I’m not very informed on modern China and there’s a ton of sources accusing China of killing and even harvesting organs from Uyghurs and Falun Gong believers.

Is there any truth to those claims or is it all pigpoop ?

  • BynarsAreOk [none/use name]
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    2 years ago

    I didn’t see this mentioned again but apart from all the stuff here you should know the leader got financial ties to the US since the late 90s, here is the WSJ article from 1999. I highlight the useful stuff to reduce the length so maybe read it entirely as well if you want. This is actualy a somewhat funny/wild story believe me.

    Chinese Spiritual Leader Finds American Dream in New Jersey

    Falun Dafa founder Li Hongzhi’s wife got her piece of the American dream in a New Jersey suburb earlier this year, though Mr. Li says it was paid for by a follower as a gift that was later returned. The imposing 4,600-square-foot manse near Princeton University was purchased in the name of Mr. Li’s wife, Li Rui, in May, just three weeks after more than 10,000 of Mr. Li’s followers surrounded China’s leadership compound to petition for official recognition.

    Mr. Li, who lives in the U.S., said through an intermediary that the New Jersey home was purchased for him without his knowledge by one of his most ardent followers, a lampshade manufacturer named John Sun. And Mr. Sun confirmed that he paid $580,000 for the house out of gratitude “for the great health benefit that I have obtained through practicing Falun Gong.” He said the purchase was made while Mr. Li was traveling and that he had Mrs. Li sign the paperwork without telling her what it was for.

    Nonetheless, the real-estate transaction occurred when Mr. Li was battling an unprecedented national campaign by China to discredit him. While the leader of any group as large as Mr. Li’s – he claims 100 million followers world-wide while China says his following there numbers little more than two million – would be expected to live well, Mr. Li’s claim that he aims to save humanity rather than enrich himself cuts to the core of his belief system, which depends on unquestioning faith in his strange pronouncements. He teaches followers, for example, that practicing Falun Dafa will transform their bodies into “high-energy matter” at the submolecular level and allow some of them to fly, bodily, to heaven. Asians will fly to one heaven, Caucasians to another.

    Both Mr. Li and Mr. Sun said Mr. Li’s wife doesn’t read or speak English, and she couldn’t be reached for comment. The men said Mr. Li refused the gift and has never lived in the house. Mr. Sun said the title was transferred to his name in mid-July, though county records listed Mrs. Li as the owner of the house in August. Mr. Sun said he plans to live in the house, though his wife, reached at the Suns’ home in New York City’s Staten Island, said she doesn’t know of any New Jersey house owned by her husband.

    “Mystery Family”

    There have been extensive renovations made to the New Jersey house since May. … In August, one of Mr. Li’s closest associates was also seen at the home. Neighbors say they know nothing of the people living there. “They’re the mystery family in this neighborhood,” says a housewife who lives nearby.

    A Poster for Good Luck

    He moved initially to an apartment in New York City’s Flushing, Queens, rented for him by a group of followers there. And in June 1998 his wife bought a residence in a quiet Queens neighborhood for $293,500, according to Queens County records. A red Chinese poster signifying good luck is pasted on the door of the blond-brick townhouse. Mr. Li acknowledges that the home is his.

    Both Mr. Li and his wife come from poor beginnings – until Mr. Li left to begin his spiritual teaching in 1992, he and his wife each earned less than $500 a year at a state-owned grain company in northeastern China’s Jilin province. By the late 1990s, though, he was drawing huge crowds to his lectures in northern China. Beijing charges that his income rocketed from there; among the documents the government has presented in its efforts to discredit the spiritual leader are handwritten accounts of one 1994 lecture series that list profits of more than $10,000.

    Mr. Li and his closest associates say those documents are fabrications and that there was hardly any profit from his China lectures after splitting revenue with the government agency that sponsored them and then paying expenses. And though Beijing alleges that Mr. Li profited even more handsomely off the sale of his books, which followers regard as their bible, he claims most of the books sold in China are pirated editions for which he received no money.

    TL;DR some wealth “benefactor/fan/follower” bought him a 500k USD mansion, but get this it wasn’t in his name, it was supposed to be for the wife, but she reportedly doesn’t even speak English. They can’t get their story straight about it and even basic journalism shows the neighbors were well aware it was a ghost/flip property.

    But as the article explains he came from the usual poor Chinese background and in one hand repeatedly claims to make little/no money from his cult while also buying US property for 6-figures. When the CPC originally persecuted him it was in large part because of his obviously clearly amateurish and illegal financial activities.

    It is IMO quite obvious and clear the Fed/CIA connections to this story yeah? No foreigner buys 6-figure mansions in the US without the government knowing and this wasn’t just any random person either, it literally happened when he was being chased by the CPC.