The Truth Behind the "Self-immolation" in Tiananmen Square

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After the immolation incident occurred on January 23, 2001, the Chinese Government's mouthpiece, Xinhua News Agency, immediately published a report on the incident entirely blaming Falun Gong practitioners for the immolation. This was in stark contrast to the way news is usually handled in China, where lower-level officials report to their superiors and so on until the top officials allow the news to be published. Soon after the news was released, the Falun Dafa Information Center in New York published a press release on the morning of January 23 (US eastern time) condemning the Xinhua News Agency for spreading unfounded, defamatory claims about Falun Gong. It also called on the PRC regime to allow the world media and international human rights groups to investigate this case to clarify the facts.

A week later, CCTV, the Chinese Central Government's official TV station, broadcasted heartbreaking pictures of the 12-year-old Liu Siying, who was severely burned. Her mother Liu Chunling died from the self-immolation. The government then intensified the campaign against Falun Gong by forcing every citizen to sign a form condemning Falun Gong. They used the pictures of Liu Siying to instigate the public's hatred towards Falun Gong, causing the Chinese people to fight amongst themselves. This kind of inciting the people to fight against each other was one of the main tactics used in the Cultural Revolution in China decades ago.

On February 4, 2001, The Washington Post published a stunning front-page investigative report entitled: "Human Fire Ignites Chinese Mystery -- Motive for Public Burning Intensifies Fight Over Falun Gong." The article provided several facts including the following:

Liu Chunling was not a native of Kaifeng and made a living as a hostess in a nightclub;
Liu Chunling would beat her elderly mother and young daughter from time to time;
No one ever saw Liu practiced the Falun Gong exercises.

Here are a few points:

Falun Gong practitioners hold themselves to high moral standards in both action and deed in the society. The principles of Falun Gong explicitly state that killing or suicide is a sin.

Therefore, some reports that the unfortunate woman, who died in the self immolation incident worked as a bar hostess and was witnessed beating her step-mother and child, is not conduct according to a Falun Gong practitioner's standard.

The Chinese Government should allow an independent investigation into this incident so the true facts regarding this terrible tragedy can come forth.

So, what is the real story? With more independent investigations, we will see the Tiananmen self-immolation is purely something the Chinese government staged in order to defame Falun Gong.

For further information, please refer to the special category on this subject at
http://www.clearwisdom.ca/eng/weekly_category/immolation.html

(Please refer to the statement made by the United Nations in the "Support from Europe" category of Clear Harmony, which refutes the Chinese government's false claims regarding the self-immolation)

Doubts Exposed by Scrutiny of Self-Immolation Video

Close observation of the video (taken from Chinese state television's own footage) alleging self-immolation by Falun Dafa practitioners, clearly shows the falsehoods and impossibility of these ridiculous allegations. It also shows the extreme measures taken to produce this evil propaganda. Several observations make it obvious that great efforts were taken to slander Falun Dafa and terrorize people with a vicious and false representation of kind-hearted practitioners.

Human Hair Is Highly Flammable

The first fallacy becomes obvious through observation of Wan Jindong's hair. Human hair is highly flammable, burning extremely quickly. In fact hair will burn totally within just a few seconds if not extinguished immediately. However, in the video of the alleged self-immolation, it is apparent that Wang Jindong's hair had no damage from the fire at all, while his face appeared to be burned to an ashen gray color. Sources producing this video would like people to believe that the flames have burned his face, yet the most flammable part of the body, the hair, remains intact. According to the report, the policemen extinguished the flames in less than a minute. It would have been impossible for the hair to escape total damage in the high intensity of the alleged gasoline flame. Careful examination of this video also shows the hairline was extremely neat and trimmed which could not have occurred had he been on-fire. Additionally, the eyebrows on Jindong's face were not even burned!

This evidence demonstrates that Wang Jindong could not possibly have ignited himself but leaves many doubts and several possibilities of what might have occurred. He may have been made-up to appear to have been burned. Or, Wang Jindong might have used some special fuel, like stage props used for movies or theatre, that enabled him to escape physical damage but provided a show of life-like flames for the video. Another possibility is that Wang Jindong's hair is not real but rather a wig.

In the scene where Liu Chunling is beat to death, we can see her hair burning. This means that the amount of time she was burning was very short - it could not have been more than several seconds. However the impatient policemen started to extinguish the fire from the onset of the flames. If they attempted to extinguish the flame that quickly, she could not possible have died from the fire, as they would have been able to put-out the flames before fatal injury occurred. However, because they did not want her to live, they resorted to extreme force and beat her in the head with a very heavy object, under the guise of extinguishing the fire.

The Placement of the Microphone

Another obvious clue to the deceptions in this video, is the location of the microphone. When the scene of Wang Jindong's meditation is carefully observed, you can see a recording microphone flash at the left corner of the screen. The microphone is facing Wang Jindong. The view was quickly moved to the right, in order to hide the microphone. This observation confirms that the camcorder was right in front of Wang Jindong - the best position to videotape. According to the clear shouts of Wang Jindong, the cameraman must have been very close to him, otherwise it would be impossible to receive good audio quality in the recording. This also demonstrates that there was another person videotaping Wang Jindong besides the people who carried the video bag and filmed the scene from a distance.

Liu Siying's Murder Occurred to Prevent Her from Divulging Horrible Secrets

A final illustration of the deceptive techniques in this video is seen in the murder of Liu Siying. Among the people accused of self-immolation, Liu Siying is the person who was most likely to divulge the secrets because she was so young that the threats would not have been as effective as they would be used on the adults. The adults could be sentenced to jail or isolated from the outside world, at least temporarily. But Liu Siying is under the legal age of being detained. Therefore, to detain her publicly would have an extremely negative impact, but releasing her would leave them vulnerable that she might speak-out, and let the truth be known. The only way to guarantee her silence and avoid divulging any secrets to the public was to kill her.

To see a special ClearWisdom.net report on the staged self-immolation please click here.

To see a special FalunInfo.net report on the staged self-immolation please click here.

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