Talk:Falun Gong outside mainland China

New section?

I wander if it would be appropriate to create a section called Falun Gong and bussiness with the following entry: "Vasilios Zouponidis becomes the Business Pioneer of the year. An engagement for human rights gave birth to his idea of starting a business in telecom and it has developed to a very profitable business. The Prize was handed over by the King of Sweden in the royal castle in Stockholm. In a Swedish TV interview Vasilios told the audience about his practice of Falun Gong and the brutal violation of human rights in communist ruled China. [1]", since this issue seems to be quite notable. --HappyInGeneral (talk) 09:31, 30 October 2011 (UTC)

Events concerning a single individual are probably too narrow to be described at length, but if it can be shown to be part of a broader pattern or trend, then we can describe that.Homunculus (duihua) 17:28, 13 November 2011 (UTC)

Revisions

I'll alluded to this over at Wikipedia talk:WikiProject Religion/Falun Gong work group , but am going to articulate it in some more detail now. This page has been pretty badly neglected for a long time. I have been working to prepare an update and reorganization, but would like to make sure I haven't missed any important considerations as I do that. A few of the problems I've found on the page, which I hope this will address:

• It's poorly sourced in a number of areas
• The page organization lacks coherence; for instance, 'public relations' is listed under the heading of 'ethnographic fieldwork'.
• There is a good deal of highly relevant information that is nowhere to be found, including the history and development of Falun Gong's overseas diaspora, their congregational experiences (ie. group meditations and study sessions), organization of Falun Gong overseas, and so forth. A number of academic studies of high quality have examined these questions, so there's a lot to draw on.
• The list of ways in which Falun Gong has responded to suppression (currently named 'protest actions') is extremely limited. In fact, the current section is mostly about Vancouver, Canada. I intend to flesh this out, looking at protests and demonstrations, parades, vigils, sit-ins, legal initiatives, the use of arts and culture, the creation of media branches, research & advocacy groups, etc. In doing this, and in other parts of the page as well, I hope to describe trends in broader terms, rather than giving undue weight to a small handful of very isolated events (unless they are somehow especially illustrative of a trend, but even then, they should probably not have whole paragraphs devoted to them).
• Some of the information on the page is now outdated. In the case of the Vancouver consulate protest and the Les Presses Chinoises defamation case, for instance, the courts have reversed their previous decisions since the page was last edited. Similarly, there has been some recent news coverage addressing new legal initiatives, hacking and espionage by the PRC, and other issues that are worth including here.
• There is no section examining the international response to Falun Gong and the crackdown
• There is no discussion of Falun Gong outside North America, really. I hope that I can bring in more information, throughout the page, on Falun Gong in Europe, Australia, Southeast Asia, etc.

Are there other issues I've failed to consider? Homunculus (duihua) 14:55, 13 November 2011 (UTC)

I've made the changes described above. In preparing these changes, I cut down on the length of individual anecdotes in favor of illustrating broad trends, supplemented with succinct examples. Not perfect, but it's much more comprehensive, organized, and global in scope than before. Homunculus (duihua) 01:20, 15 January 2012 (UTC)

Er yes, but your changes, all performed in a single edit incorporating content and structural changes, are very difficult to track. From a quick reading, it seems that the article is now very heavily biased towards Falun Gong; many of the elements critical of FLG seem to have been virtually wiped out. Could you undo it and re-create your changes in a more transparent fashion? I don't want to breach my self-imposed topic ban. --Ohconfucius ^¡digame! 03:32, 21 January 2012 (UTC)

Due to the substantial scale of changes that were necessary (see above), including very significant organizational and structural changes, I prepared the document offline over the course of several months, all the while waiting to see if there would be any response to my proposals. I took the total silence on this page (and the sorry state of the article) as license to be bold. I apologize that the changes are difficult to track, but if I were to make these changes in a series of smaller edits, I think the diffs would be even more difficult to follow. Moreover, since most of what I did was add content (page length doubled, number of citations more than doubled), implementing changes incrementally would not solve this problem.

