Tiananmen Square.
Then I poured gasoline
all over myself.
In the blazing fire,
a shining Buddha
emerged from me.
I said, "It is a sign that
we should self-immolate
in Tiananmen Square."
JASON:
It seems designed to showcase
the harmful delusions
of what are purported
to be Falun Gong followers:
Following dreams
to commit acts of violence,
believing oneself
to be the incarnation
of Falun Gong's founder,
Li Hongzhi,
a man who is still alive
and living in New York.
I'd seen nothing like this
anywhere in Falun Gong.
But buried inside
this narrative
was an admission that
the idea for self-immolation
came from this man,
Liu Yunfang.
Liu Yunfang says
he lured other to join him
on the basis
of his visions.
The state was holding
all of Falun Gong culpable
for this one man's
alleged dream.
It gets stranger.
The dream shares
a very specific detall
with the immolation plot
in the book, Yellow Peril.
In both, the immolator wears
a special auto-ignition device
that's planted
in their clothes
and is used
to set them alight.
But I also had
the auto-ignition device.
JASON:
Yellow Peril reads...
In my review of examples
of self-immolation,
I hadn't found any others
that mentioned
using an auto-ignition device
which sounds like
a very elaborate piece
of technology
if your plan was
to set yourself on fire.
It appears once in
this banned work of fiction
about a state conspiracy
to frame a repressed group,
and then again
in Liu Yunfang's dream.
A dream that would also become
the justification
for a continued repression
of millions.
And this from the man
who didn't manage
to ignite his own fire
nearly 20 minutes
after the group's agreed time.
LIANG:
I called my husband
when I was released.
I knew the police were with him
when he answered the phone.
I couldn't say much
over the phone.
He said:
"Oh, you're home."
I said,
"Yes, how about you?"
He must have thought
that I meant:
"Why don't you give up
and come home?"
He thought I was trying
to convert him again.
He said, "I don't care."
We'd been married so long.
He'd never been so cold.
He said, "Whatever you want."
"I don't care.
Go ahead."
Then he hung up.
I really respected him.
He thought
I was trying to convert him.
But actually
I admired his resolve.
I'd been detained for two years,
but I hadn't converted.
They kept me awake
five days straight.
"Do you still believe
in Falun Gong?"
They forced me to spit
on pictures of Master Li.
(Sighs)
Don't you want to practice
Falun Gong?
(Men grunting)
"Okay, now practice!"
Then they push your head
down to your legs.
- (Men talking indistinctly)
- (Man whimpering)
I'm not the one who suffered
the worst torture.
On October 12, 2012
I came to the U.S.
I said to my sister-in-law:
"We need to appeal to
the US government immediately."
I don't speak English
so my sister-in-law
went with me.
CELIA QU:
We talked
to our local government
which is the City
of Port Jervis.
LIANG:
My sister-in-law went up
and gave a speech.
Suddenly,
everyone turned to look at me.
They started taking my picture.
(Inaudible conversation)
(282)
INTERVIEWER:
I mean, how does it feel looking
back on these articles
and what you've achieved?
Big success.
No, I think that, you know,
that shows that it's true
that the evil is very afraid
of being exposed.
And, um...
And that's what we do.
And that works.
(Helicopter whirring)
Several months after the event,
I was in Geneva.
I was shown a video
debunking the Chinese claims.
MAN #2: (On video)
How is it possible
that a plastic bottle
filled with gasoline
encompassed by
a burning man's legs
remains in perfect condition?
I thought the Chinese version
of the events was just...
for want of a better term,
unbelievable.
It just didn't
add up at all.
And we made comments
and statements
in the Human Rights
Council Session
condemning the Chinese
Government's version
of the events.
China harassed us.
They tried
to play little games.
They would sort of
hover and pace
and make comments, etc.
They expected to be threatening
and intimidating.
And some NGOs
are intimidated by it
but I'm not, particularly.
But China is such
a major power.
We have been unable
to get a single resolution
on China, condemning China
for anything.
That would require
ultimately
going to
the Security Council,
and China has a veto.
It doesn't mean
that people agree with China.
But it also means
that people know
they cannot get
anything with teeth
against China.
(Phone ringing)
My son called eagerly
and told me
Chen had been released.
Ah, I felt a big weight
off my shoulders.
RICHARD:
Finally when I know,
I said, "Okay, great.
"Get out of there quick.
As soon as possible.
Forget your property,
forget your money,
just get out,
because in there,
you are a piece of meat..."
