Shchekaturov Yan, Chairman of the DSC "Dialogue"
The "Dialogue" center is a non-profit, non-religious, non-political social organization, protecting rights and interests of the citizens, who have suffered from the destructive practice of organizations, which act as religious, enlightening, fitness, cultural, educational, commercial ect.
The main aim of our organization is human rights protection and provision of informational-and-consultative, social, psychological and legal aid to the people, who have suffered from psychological violation or negative influence of organizations with totalitarian and destructive orientation.
This center started working from August 2003. That very year we got acquainted with the Dnepropetrovsk adherents of Li Hongzhi's teaching. The number of the active members in 2003 counted for not more than 20 people. They assembled in Lenin square for concerted exercising the qigong complex. Another curious side of the public actions, taken by the members of this organization, was the obtrusive recruitment of new members. Later we started spotting in their activities the elements of propaganda, oriented against the current Chinese government and the communist ideology. When running events they would advertise posters and stands with photographs and images of tortures and body mutilations of the Falun Gong adherents, which are allegedly persecuted by the PRC government for just studying the Falun Dafa system by Mr. Li Hongzhi.
A curious thing is that for practicing qigong the Dnepropetrovsk adherents do not choose quiet and remote picturesque places, which match the process of meditation and spiritual practice, but they choose the crowded parts of parks, central squares and public gardens. Evidently such disposition is more favourable for propagationand- recruiting activities than for health improvement.
The administration of the Dnepropetrovsk Falun Dafa adherents made big efforts for self-advertisement and promotion of their organization. In 2005 the Dnepropetrovsk Falun Dafa adherents for the first time made themselves known in a small interview on the regional channel. At the same time the members of this organization actively started to hand out leaflets, newspapers, books and DVD with information, propagating Li Hongzhi's Falun Dafa system.
In the early 2006 the chairman of the Dnepropetrovsk regional social organization "The Falun Dafa system" S.O. Bukin appealed to the local court in the city of Dnepropetrovsk, bringing in an action consisting in denial of the false information and requirement for compensation of moral damage, committed for the editorial staff of the "Svoe Mnenie" newspaper. In lawyers' opinion, the claim had been initially inconsistent, which was consequently confirmed by the court decision. Obviously the very fact of bringing in an action was to a bigger extent supposed to turn into an efficient PR campaign, than to satisfy the action requirements.
With every coming year the organization's influence on the Dnepropetrovsk citizens has been becoming more and more aggressive —there started taking place actions of imitation of the organs' extraction, which supposedly took place in the PRC. At the same time the agitation element of the personnel activities moved its accent from the curative practices to the political sphere. There appeared the elements of manipulation of human conscience, which was evident from the psychological analysis of the "10000000 signatures" leaflet's contents.
It is by the statement of one of the victims, whose husband is an active adherent and participant of almost all events, held by the Dnepropetrovsk organization, that we can judge about the influence of this organization on human psyche. The statement is as follows: "The changes, which took place in my husband's mind, made me doubt the Falun Gong practice and I began to worry about my husband's sanity. Subsequently he became indifferent to the world around him, and he found quiet only in studying (practicing) the Falun Dafa. The person, my husband used to be, had disappeared and there was left a weak-willed human being, unadapted to life in the society. He lost the ability of solving problems, concerning elementary things. However he successfully found the explanation of all misfortunes in the canons of the self-perfection system, which he'd studied by heart. His kind-hearted nature has disappeared, leaving irritability in communication with close people. He was only happy when the subject of the conversation concerned the Falun Dafa".
With every coming month the number of events, organized by the Falun Dafa, has been increasing. Today such actions take place every Tuesday and Thursday in the central Lenin square. At the same time they distribute books and DVDs of different contents, criticizing the Chinese communist party. During this period of time the number of complaints, lodged with the Dnepropetrovsk organization of the Falun Gong adherents and submitted to the DSC "Dialogue" and the city council has also increased. In the news programs on the local TV channels those events were exposed to critics and the activities of the organization were reported in a negative way.