I made an earnest attempt to be even-handed in my treatment of the material. Nearly all the references from the previous page were preserved, as was the vast majority of the content. Some content—both 'positive' and 'negative'—was condensed and summarized, and non-notable events discarded or relegated to references. Looking at the previous version, there was some material that might have been construed as critical of Falun Gong — for instance, city officials saying they didn't want Falun Gong distributing political leaflets at parades, or a lengthy anecdote about an individual in Vancouver who didn't want to print a newspaper that wrote a negative review of Shen Yun. None of those things stand up as notable in an article on such a large topic. It also occurred to me that, if we focused on individual anecdotes, it would be difficult to ensure neutrality, as anecdotes and opinions are easily cherry-picked (see suggestion above to report on community awards earned by individual practitioners). Better, then, to describe broad trends and significant events, with anecdotes used selectively to illustrate those trends. In this spirit, I also cut out or reduced a number of other things that may be construed as sympathetic to Falun Gong, such as the paragraph about an Ottawa practitioner winning a discrimination case, and a petition signed by Yale University faculty and students in support of Falun Gong. Finally, some commentary was removed when neutral, concise statements of fact were all that was necessary; for instance, we don't need a paragraph of Maria Chang's thoughts on how the socio-political climate of contemporary China may have guided the Epoch Times' public representations.

If you have some specific questions or ideas on how the page can be improved, please do share them. I had a couple more changes to make as well, which I will do now. Homunculus (duihua) 05:43, 21 January 2012 (UTC)

Sorry that I've been largely absent from this project for a couple months. Overall the changes look like a significant improvement. Well done. I noticed that you kept a couple things from the previous version that are probably not of great value at this point, like the allegations of violence in Argentina. There doesn't seem to be a very good source, and I'm not sure what it would add even if there was. Also, the section on parades doesn't have any references. There are also some things that we might consider addressing and which are not currently covered. Namely, information on the legal status of the practice in other countries (for instance, in Southeast Asia, or in theocracies...?), and on refugees and asylum seekers. I remember reading about snakeheads directing people to present themselves as Falungong to gain asylum. We probably don't need a whole section on this, but maybe a few sentences. The organization section could also use a bit of information on how Falungong activities are funded. Hope this is helpful.—Zujine|talk 18:42, 21 January 2012 (UTC)

Thanks.

• I added references to the bit on parades.
• I didn't totally scrap the Argentina anecdote, but did shorten it and remove the Friends of Falun Gong reference in favor of a third party source. It's one of very few things we have on FG in Latin America, so it might have some value yet.
• Regarding funding, I actually thought I had written something on this, but maybe I imagined it. I'll try putting something together. For sources, I can draw on Burgdoff, Porter and Ownby, though they dealt with Falun Gong in a simpler time, when individuals could easily pitch in to cover the cost of events and parades. In terms of funding for satellites and the like, there isn't much to draw on. The WSJ article from 2007 is a good place to start though. Let me know if you are aware of any other potential sources.
• Good ideas otherwise. I can get to that eventually.Homunculus (duihua) 17:55, 22 January 2012 (UTC)

GA Review

This review is transcluded from Talk:Falun Gong outside mainland China/GA1. The edit link for this section can be used to add comments to the review.

Reviewer: Keihatsu (talk · contribs) 20:15, 28 July 2013 (UTC)

I'm happy to start this review, but invite others to add comments as well. I'll have preliminary feedback within a day or two.Keihatsu ^talk 20:15, 28 July 2013 (UTC)

Sorry this is taking me longer than expected. I haven't forgotten, but I might have to do the review in stages. Here are some initial comments (more will follow)

