Falun Gong is freely practiced in at least 57 countries around the world, but relentlessly persecuted in China. The peaceful courage of practitioners there has shocked their oppressors and moved the people of the world. While China continues to block all information, FGMtv brings you the stories you may not hear anywhere else.

Hello, and welcome to FGMtv on July 16^th, 2002

I’m Susan Mitchell.

The number of Falun Gong practitioners verified to have died as a result of mistreatment by Jiang Zemin's regime is 437. However, sources in China put the actual number in the thousands.

Our top story this week:

Mainland Chinese media help to promote Falun Gong by reporting on the interruption of state TV broadcasts.

And some of our other stories:

· Chinese wife of a Japanese practitioner is sentenced to 18 months in a labour camp

· 610 Office illegal activities in Harbin City

· Paintings inspired by special sight obtained through practice

· A Dafa practitioner from Wuhan is tortured to blindness and paralysis

· Severe flooding in Hunan Province

· Zhao Ming thanks the Prime Minister of Ireland for helping to rescue him from a labour camp in China.

And finally…

Stranger than fiction: exploding stars and diamonds in Ontario! Is there a connection?

Mainland Chinese media help to promote Falun Gong by reporting on the interruption of state TV broadcasts.

· On July 8 and 9, major media outlets in Mainland China reported that from June 23 to 30, nine programs on CCTV and 10 provincial television stations in Sichuan, Guizhou, Yunnan, and other places broadcast some form of Falun Gong truth-clarifying programs.

· Although they relentlessly attacked these actions, the result is that people all over China have focused their attention on this issue and understand that the practice is still thriving, despite an all-out 3-year campaign by the government to eradicate it.

· According to AFP's report on July 10, Hong Kong police have joined a probe into the overriding of satellite signals of Chinese government-run television stations after the government accused Falun Gong of doing it.

· Falun Gong Hong Kong spokesman , Kan Hung-Chang told CNN that he had no knowledge of Hong Kong-based practitioners being involved in the alleged satellite interception.

· He said, "This could be a smearing campaign by Beijing to discredit the Falun Gong in the eyes of the world. It is even possible that the interference in TV broadcasts was done by official technicians -- and then the blame was put on the Falun Gong."

Chinese Wife of a Japanese practitioner sentenced to 18 months' labour:

· Agence France Presse, in Beijing reported on July 13^th that Yoko Kaneko, a 37-year-old Chinese Falun Gong practitioner who had migrated to Japan has been sentenced to 18 months in a labor camp.

· Yoko, whose Chinese name is Rong Luo, was arrested in China after she distributed Falun Gong materials in Beijing.

· Her mother, Guizhi Ye, told AFP from her home in northern China's Heilongjiang province that the family received a notice from police last saying Kaneko had been sentenced on June 24^th. The family has not been allowed to visit her.

· According to one Falun Gong practitioner in Japan, she is believed to be kept at the Beijing Number 574 Labor Camp.

· Yoko's husband, Japanese businessman Atsushi Kaneko has appealed to the Japanese Foreign Ministry to make every effort for his wife's release but the Chinese government has not responded.

· Practitioners came from all over Japan on the weekend of July 6^th to hold a press conference and solemn parade to raise awareness of Yoko's plight. At least 7,000 signatures were collected to petition for her release.

The so-called "one country, two systems" laws in Hong Kong and Macao are facing a serious test.

· Practitioners in Macao have reported that a week prior to the fifth anniversary of Hong Kong's return to China, authorities there sent plainclothes police officers to track and monitor some of the local Falun Dafa practitioners.

· The surveillance was continuous, day and night. In the morning, while the practitioners did their exercises together, many plainclothes police officers watched from the side.

· At the end of the exercise session, the officers followed some of them, monitoring them in their homes.

· Many Macao practitioners traveled to Hong Kong, preparing to peacefully appeal during Jiang Zemin's visit, but the majority were blacklisted, unjustly refused entry by Hong Kong customs, and forced to return to Macao.

· A practitioner from Taiwan had some business to conduct in Macao, but he was denied entrance at the Macao airport and sent back to Taiwan.

· The "one-country, two systems" laws in Hong Kong and Macao are under tremendous pressure from Beijing.

Washington DC Independence Parade…

· Falun Dafa practitioners in Washington DC were proud to be one of two Chinese groups to win approval to participate in the annual Independence Day Parade

· Several different teams shared different aspects of Chinese culture, including the graceful Falun Gong exercises and traditional Chinese dances, including women in flowing costumes in the style of the Tang dynasty, and the perennial favorite Dragon dance.

A personal thank you to the Prime Minister of Ireland…

· Ming Zhao, the graduate student at Trinity College in Dublin, Ireland, was rescued from Tuanhe Labor Camp in part through the personal intervention of the Prime Minister of Ireland, Bertie Ahern.

· On July 5^th, after Ming Zhao and Gerald O'Conner had met with staff members in the Prime Minister's office, they happened to see Mr. Ahern, in the building.

· The Prime Minister asked about Ming's current situation and was very happy to learn about his return to Trinity College. Ming thanked the Prime Minister for his rescue efforts and spoke about other practitioners still being persecuted in China.

