Anchor: The Tian'anmen Square self-immolation incident plotted by the cult organization Falun Gong one year ago astonished the whole world. Falun Gong's cult feature of mind-manipulation and homicide has been fully exposed ever since then. What are the situations of the people involved in this incident after a year? Our reporter interviewed them once again.
There were seven people who went to the Tian'anmen Square for self-immolation, named Wang Jindong, Liu Yunfang, Liu Baorong, Hao Huijun, Chen Guo, Liu Chunling and Liu Siying, of whom the latter four are two mother-daughter pairs respectively. Liu Chunling died on the spot and her daughter Liu Siying also lost her life for the pathological changes from burn at the age of 12 after unsuccessful emergency treatment. Wang Jindong, Hao Huijun and Chen Guo were severely burned. Liu Yunfang and Liu Baorong were stopped before they could set fire on themselves. This incident caused two people to death and three to severe burn.
Beijing No. 1 Intermediate People's Procuratorate prosecuted before Beijing No. 1 Intermediate People's Court the people who had organized, plotted, instigated and helped these Falun Gong followers to immolate themselves on May 30, 2001. The court heard the case on July 19 and found Liu Yunfang, Wang Jindong and Xue Huijun guilty. Liu Baorong, who played a much lesser role, was exempted from criminal punishment.
Hao Huijun and her daughter Chen Guo have survived from the serious burn thanks to the timely emergency treatment and they are now still in hospital for rehabilitation. Cui Li, Chen Guo's aunt, happened to come to visit them when our reporter arrived at the hospital.
The reporter saw Chen Guo, a student of Central Conservatory of Music.
Chen Guo: Aunt, nice to see you.
Cui Li: Nice to see you.
The reporter noted that Cui Li had brought a few of books to Chen Guo.
Reporter: Chen Guo, do you like these books?
Chen Guo: Yes, I do.
Reporter: Are you able to read them?
Chen Guo: Yes, but I can't read for a long time because my eyes will feel tired.
Reporter: How long can you read each time?
Chen Guo: No more than ten minutes.
Now, Hao Huijun and Chen Guo have lost ability of daily life and need 24-hour care.
Reporter: What do you do everyday?
Chen Guo: The chief nurse does physical therapy for me every day in order to soften the scars on the knee joints. Then the accompany will go out for a walk, watch TV or read newspapers with us.
The reporter interviewed Cui Wei, their nurse.
Cui Wei: Their situation is stabilized on the whole and currently the treatment is focused on the wounds. We hope the wounds will recover as soon as possible through dressing changes for them. And another focus is to recover the functions of joints.
The situation of Hao Huijun is worse than that of Chen Guo. One of her eyes is completely blind.
Reporter: What does Chen Guo look like in your memory?
Hao Huijun: She is very beautiful, very beautiful.
Her daughter is still very beautiful in the mother's memory.
Reporter: Can you see your Mum?
Chen Guo: Yes, I can. This eye is OK.
Reporter: Only this eye?
Chen Guo: hum.
Reporter: Do you feel painful when seeing your Mum in such a condition?
Chen Guo: I've got used to it. You have to change and can't remain as before after the burning. You can get used to it gradually.
Reporter: So you are used to it?
Chen Guo: I think she really looks like a big puppet.
Reporter: Like what?
Chen Guo: Big puppet.
Reporter: Like the one in your cartoon?
Chen Guo: Right. So I call her "Big Puppet".
Reporter: You call your Mum "Big Puppet"?
Chen Guo: Hum.
Reporter: Does she answer you?
Chen Guo: Yes.
Reporter: Your Mum even answers. What does she call you?
Chen Guo: I call her "Big Puppet", so she calls me "Little Puppet".
Cui Li's heart was full of sorrow as soon as she left her relatives, though she was always smiling in front of them.
Chen Guo' aunt Cui Li: Chen Guo has been the apple of our eye since she was a child. She has been the pride and entire hope of the whole family. Especially my mother has tried her best to give her a good education no matter how difficult it might be, though she is a retired old woman with a low pension of over 200 Yuan a month.
Reporter: Is she the hope of the whole family?
Cui Li: Right.
Reporter: When would Chen Guo graduate as scheduled?
Cui Li: She would graduate from university in 2003.