• Most of the section titles use Title Case, but some use sentence case. They should be made consistent.
  • Done, used sentence case —Zujine|talk 13:51, 6 August 2013 (UTC)
• A number of the sentences in the intro are quite long, and convey several different ideas. This can be disorienting for readers who don't know what Falun Gong is or who have a hard time keeping up with the various Chinese names that are introduced early on. You can keep all the same content, but try to simplify a bit and break up long sentences.
  • Done —Zujine|talk 13:51, 6 August 2013 (UTC)
• In the second paragraph, same thing: don't assume that readers know much about the topic. Some people are not aware that Falun Gong is persecuted in China. You do not need a long treatise to explain this, but one extra sentence could improve comprehension.
  • Done —Zujine|talk 13:51, 6 August 2013 (UTC)
• There is a bit of repetition in the third paragraph under "Organization." Nothing too major, but you could consider tightening it up a little.
  • Done —Zujine|talk 13:51, 6 August 2013 (UTC)
• "Falun Gong' reliance on the internet" — typo
  • Fixed, "Falun Gong's" —Zujine|talk 13:51, 6 August 2013 (UTC)
• Article alternates between using "Mainland China" and "mainland China." Also between Falun Dafa and Falun Gong (it might be best to just pick one, or else to explain the two terms).
  • Done, used "mainland" since that is what the article title uses —Zujine|talk 13:51, 6 August 2013 (UTC)
• Some terms are put in single quotation marks, others in double quotations. The difference seems arbitrary.
  • Done, used double quotes —Zujine|talk 13:51, 6 August 2013 (UTC)
• Under "Demographics," the first sentence has a citation tag that needs to be addressed (or removed—it's plainly obvious if you read the reference who the claim is attributed to).
  • Changed to "Ownby confirms estimates that Falun Gong is practiced ..." —Zujine|talk 13:51, 6 August 2013 (UTC)
• "Ownby says evidence suggests that" - try to minimize this type of thing in the writing. The "evidence suggests" is completely unnecessary.
  • Changed to "Ownby suggests ..." —Zujine|talk 22:24, 5 September 2013 (UTC)
• "an Argentine judge concludes that..." — typo. Use past tense.
  • Done, used "concluded" —Zujine|talk 13:51, 6 August 2013 (UTC)
• "Falun Gong adherents have been filed" — delete "been". This same paragraph is also suffering from citation overkill.
  • Done —Zujine|talk 13:51, 6 August 2013 (UTC)
• "in accordance of a by-law" — typo?
  • Changed to "in accordance with ..." —Zujine|talk 13:51, 6 August 2013 (UTC)
• "supporters and sympathizers have also founded groups such as Friends of Falun Gong and the Committee to Investigate the Persecution of Falun Gong(CIPFG), and Friends of Falun Gong" — delete second Friends of Falun Gong.
  • Done —Zujine|talk 13:51, 6 August 2013 (UTC)
• "which toured to over 35 of countries in 2007 and 2008" — delete "of"
  • Done —Zujine|talk 13:51, 6 August 2013 (UTC)

I am stopping here for now. Hopefully this gives you some things to work on while I read through the rest and provide a more formal review based on the GA criteria. Keihatsu ^talk 06:24, 2 August 2013 (UTC)

• Note: Keihatsu has not edited on Wikipedia since the above post 30 days ago. Will be adding a "second opinion" tag to the review template in the hopes of attracting someone who is willing to complete the review, though it may turn out to be better to put this back into the reviewing pool, something that is also a possibility. BlueMoonset (talk) 15:08, 1 September 2013 (UTC)

So sorry for the delay. I don't normally stay logged in to Wikipedia, and got really busy with travel this summer, so I didn't notice the messages piling up. The rest of the review will be completed later today. Keihatsu ^talk 07:02, 2 September 2013 (UTC)

OK, I read the rest of the article. The second half especially is quite engaging, and the tone seems neutral. The story of the overseas suppression is an important topic, and you could probably write much more on it, but I think the examples used here give a good sense of the overall situation. Feel free to keep adding more over time as you come across more information.

The article is well written (with a few small suggestions below), and there are no edit wars or major editorial disputes, so you easily pass there. The photos and captions are mostly good and have free or fair use rationales, but it would be nice to have more photos of people practising Falun Gong in different regions outside China, if possible. The only image with a somewhat questionable license is the Ny-shengjiang-01 file. It might be fair use, but the rationale given doesn’t convince me, and I don’t think we’d be losing much if we got rid of that one.

