The entire state machinery of China’s Communist Party, including courts, media, police, and diplomatic core have been implicated in the campaign against Falun Gong. However, several individuals are chiefly responsible for launching and directing the persecution campaign and illegal detainment, torture and killing of Falun Gong practitioners. Many of these individuals have been served with civil and criminal Lawsuits in more than 20 countries outside of China. An overview of the most important key individuals is presented here.
Jiang Zemin
Jiang Zemin is the PRC’s former head of state. This position comprises three separate titles: Party chairman, president, and commander in chief of the army.
Jiang Zemin banned Falun Gong in July 1999. A month earlier he created the 6-10 Office to implement the persecution with the order to "destroy their reputation, ruin them financially, and eliminate them physically." Jiang Zemin is the chief official responsible for the campaign against Falun Gong.
Analyses show that Jiang single-handedly drafted the policy to suppress Falun Gong and that he overrode Prime Minister Zhu Rongji and the rest of committee of the Politburo who didn't support his plans initially. But since Jiang, as commander in chief of the army, had the biggest political power, he could single handedly push forward his persecution.
Leaders of the 6-10 Office
Jiang Zemin created the 6-10 Office and vested it with sweeping control over the organs of the state and Party, including the Public Security Ministry, the judiciary, labour camps, and the Propaganda Ministry.
Li Lanqing was Director of the Leadership Team for the 6-10 Office from 1999 to 2003. He also held the post of Vice Premier of the State Council of the PRC. He was in charge of the nationwide campaign against Falun Gong and issued many reports and speeches inciting hatred against the group.
Luo Gan was Deputy Director of the Leadership Team for the 6-10 Office up to 2007. Luo personally inspected labour camps around the country to ensure that all levels of government implemented Jiang’s directive to destroy Falun Gong practitioners. Luo Gan is the name most often associated with the early years of oppression, before the official ban in 1999. From 1996-1999 the Public Security Bureau, acting under Luo’s guidance, gradually intensified its spying on and harassing of Falun Gong practitioners, while state-run media began attacking the group. Two of the most famous media critiques, in fact, came from He Zuoxiu, Luo’s brother-in-law.
Liu Jing was Deputy Director of the Leadership Team for the 6-10 Office from 2000 to 2002. He hosted news conferences slandering Falun Gong and utilised the propaganda of the Tiananmen Square staged immolation incident to justify the persecution. He also directed forced transformation and brainwashing of Falun Gong practitioners at the provincial level.
Ministries
Jia Chunwang served as Minister of Public Security from 1999 to 2002. From 2003 to 2008, Jia held the post of Procurator General (AKA Attorney General) for the Supreme People's Procuratorate. While with the Public Security, Jia issued an instruction rendering immune any security forces, police, or prison staff responsible for the torture or murder of Falun Gong practitioners. He has been able to continue overseeing this impunity of those responsible for the persecution through his current position with the Supreme Court.
Sun Jiazheng was Minister of Culture (1998-2008). Since July 1999, this Ministry has ordered the confiscation and destruction of all Falun Gong publications nationwide and barred any further production. The Ministry has also monitored and controlled Internet communications in China to suppress the flow of any news regarding Falun Gong and to propagate the CCP line. The ministry under Sun has used overseas cultural activities to incite hatred against Falun Gong.
Chen Zhili is former Minister of Education. The Ministry of Education requires teachers and students at all levels to participate in the campaign to eliminate Falun Gong in educational institutions across China. Students and teachers are made to either publicly denounce Falun Gong in articles, exams, and public activities such as signing banners, or face expulsion, arrest, police interrogation, and even torture.
Other key individuals
Bo Xilai served from 2001 to 2004 as governor of Liaoning, one of four northeastern provinces where the persecution is particularly severe. After that he served as the Minister of Commerce. Bo formulated a policy of arbitrarily arresting, detaining, sentencing, torturing, and extra-judicially killing Falun Gong adherents. In particular, Bo supervised the Masanjia Forced Labour Camp, one of the nation’s primary facilities used to torture and kill the Falun Gong.
Wang Taihua is Anhui Province CCP Secretary. Wang supervised the Anhui Provincial Female Labour Camp, where he administratively detained Falun Gong adherents, had them tortured and subjected to a programme of forced transformation.
Huang Huahua was Governor of Guangdong Province (2003-2011) and since 2011 served as Deputy Secretary of the Central Committee of the CCP. As the highest-ranking government official in Guangdong, Huang has executive authority over police and security forces operating in the province. Huang planned, ordered, and authorised police and other security forces to persecute Falun Gong practitioners in Guangdong, especially in the Shanshui Women’s Forced Labour Camp. Because of Huang, Guangdong’s Falun Gong adherents have suffered arbitrary detention, forced labour, torture, and even extra-judicial killing.
Jia Qinglin was Major of Beijing (1997-2002) and former Secretary of the CCP in Beijing. As the top official there from 1999 to 2002, Jia gave speeches urging the further persecution of Falun Gong and praised those who carried out the campaign with notable enthusiasm.
Zhao Zhizhen is Executive Director of the Wuhan Broadcasting and Television Bureau, a state-run media agency. Zhao had authority to set editorial and programming policy. Through an ongoing and extensively applied practice of demonising Falun Gong practitioners in broadcast media, Zhao incited hatred against them on a large scale. The materials produced under his supervision have been used to instigate security officials to arbitrarily detain, torture, or kill Falun Gong adherents who do not renounce their beliefs.