· Before parting, Mr. Ahern accepted a letter, Falun Gong materials and music that the two presented on behalf of Falun Gong practitioners in Ireland.

and over to Sweden where practitioners have started a 12-day SOS tour…

· It will be soon three years since the Chinese government, headed by Jiang Zemin, began to persecute Falun Gong.

· During these three years, Falun Gong practitioners have shown to the world their peacefulness, their courage, their compassion and their tolerance.

· In order to appeal to the people in Norden, Sweden to help to end the persecution, practitioners there started a 12-day-SOS tour in front of the Chinese consulate in Gothenburg on July 10th.

Penalized for life for telling the truth on a school exam paper…

· During the countywide standard high school graduation exam, a school student in Qidong County of Hunan Province answered a question regarding Falun Gong. He wrote: "Falun Dafa is great" and "The persecution against Falun Gong is too cruel."

· As a result, the Qidong County Education Bureau expelled him from school depriving him of his right to participate in the nationwide college entrance examination.

· In addition, the Education Bureau launched a countywide discussion among all school teachers and students, in order to avoid similar answers appearing in the nationwide college entrance examination.

· As a punishment for telling the truth, and contrary to its responsibility of encouraging freedom of thought and speech, the Qidong County Education Bureau deprived this student of his right to pursue a higher education.

· We are happy to report that subsequent attempts by the local 610 Office to kidnap this student were unsuccessful.

And, another round of persecution by the 610 Office in Harbin City…

· We have received a delayed report from China that in April 2002, the "610 Office" launched the "Specialized Taskforce Committee" in Harbin City, marking the beginning of another round of persecution of Dafa practitioners in Heilongjiang Province.

· On April 19, 2002, more than 600 armed police arrived in Shuangcheng City, and together with local police, they set up barricades at all the major crossroads and interrogated all pedestrians passing through. Each was ordered to curse Falun Dafa and its founder. Anyone who refused to do so was arrested.

· On the same night, police also arbitrarily and illegally arrested more than 40 Dafa practitioners. Some were still asleep when police broke into their homes and dragged them away.

· When four practitioners who live on the fifth floor of a building refused to open their door, police used a crane to break in through the window and forcibly take them away.

Paintings inspired by special vision obtained through practice…

· Many people understand that practicing a righteous spiritual Way can release special abilities, including being able to see things in other dimensions.

· One non-professional artist has painted two beautiful women that she saw floating in the air. The first holds a banner displaying the principles on which Falun Dafa is based: Zhen-Shan-Ren, or Truth-Compassion-Forbearance.

· The second smiles sweetly as she scatters flowers in the air.

Now onto Wuhan City of Hubei Province where Dafa practitioner Liu Ling was tortured to the point of total blindness as well as paralysis of his legs, only because he refused renounce his beliefs.

· Initially, he was illegally detained in a mental hospital where he was tormented for several months.

· He was then transferred to Hewan Labor Camp and detained there for almost a year, during which time, he was severely mistreated.

· When his condition seriously deteriorated, he was delivered to the Xiehe Hospital for emergency treatment so that he would not die in police custody.

· However, twenty-three days later, the hospital discharged him, because he could not afford to pay his expenses.

· Because of his blindness and paralysis, he is unable to work and his employer has refused to accept any responsibility for his care. In addition, the relative government departments refused his family's application for even the minimum amount of social security simply because he practices Falun Dafa.

I want to do what my Mom does!

· Children the world over love to join in activities with their parents.

· Teacher Li Honzhi has said that many high level beings have come to earth at this time to practice Falun Dafa.

· Little ones like this 2 ½ -year-old certainly seem to belong to that group, because they exhibit intense concentration and a love for the exercises, the Falun emblem, and the Teacher's photograph.

Are natural disasters a coincidence? Like the world's great religions, Falun Dafa practitioners believe that good will be rewarded and evil punished.

· From June 13 through June 23, sixty-two cities and counties in Hunan Province and eight towns in Fengkai County were hit by storms and flooding affecting almost 10 million people.

· People in six hundred and fifty-eight villages were stranded because of flooded roads and highways.

· One hundred and thirteen dams were damaged, and about 2,155 miles of power lines were downed.

· It is estimated that direct economic losses total approximately 279 million US dollars.

And finally…

Stranger than fiction:

· Teacher Li Hongzhi has said that young children are often able to maintain supernormal capabilities. In the last year, a 9-year-old called Shanshan has related several stories to his mother about things he has seen in other dimensions.

· Astronomers have been circulating wonderful photos of exploding stars and new galaxies, taken by the Hubble space telescope.

· Young Shanshan said the following: "Some stars, after exploding, would become pieces of gems or stones and fell into caves that no one ever goes to, or into a pile of dirt."

· In the Toronto Star on Saturday, July 13^th, there was an extensive account of a Prince and Princess who are currently under investigation by the Ontario Securities Commission for exceeding the allowed number of investors in a diamond mine venture on their Ontario property.

· The princess found an extremely large diamond on their property. One doesn't normally associate diamond mining with Ontario! Could it have been a fragment from one of the exploded stars that Shanshan saw fall into a pile of dirt? Fact is sometimes stranger than fiction!!

Thanks for watching FGMtv, dedicated to breaking through China's information blockade, revealing propaganda, and bringing you the truth of Falun Gong.