Reporter: You mean next year?
Cui Li: Yes.
The reporter interviewed Chen Guo's mother.
Reporter: Why did you do that at that time?
Hao Huijun: Blind faith, it's just because of blind faith.
Reporter: It's just because of blind faith.
Hao Huijun: Yes, it's just because of blind faith in Falun Gong.
Reporter: Did you ever think of such a result when you did that?
Hao Huijun: I never thought of this. Please don't mention it again. I don't want to talk about it any more.
They pin their hope on the future because it's so hard to recall the past time.
Chen Guo: I feel things will be better and better rather than worse and worse. Our future will be better than today. It should be that. It should be.
Liu Baorong, another self-immolation participant, is much luckier than Hao Huijun and Chen Guo. She has returned home and now stays with her family.
The reporter interviewed Liu Baorong, a survivor of Tian'anmen Square self-immolation participators.
Liu Baorong: I'm very very lucky，uncommonly lucky. I'm the luckiest among the seven. I'm the luckiest. I've come back, you see, it's so good. My family is so good to me, and all of you are so good to me. It's true.
Reporter: What would have happened if you had not been stopped in time?
Liu Baorong: I can't imagine. I would have been burned to death. Absolutely. I was the first to drink gas. I must have been burned to death with gas inside my body. Absolutely. I would have lost my life.
Reporter: What do you do in your daily life?
Liu Baorong: I read books and poems. I like poems in Tang and Song Dynasties and have got the books. I used to like this kind of things.
Reporter: She even wrote two poems by herself.
Liu Baorong: I don't want to look back the past. I just want to look forward and lead a normal life. That's all.
The biggest wish of Liu Baorong is to live calmly with her family.
During the year ever since, the experiences differentiated largely among the seven people who were involved in the Tian'anmen Square self-immolation incident. Wang Jindong and Liu Yunfang who organized, plotted and instigated this tragedy are now serving their sentences in jail.
Liu Yunfang was the main organizer of the incident. He still believed in the cult organization Falun Gong stubbornly one year later.
The reporter interviewed Liu Yunfang, one of the participants in the Tian'anmen Square self-immolation incident.
Liu Yunfang: I went to Tian'anmen Square for self-immolation only to tell people the truth with my body. "Falun Dafa" is true.
Reporter: What kind of help can this approach give to your cultivation?
Liu Yunfang: When "Falun Dafa" comes to a certain time, there must be a level to test who is cultivating sincerely and who is not. You have to wear down your "attachment", including your life, all of your life.
Liu didn't set himself on fire in the Tian'anmen Square self-immolation incident though he is obsessed in the cult and claimed to wear down his life.
Wang Jindong was the first one who set himself on fire on the spot. On the fourth day after the incident, the reporter interviewed him.
The reporter interviewed Wang on January 26, 2001.
Reporter: Do you miss you relatives?
Wang Jindong: No, none of them.
Since then, the reporter had interviewed him several times. The last time occurred in July last year, during the open trial period.
Reporter: What a position does your master have in your heart?
Wang Jindong: He is the main Buddha in the universe. I believe my master will return me a true appearance and body that should have belonged to me when the proper time comes.
At that time, he was still strongly convinced of Li Hongzhi's fallacies.
(Document) Li Hongzhi said, "normal people take affection for granted. But as cultivators, we should be the ones at the highest level. In order to break through such things, we should belittle a lot of attachments that have derived from affection and eventually wear them down completely."
Li Hongzhi requests the Falun Gong practitioners break off all their kinships and obey his order absolutely.
The reporter interviewed Wang Jindong, one of the participants in the Tian'anmen Square self-immolation incident.
Wang Jindong: I'm in my cultivation. Whatever pains and sufferings mean nothing to me. However, the affection does trouble me and they are difficult to give up. Now I'm not doing well at this aspect.
Half a year later, the reporter met Wanng Jindong again to find that he had made a change.
The reporter met him in January, 2002.
Reporter: it is in July that we met last time. Your hands were not easy to move at that time, were they?
Wang Jindong: My hands were like that at that time.
Reporter: Let me have a look. Can you grasp my hand? Yes, you can now. Last time we couldn't even shake hands.
