Wang Jindong and Xue Hongjun, the Falun Gong followers who participated and instigated suicide burning incident in Tian'anmen Square on Jan 23, 2001, accepted the interview of Chinese and foreign reporters in the jail of Zhengzhou, Henan province. They said that the Falun Gong is the spiritual opium coated in religion.
along with Wang and Xue, Liu Yunfang, one of three who participated in suicide burning incident in Tian'anmen Square, is now serving the sentence in the jail of Zhengzhou, is still deeply bogged in the Falun Gong quagmire.
The interview started at 3:30 p.m. of April 3, 2002 in a spacious meeting room of the Zhengzhou Jail. Wang and Xue in clean sky-blue prisoner's clothes went into the room at 3:15 p.m., both looked calm and relaxed.
When a reporter asked Wang "for what purpose you went to burn yourself at Tian'anmen Square?"
"For 'consummation', as the highest attainment of Falun Gong is 'consummation'. Now I know the so-called 'consummation' by Li Hongzhi is a sheer cheating. To burn oneself won't be able to achieve 'consummation', 'ascending to heaven' but to harm myself."
"For what purpose did you start to practice Falun Gong?"
"The purpose is very simple, for keeping myself fit. However, later on Li Hongzhi said mankind would undergo a big catastrophe and Falun Gong could help avoid it. In this sense Falun Gong has actually overstepped the purpose of keeping fit," said Wang Jindong.
When asked: "The Falun Gong organization outside China said that you were not Falun Gong disciple and the 'suicide burning' was organized by the government."
Wang Jindong answered calmly: "I've learned of this and the fact is very clear they are rumors spread by some people of ulterior motives."
"I have been Wang's bosom-friend for decades. At that time many people say that Falun Gong is a good thing and so I asked somebody to buy a book of 'Zhuan Falun'('Turning the Wheel of Law') and gave to him. I thought this was good for him. Who knows I did harm to him for which I'll repent for all my life to come," said Xue Hongjun sitting by the side.
Xue Hongjun, one of the main members who instigated the suicide burning incident in Tian'anmen Square kept a fresh memory of the incident. About this he said, "At that time I and Wang Jindong, a group of "Falun Gong' disciples have been practicing it for more than a year and have never gone out 'doing promotion of it.' Li Hongzhi gave us orders from the net and wanted us to leave aside life and death and go out doing promotion of it so as to achieve so-called 'consummation.' And by that time for most of the disciple friends to go for suicide burning in Tian'anmen Square is already an irresistible trend so as to attain 'consummation.'" But Xue Hongjun later failed to go there. He said: "I didn't go there myself because I was at the lower level comparing with Wang and it's equal to not having been there and of no significance should I go. But when I saw on TV screen the disastrous scene of suicide burning in the Tian'anmen Square I was greatly shocked. The so-called 'consummation' is no more than the tragic scene of Wang Jindong and others being seriously burnt. This is the true face of Falun Gong."
When the reporter asked Wang Jindong: "Somebody said that your wife and daughter were false and they were 'temporarily organized' and even the scars on your face were not true and they were the make-ups." Wang Jindong said indignantly: "Whoever doesn't believe can touch my face to see whether it's true or not."
Speaking of this, he at once fetched out from him an album in which there are pictures of his family including his wife and daughter and said, "We've married more than 20 years. At that time there was no Falun Gong at all in China."
As introduced by Wang Jindong and Xue Hongjun, they were fairly well treated in the Zhengzhou jail and the "police take a great concern for us, and never swear and scorn at us." Xue Hongjun said, "Life in the prison is arranged in a regular way, we have enough time to study, we can ready newspaper and watch TV as well. Xue Hongjun and I myself have already taken part in the national self-study examination for institute of high learning. I took part in the study of philosophy and Xue did the Chinese."
At the request of the reporters the prison made an exceptional arrangement for the reporters to see the ward in which Wang and Xue are jailed. If you say it's a jail there's no iron-gate as normally seen in a prison. The white walls, clean ground and the squarely folded quilt looking very much like a piece of bean-curd and the windows are netted off with a net of thin wires like the anti-theft screen-net of a normal household. Outside of the window one can see a spacious playground. In the room of over 20 square meters there are four double-decked crates but for the moment only shared by two of them. When the reporters stepped into the ward Wang was reading a philosophical book while Xue is practicing his Chinese handwriting with a pen.
Wang Jindong said, "He and I are all over 50 years old now and we'd like to make a fresh start in life by using the service of the sentence as our school-terms to make ourselves useful for society."
(China News Website, April 8, 2002)