In terms of the completeness of the coverage, one thought I did have is about Hong Kong. If you’ve visited in the past year, you may have seen that the Chinese government has a very public campaign against Falun Gong there, resulting in a lot of backlash from HK citizens who worry that it's a harbinger of more encroachment to come. That’s probably worth covering at least a little. I also found the parts on monitoring of electronic communications to be a little bit weak, so if you find more on that topic you can think about adding more there.

There are also a few incomplete citations, like where you only have a link and name. Please try to fill those references in.

Here are some other small suggested edits:

• Going back to the part on media organizations, the treatment of the names of different media groups is different—some are in italics, some have the Chinese pronunciation, etc. Please make these consistent.
  • made Epoch Times italic since it is a printed publication, removed Chinese translations —Zujine|talk 22:24, 5 September 2013 (UTC)
• The first sentence of the second paragraph under suppression overseas: “...United States by agents of the Communist Party; it reported that...” - Suggest using a period rather than semicolon.
  • Done —Zujine|talk 22:24, 5 September 2013 (UTC)
• “The overseas campaign against Falun Gong is described in documents of the government's Overseas Chinese Affairs Office” : Since the previous paragraph discussed U.S. Government actions, you should clarify again which government you’re talking about here. Also, you don’t need the semicolon at the end of this sentence.
  • Done —Zujine|talk 22:24, 5 September 2013 (UTC)
• The last bit of the third paragraph is in italics, but it should be in quotation marks.
  • Done —Zujine|talk 22:24, 5 September 2013 (UTC)
• “In 2005, two defectors to Australia...”  : This is a bit confusing. It says two defectors to Australia, but it mentions three Chinese government defectors, and only one of them is indicated as defecting to Australia.
  • I think I cleared this up —Zujine|talk 22:24, 5 September 2013 (UTC)
• “Jennifer Zeng, a Falun Gong victim of torture in China...” : This phrasing suggests she is still in China, which doesn’t make sense in the context of this sentence.
  • Fixed —Zujine|talk 22:24, 5 September 2013 (UTC)
• The name Hao Fengjun showed up in the 6-10 Office article as well, and I mentioned at that time that you might consider making an article about him. *nudge nudge*.
  • Agreed, will look into it
• “MSS agent working with the Chinese embassy in Berlin...” There’s no harm in spelling out these acronyms each time they appear in a new section.
  • Done —Zujine|talk 22:24, 5 September 2013 (UTC)
• “According to Der Spiegel...”: Link/Italicise newspaper names
  • Done —Zujine|talk 22:24, 5 September 2013 (UTC)
• “...and may use these blacklists to impose travel and visa restrictions...” : May use the lists? They have used them, it would seem.
  • Done —Zujine|talk 22:24, 5 September 2013 (UTC)
• Chen “ relayed in 2005 that approximately...”  : Change to Chen "said in 2005...".
  • Done —Zujine|talk 22:24, 5 September 2013 (UTC)
• “protest outside South Africa-China Binational Commission (BNC) meetings” : Add a ‘the’
  • Done —Zujine|talk 22:24, 5 September 2013 (UTC)
• “Politburo member Luo Gan”  : A good place to add more wikilinks (there are a few more, but I'll leave it to you to identify others)
  • Done —Zujine|talk 22:24, 5 September 2013 (UTC)
• I think there are more examples of media organizations succumbing to diplomatic pressure on this issue. If you can find anything like that, it could help give a more complete picture. This is important because I think one of the main questions a lot of people have about Falun Gong is why is it not in the news more. And this is part of the answer.
  • Done —Zujine|talk 13:30, 8 September 2013 (UTC)
• “Wall Street Journal reported...” Link/italicize again
  • Done —Zujine|talk 22:24, 5 September 2013 (UTC)
• “could result in a denial of visa for fieldwork” : denial of visas, plural?
  • Done —Zujine|talk 22:24, 5 September 2013 (UTC)
• The views of Ethan Gutman dominate the last two paragraphs. Consider condensing his views a little bit, if you think it can be done without losing the meaning. As for the very last paragraph, it is a perfectly adequate summary, even though it ends on a bit of a down note. But it is also very American-centric. From one perspective I can understand this, since the most media coverage probably comes from the United States, but if you can think of something that encapsulates the world more, I encourage you to try it. — Preceding unsigned comment added by Keihatsu (talk • contribs) 00:44, 3 September 2013 (UTC)
  • Done —Zujine|talk 13:30, 8 September 2013 (UTC)