It is worth quoting the typical complaints by the citizens:
."When I was taking a walk with my son in the children's park we bumped into a frightening scene: there was a bloody body laying on the stretcher covered with a sheet, whereas two "doctors" were making an operation on the stomach. A man standing by their side and using a loudspeaker, was saying that in China the members of the Falun Gong "circle" were constantly being exposed to organs' extraction with the purpose of organ trafficking to the US. My child burst out in hysterics, whereas I was shocked as well…I ask you to appeal to the city administration with a request to put an end to this mess in the children's park" (an extract from the request);
. (from the address of the local organization of the KPU to the city mayor) "We, the Dnepropetrovsk communists, who have always done their utmost for our city's prosperity, bridle at the exploitation of the Globa children's park territory with the purpose of spiteful anticommunist slandering, advertised by the members of the regional social organization (a sect) the Falun Dafa… We ask you, as the elected representative of people, entrusted by the citizens, to take measures for prevention of the insult, exposed to millions of the Ukrainian communist party members and veterans of the war and labour".
. (from the complaint to the DSC "Dialogue") "My nephew was very frightened at sight of the bloodstained sheet. I was also shocked by this "play". As it became clear later, the organizers of that disorder were the sectarians from the Falun Dafa organization. They also demonstrated photographs with human tortures. I don't understand, why our city administration allows such public events that harm the unstable children's psyche, especially taking into account the fact that the action took place in the children's park".
The law department of the city council has repeatedly tried to infringe the above mentioned actions by means of suits, suggesting limiting "The Falun Dafa system" activities. But due to the imperfection of the Ukrainian legislation it was practically impossible to fulfill.
In autumn 2007 (for the first time in Ukraine) there was founded a social expert-and-consultative committee on the issues of the citizens constitutional rights protection at the department of internal policy of Dnepropetrovsk city council. The working staff of this committee includes specialists in psychology, psychiatry, law, history, religious studies, philosophy, as well as public figures of our city. The committee was created in compliance with the article about the social expert-and-consultative committees in the executive bodies of the city council.
This committee is a consultative board, created in the executive bodies of the city council, with the purpose of involving the citizens into the work of the city administration.
- One of the main tasks of the committee is to carry out a social expertise, put on the agenda by the chairman of the respective Executive body. This expertise will concern the city life issues.
- Cooperation with the territorial community as for the activities of the city administration;
- Offering suggestions on the city administration improvement taking into account the concrete department's policy orientation;
Observing numerous complaints about the Falun Dafa activities and addresses to the city council, made by the chairman of the internal policy department of the Dnepropetrovsk city council, a decision has been made to carefully investigate all sides of the above mentioned organization activities, involving the specialists of the expert-and-consultative committee.
The work on the social expert evaluations has been done by the listed below specialists of the expert-and-consultative committee:
- the current member of the Professional psychotherapeutic League (PPL), official teacher and supervisor of the PPL, candidate of medical science G.V.Shostakovych - Doctor of government administration science, Candidate of social sciences, Associate Professor, the Chairman of the Department of sociopsychological research at the Customs Academy N.A. Lypovska.
- Dean of the Law School at the Customs Academy of Ukraine, Candidate of Juridical Science, Associate Professor Gmyrko V.P.
- Associate Professor of the Department of theory and history of state and law at the Law School at the Customs Academy of Ukraine, Candidate of Historical Science, Associate Professor, Dyachok Oleg Olexandrovych.
- Associate Professor of the Department of criminal-and-legal disciplines at the Law School at the Customs Academy of Ukraine, Candidate of Juridical Science Uzhva Lilia Olexandrivna.
The specialists explicitly consider that distribution of the Falun Dafa doctrine ideas provokes negative consequences for the society, and the public events, organized by the Falun Gong adherents are asocial.