Meat on a cutting board.
They can kill you.
The knife is in their hand.
They can kill you anytime.
I asked my son: "Are you willing
to let your dad come overseas?"
He said, "Yes, of course."
I said, "But you will be alone."
He said, "It's OK."
I have been living in fear
for so many years.
Although we'll be apart...
...I won't have to
worry about your safety."
I applied for a passport
many times,
but it was not approved.
I was blocked from going abroad.
(Inaudible)
The fear is unimaginable.
You're under Red Terror.
We could be persecuted any time.
JASON:
In December, 2013,
the Communist Party
puts Li Dongsheng
under investigation
for unrelated charges of
bribery, and abuses of power.
It's part of what is said
to have been a power struggle
between factions at high levels
of the Communist Party.
Li is removed from his post
which then include Vice Minister
of Public Security,
and Head of
the Central 610 Office
for handling Falun Gong.
In January 2016,
he is sentenced
to 15 years in prison.
When I heard Li Dongsheng
was arrested,
the first thing that
came to my mind
was an old Chinese saying:
"Misdeeds lead
to self-destruction."
Retribution.
It is his retribution.
I also realized that maybe
I could get out of China now.
I was pretty happy.
(Inaudible conversation)
KAREN:
Say we work and work and work
on a certain issue
and it looks like
there's an impasse,
and then something
will happen
that completely changes
the dynamic.
And, for instance,
Nelson Mandela was freed.
The USSR fell apart.
The Berlin Wall came down.
- I mean, these...
- (Indistinct conversation)
KAREN:
There are little hints
that something might happen.
But...
sometimes there's
a sea change overnight.
And those sea changes are--
are inspirational, actually.
Okay.
- Ready?
- Chen, 14.
JASON:
I had hoped to find
all the answers
of what happened in
Tiananmen Square that day.
But I don't think
that's possible.
The clues and
the circumstantial evidence
suggest a government
conspiracy
to frame Falun Gong.
But there also
isn't a smoking gun.
And considering the environment
in mainland China,
it seems unlikely
that one will ever emerge.
Just being
a foreign journalist
covering the facts
as you see them in China,
was hard enough
with this story.
You know,
we weren't even gonna look
at the competing theories.
JASON:
There were times
I was frustrated
that the foreign press
hadn't dug deeper
to uncover the inconsistencies
in this story
that were hiding
in plain sight.
But Lisa
had also taken risks
to cover
Falun Gong protests before,
and she'd smuggled
her footage
out of Tiananmen Square.
Given that she'd gone looking
for another Falun Gong
protest that day,
I'm not surprised
she viewed it in that light.
And as questions did emerge
about the state narrative,
Lisa and CNN
were quickly off the story.
That photographer behind
the burning monk photo,
Malcolm Brown,
had written something once.
He described seeing
a newspaper image
of an elephant
on water skis
passing under
the Brooklyn Bridge.
An ad for toothpaste was printed
on the side of the elephant.
He said...
It's difficult
to imagine a world
in which a government
could devise
a self-immolation scheme
to frame a religious group.
But it was also difficult
to imagine soldiers opening fire
on unarmed students
who were appealing
for democracy.
12 years after
the 1989 massacre in Beijing,
as China was ascending
on the international stage,
it was more concerned
about its global standing.
It's conceivable
that party leaders
would have felt a bold
character assassination
was a smaller risk than
the continued visible bloodshed.
DANNY:
If you'd been arguing
that Falun Gong
is encouraging suicides,
what better way
to show that
than to actually
stage an event
in which people
burn themselves publicly
in a prominent place
like Tiananmen Square?
DAVID:
The people are swayed
by their emotions
and their desire not to have
to deal with a problem
that they think
they can avoid.
Once you accept
that your government
has been involved
in a conspiracy
involving the murder
of hundreds of innocent people,
you then have to come
face-to-face
with your own helplessness.
And that's not something
that a lot of people want.
JASON:
There are often
many good reasons
not to ask questions,
especially when doing so
might challenge
an imposing authority.
But there's also
something remarkable
about those who still dare
to speak truth to power,
even in the face
of great risks.
PETER LI:
I remember Chen Ruichang
is one of the practitioners
who was specially,
I mean, how do I say...
under strict supervision.
We can see
how much suffering
he experienced, right?
But they never change.
His words encouraged me
and strengthened my belief.
Many years later, we met again
in this free society.
There's joy in my heart.
I'm very touched.
(282)
(Inaudible conversation)
(282)