Great, the improvement look good to me. I noticed you hadn't fixed all the incomplete references, though, so I just filled those in. It looks like the references combine various citation styles, which is fine with me, but for the future you might try to make them uniform. There are also still some areas that could potentially benefit from some expansion, so I hope you'll continue working to improve the article after this review. Other than that, I'm satisfied. Well done! Keihatsu ^talk 12:08, 11 September 2013 (UTC)

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"Good article" status needs review, article needs extensive reconfiguration and reworking

Looking at this article, it's clear that this article would look very different if it were rewritten in 2020 with reliable secondary sources. This is so much so the case that anyone looking at this article after 2016 with familiarity with be quite confused. Here's some recent coverage of the activities of the new religious group exterior to mainland China:

• Braslow, Samuel. 2020. "Inside the Shadowy World of Shen Yun and Its Secret Pro-Trump Ties". Los Angeles Magazine. March 9, 2020. Online.

Quote:

Among other pronouncements, [Falung Gong founder and leader Hongzhi] Li has claimed that aliens started invading human minds in the beginning of the 20th century, leading to mass corruption and the invention of computers. He has also denounced feminism and homosexuality and claimed he can walk through walls and levitate. But the central tenet of the group’s wide-ranging belief system is its fierce opposition to communism.

In 2000, Li founded Epoch Times to disseminate Falun Gong talking points to American readers. Six years later he launched Shen Yun as another vehicle to promote his teachings to mainstream Western audiences. Over the years Shen Yun and Epoch Times, while nominally separate organizations, have operated in tandem in Falun Gong’s ongoing PR campaign against the Chinese government, taking directions from Li.

Relatively unknown before 2016, Epoch Times enjoyed a surge in traffic after the presidential election thanks to stridently pro-Trump content. NBC News reported in 2017 that the site was drawing millions of visitors a year, more than The New York Times and CNN combined. But Falun Gong didn’t restrict its pro-Trump stance to the paper.

This article discusses a shift that occured in 2017, and, indeed, from that time the vast majority of sources start popping up. It appears coverage has only snowballed since, a risk the organization seems willing to take to continue to wield political influence. Let's continue digging through media coverage:

• Roose, Kevin. 2020. Epoch Times, Punished by Facebook, Gets a New Megaphone on YouTube. The New York Times, Feb. 5, 2020. Online.

Quote:

Little is known about The Epoch Times’s finances and organizational structure. The nonprofit Epoch Times Association, which operates it, reported $8.1 million in revenue and $7.2 million in expenses on its 2017 public tax filings. An investigation by NBC News last summer found ties between the outlet and other Falun Gong-affiliated organizations, such as the Shen Yun dance performance series and the video broadcaster [New Tang Dynasty, New Tang Dynasty Television ], and said the organizations 'appear to share missions, money and executives.' ... Three former Epoch Times employees, who spoke on the condition of anonymity because they feared retaliation from the organization .. described its staff as primarily Falun Gong practitioners, many of whom had little previous experience in journalism. Editorial employees, they said, were encouraged to attend weekly “Fa study” sessions outside work hours, during which they would gather to study the teachings of Falun Gong’s spiritual leader, Li Hongzhi. ... The Epoch Times has long denied having direct ties to Falun Gong. Mr. Gregory said that the organization was primarily funded through subscriptions and ads, and that "donations are a small part of our income."

