July 24, 2004
Fort Lauderdale, Florida
USA
To Whom It May Concern:
I am James Randi, president of the James Randi Educational Foundation (JREF) in Fort Lauderdale, Florida. This is a non-profit 501 (c) 3 organization dedicated to bringing dependable information on so-called paranormal and supernatural matters to the media, to students, to researchers, and to the merely curious. We maintain a web page-updated once a week - at www.randi.org which receives an average of 90,000 "page hits" a day from all over the world. We are concerned at situation that presently exists, and we wish to bring attention to it.
I am writing to defend my friend Mr. Zhao Zhi Zhen, a Chinese citizen who has been very active in the defense of rationality and scientific progress. I believe that his cause is one that we should all support and encourage. Promoting understanding between cultures is of great importance to the international community, more now than ever before, and science is a language that we all speak and depend on for communication.
Mr. Zhao is the director of Wuhan TV, and his Light of Science series - China's most effective popular television science program - has been popularizing and explaining science and technology in China for over ten years, while fighting against the pseudoscience and superstition that is so prevalent there. As examples of the sort of claims he faces daily, he is told that water can be changed into oil by certain secret procedures, and that there is a strange slope in Shenyang city where cars coast along without using fuel while going up the mountain, and one must actually lubricate the car to enable it to go down the mountain! It is interesting to see that China has very much the same pseudoscientific claims being made there, that we encounter here at the JREF in the USA!
I first met Mr. Zhao years ago in Wuhan, China, while I was lecturing at Wuhan University. He proved to be a person of great character and perception, and he showed dedication to his cause. This is a man who deserves a vigorous defense effort in regard to a problem that has now arisen for him.
Mr. Zhao Zhi Zhen's scientific films have uncovered that truth about the claims of a Chinese citizen - presently taking refuge in New York City - -named Li Hong Zhi. This man's cult group is known as Falun Gong. While this poses as a religious organization in very much the way that the Church of Scientology has chosen to do, it is a group based entirely on supernatural and pseudoscientific claims. A few of their outrageous claims serve to illustrate this.
For examples, Li declares that he is the greatest god in the universe and that the Earth is a "dustbin." All persons, he says, will go to heaven if they follow him, and that is "magical influence" will protect believers - followers - from dying in any car accident or in building collapses. He commands that if believers become ill, they should not go to hospitals because Falun Gong can immediately cure any diseases, and they would automatically become well. He even advertises that he himself can fly in the air, etc... This man is simply another scam artist, not worthy of the respect given him by his followers.
After Falun Gong was banned in China because of its false, damaging, and dangerous teachings, Li Hong Zhi and his followers here in the USA began organizing different activities to fight those they perceived as enemies, threatening or suing those who did not believe in them or who exposed their tricks. They took advantage of the false perception they had created that Falun Gong is a legitimate religion, and sought to obtain advantages granted religious organizations in this country.
Now, after learning that Mr. Zhao is in the USA for his daughter's graduating ceremony from Yale, several Falun Gong agents have taken a civil action against Mr. Zhao under the 1789 Alien Tort Claims Act (ATCA), accusing Light of Science, under his direction, if "slandering" the Falun Gong in 1999. This is clearly egregious harassment by Falun Gong.
This action, we believe, is a ridiculous and absurd matter; Zhao and his Light of Science program should have the rights to media freedom of information, and freedom of speech. This case should not be allowed in the US courts at all. Mr. Zhao is ready to ask the judge to dismiss the complaint through the United States District Court, District of Connecticut.
Involvement in a lawsuit in the USA would waste a lot of time, energy, and money. This may well interfere with Mr. Zhao returning home for the opening of the 3nd Beijing International Science Film Festival, an important function which will be attended by scientists and film-makers from all over the world. He is a responsible person who has declined to merely leave the USA without resolving this situation; if he were to do so, he might lose the case by default. This is an intolerable use of the US system of justice to silence a man who is trying to tell the truth.
As a result, I hereby entreat you to help Mr. Zhao Zhi Zhen, an internationally recognized and respected science film producer, writer, and Festival organizer, to have the civil lawsuit dismissed. That would be genuine justice, rather than the mis-use of our system that the Falun Gong agents wish to apply.
Thank you for your attention to this matter.
James Randi
President