It was Wang Jindong's birthday on January 8. On this special day, his wife and daughter came to see him. Both of them were once obsessed in Falun Gong and now they have totally broken away from the mental manipulation by this cult.
Reporter: What was in your mind when you planed to go to the Tian'anmen Square for self-immolation?
Wang Jindong: At that time, our master continually gave lections to go out. From his lectures in Changchun City and his book "Wear down the Last Attachment" to the lections downloaded from the Internet, all ordered us to go out. Why? Because we are obsessed in the circle. We are obsessed, without any thinking all the time, without normal thinking of human being. So our minds are manipulated in this circle.
Reporter: In your opinion, how can he manage to get rid of someone's normal thinking?
Wang Jindong: Because all of his lections are full of consummation… In fact, he wants you to wear down your attachment, while triggering a biggest attachment in your heart, that is, consummation.
The reporter interviewed Wang Juan, Wang Jindong's daughter.
Wang Juan: He lures you to get better things ordinary people can't get. You can get things you couldn't get in the world through cultivation. So you devote your body and soul to cultivation and try your best to give up everything in the world.
Reporter: Then what's the purpose?
Wang Juan: The purpose is to get something in another world and something that ordinary people can't get.
Wang Jindong: In fact, it's a kind of selfishness hidden deeply. Actually, I now realize that this selfishness is in the guise of a beautiful mask.
Wang Juan: At that time, my Japanese language teacher, while knowing I was practicing Falun Gong, told me that cultivation itself was attachment and selfishness.
Reporter: You didn't believe at that time, right?
Wang Juan: I didn't believe him at all, and I even looked down on them.
Wang Jindong: Wang Juan's Japanese language teacher is very good to Wang Juan. He has bought a lot of books written by Li Hongzhi for the sake of study. He said, "Lao Wang, you see, I've read all these books." He told me Li Hongzhi was a big liar. His language structures, his grammar, every aspects of his language are not normative at all. A lot of his terms are pirated from Buddhism and Taoism. He said his eventual purpose was to accumulate money and a lot of cult organizations around the world have thus developed. He told me we would regret sooner or later. At last he asked me again and again not to make suicide or kill other people. At that time, I thought it was nonsense. How would a clear man like me to commit suicide, let alone killing other people? I want to be a good man. How could I kill any one?
Reporter: When did that happen?
Wang Jindong: In the first half of 1998. But the result was this. Now I know that, Wang Juan's Japanese language teacher is really wise. Things wouldn't have become like this if I had followed his words. But it's too late.
Reporter: You believed these things so firmly in the past, even willing to sacrifice your life. I think you were feeling painful to give it up.
Wang Jindong: Yes. This kind of suffering was more than physical pain. It reaches to the heart and bone. Most important, it is the tragedy made by Fu yibin that shocked me. Why? What I adhered to, what I attached to, what I regarded as incomparably nice, where do they go in the end? That is just killing, killing oneself and killing others.
Suicide and homicide were not wishes of Wang Jindong when he began to practice Falun Gong. At that time Falun Gong, a cult organization, in the guise of karmic retribution and using consummation as bait, forced them on a road of suicide and homicide.
Wang Jindong: What make me suffer most in the heart is the two people who died and the two people who are now in hospital. I cry whenever I think of them. No matter on what occasion, tears come down whenever I think of them. My conscience is so stricken and I always blame myself.
Reporter: Now, how do you think that Falun Gong has been announced illegal by the Chinese Government?
Wang Jindong: Surely it's a correct decision. If things are allowed to go without control, perhaps a great many of tragedies like Fu Yibin and me would happen again.
Wang Jindong plans to write down his story so that more people can recognize how Falun Gong destroys people's mind and takes away people's life.
Anchor: The Tian'anmen Square self-immolation incident taking place one year ago was absolutely due to the mind manipulation and bewitchery by Li Hongzhi and his cult organization Falun Gong. It's no doubt a tragedy for the people who have been involved in the self-immolation incident, for their family and for the whole society. The tragedy has sounded the alarm that we must pay much attention to and keep on the alert of the cult organizations and eliminate their harms, so that such kind of tragedies will never occur again. This incident tells us that we can never have a peaceful society if we don't eradicate the cult organizations.
(CCTV, Janaury 19, 2005)