Hmm, alright. Let's take a look at the NBC article that this entry mentions:

• Collins, Zadrozny & Ben Collins. 2019. "Trump, QAnon and an impending judgment day: Behind the Facebook-fueled rise of The Epoch Times". NBC News. August 20, 2019. Online.

Quote:

Despite its growing reach and power, little is publicly known about the precise ownership, origins or influences of The Epoch Times.

The outlet’s opacity makes it difficult to determine an overall structure, but it is loosely organized into several regional tax-free nonprofits. The Epoch Times operates alongside the video production company, NTD, under the umbrella of The Epoch Media Group, a private news and entertainment company whose owner executives have declined to name, citing concerns of "pressure" that could follow.

The Epoch Media Group, along with Shen Yun, a dance troupe known for its ubiquitous advertising and unsettling performances, make up the outreach effort of Falun Gong, a relatively new spiritual practice that combines ancient Chinese meditative exercises, mysticism and often ultraconservative cultural worldviews. Falun Gong’s founder has referred to Epoch Media Group as “our media,” and the group’s practice heavily informs The Epoch Times’ coverage, according to former employees who spoke with NBC News.

... In 2009, the founder and leader of Falun Gong, Li Hongzhi, came to speak at The Epoch Times' offices in Manhattan. Li came with a clear directive for the Falun Gong volunteers who comprised the company’s staff: “Become regular media.”

And more straightforward discussion from MSNBC, reporting on an NBC article discussed below:

• Ruhle, Stephanie. 2019. "Pro-Trump news outlet The Epoch Times funded by Chinese spiritual group". August 20, 2019. MSNBC. Online.

Caption quote:

NBC News has exclusively learned that the popular conservative news site The Epoch Times is funded by a Chinese spiritual community called Falun Gong, which hopes to take down the Chinese government.

The NBC article refers to an article by The New Yorker:

• Tolentino, Jia. 2019. "Stepping into the Uncanny, Unsettling, World of Shen Yun". The New Yorker. Online.

Quote:

Falun Gong also has its own media outlet, a newspaper called the Epoch Times, which was founded in 2000. (The chairman of the newspaper’s board has said that it is “not a Falun Gong newspaper,” because “Falun Gong is a question of an individual’s belief.”) The paper skews conservative: among its recent pieces are stories headlined “Why We Should Embrace President Trump’s Nationalism,” “Government Welfare: A Cancer Known as Communism,” and “President Trump, Build the Wall.” It also is the world’s foremost purveyor of Shen Yun content, publishing such stories as “Excited Fans Welcome Shen Yun at Taiwanese Airport,” “The Vivid Storytelling of Shen Yun Symphony Orchestra,” and “Shen Yun Audiences Already Waiting for Next Year."

And a few years back, here in Germany, referring to the Alternative für Deutschland (AfD):

• Busvine, Douglas. 2018. "German far right far ahead in use of social media". Reuters. September 13, 2018. Online.

Quote:

Instead, the researchers found that AfD supporters amplified the reach of media coverage of stories that the AfD posted or commented on. Social media users sympathetic to the party often tweeted links to stories in Die Welt, a conservative daily, but also to right-wing media outlets.

These included news sites such as Junge Freiheit and the German edition of the Epoch Times, which is part of a media group set up by Chinese-American members of the Falun Gong sect and focuses on the same immigration issues at the heart of the AfD platform.

There are many, many, many more sources out there discussing these topics—thousands—and in fact we can and should dig further into these topics. Additionally, this does not take into account the various other extensions of the organization, such as the Society of Classical Poets, which fly a little further under the radar but with aligned goals.

This article needs reassessment and, frankly, a total rewrite. I'm tagging it for NPOV and a total rewrite in the mean time. :bloodofox: (talk) 20:46, 22 May 2020 (UTC)

Neutrality and Truth

After reading many Falun Gong-related pages, the tune of this page is more peaceful and less provocative. It is important to follow both neutrality and the truth. Sky-Dream (talk) 06:38, 23 May 2020 (UTC)