The Cult Dossier · No. 074 · Eastern-Derived

Falun Gong

Falun Dafa

May 1992 – present · Changchun, China; now USA (Dragon Springs, New York) and worldwide

VIII. THE 1990s — THE MILLENNIUM APPROACHES

Fully religious — qigong-derived new religious movement

Who led it

LI HONGZHI (b.1951 or 1952), a former grain office clerk and trumpet player, called MASTER LI.

What it worshipped and taught

Cultivation practice combining five sets of qigong exercises with a moral doctrine of Truthfulness, Compassion and Forbearance (Zhen Shan Ren). Li teaches that he installs a FALUN — a rotating law wheel — in the abdomen of practitioners, which turns continuously and absorbs energy. Doctrine set out in Zhuan Falun (1995). Distinctive teachings include the claim that modern medicine cannot cure the karmic root of illness and that genuine practitioners do not need it; that aliens introduced modern technology to replace humanity; that homosexuality and interracial children disrupt the cosmic order; and that the world is in the final Dharma-ending age. Practitioners are not organised into a church, do not pay dues, and largely practise in parks.

Who was in it

Li Hongzhi; his daughter; the Epoch Times, New Tang Dynasty Television and the SHEN YUN performing arts company, all Falun Gong-affiliated media and cultural operations; Zhu Rongji, the Chinese premier who initially negotiated; JIANG ZEMIN, who ordered the crackdown; the 610 OFFICE, the extralegal agency created to suppress the group; David Kilgour and David Matas, authors of the organ harvesting report.

How it ended, or where it stands

BANNED AND SEVERELY PERSECUTED IN CHINA, AND THE PERSECUTION RUNS THROUGH THE COURTS RATHER THAN AROUND THEM. Article 300 convictions began in December 1999 and have not stopped. Active and controversial in the West.

The dead

Thousands of practitioners reported killed in Chinese custody; the organ harvesting findings imply far higher figures

Of note

The most difficult classification in this dossier and it must be handled carefully. Falun Gong is simultaneously the victim of one of the largest ongoing religious persecutions in the world, and an organisation with documented high-control features — medical refusal, absolute deference to Li, and an aggressive media arm. Both things are true. Being persecuted does not make a group benign, and having cultic features does not make persecution acceptable.

THIS FILE IS ONE OF THE COUNTEREXAMPLES THAT CORRECTED ENTRY 150. The ban of 22 July 1999 was issued under the XIE JIAO provision, Article 300 of the Criminal Law — a prosecution of TEACHING, not of conduct. Whatever the American courts settled in FISHMAN has no purchase here.

Its timeline

13 May 1992 Li Hongzhi begins teaching publicly in Changchun.
1992–1996 Explosive growth during China's qigong boom. THE NUMBERS ARE CONTESTED IN BOTH DIRECTIONS. FALUN GONG CLAIMED 100 MILLION worldwide. THE 70 MILLION FIGURE that circulated in Western media ORIGINATED WITH CHINA'S STATE SPORTS COMMISSION, according to the scholar Maria Hsia Chang, and it is not clear it was ever independently verified. AFTER THE 1999 BAN THE CHINESE STATE REVISED ITS OWN FIGURE SHARPLY DOWNWARD, with Xinhua putting it at 2 MILLION — a change widely read as political rather than statistical. If the higher figures were close to right, Falun Gong had more adherents than the Communist Party had members, which is the fact that made the movement intolerable to Beijing.
1996 Zhuan Falun becomes a bestseller; state media begin criticising the movement.
25 APRIL 1999 THE ZHONGNANHAI DEMONSTRATION. Roughly 10,000–15,000 practitioners silently surround the central leadership compound in Beijing to petition for recognition after arrests in Tianjin. The demonstration is entirely peaceful and completely unanticipated by the security services. It is the largest unauthorised gathering in Beijing since 1989 and it terrifies the leadership.
22 JULY 1999 Falun Gong banned as a heretical organisation (xie jiao). The 610 Office is established on 10 June. A mass campaign of arrests, forced renunciation, re-education through labour and torture follows.
26 DECEMBER 1999 THE FIRST AND DEFINING ARTICLE 300 PROSECUTION. THE BEIJING NO. 1 INTERMEDIATE PEOPLE’S COURT SENTENCES FOUR ORGANISERS OF THE FALUN DAFA RESEARCH SOCIETY: LI CHANG, a Ministry of Public Security official, to EIGHTEEN YEARS; WANG ZHIWEN, a Railways Ministry official, to SIXTEEN; JI LIEWU to TWELVE; and YAO JIE to SEVEN, each with a further period of deprivation of political rights. The charges were ORGANISING AND USING A XIE JIAO ORGANISATION TO UNDERMINE THE IMPLEMENTATION OF THE LAW, causing death, and illegally obtaining state secrets. THIS IS THE CASE ENTRY 150 IS POINTING AT WHEN IT SAYS BELIEF REMAINS PROSECUTABLE OUTSIDE THE UNITED STATES, and until this file recorded it, the entry described the ban and never said what happened to a single defendant.
2000&ndash;present ARTICLE 300 REMAINS THE OPERATIVE CHARGE AND SENTENCING IS CONTINUOUS RATHER THAN HISTORICAL. THE TOTALS HERE ARE ATTRIBUTED RATHER THAN ASSERTED, BECAUSE NO INDEPENDENT COUNT EXISTS. MINGHUI, WHICH IS FALUN GONG’S OWN OUTLET AND THEREFORE AN INTERESTED PARTY, reported 1,190 practitioners sentenced in 2023, at least 541 in 2024 and 430 in the first half of 2025, with terms running to thirteen years and defendants aged from their twenties into their nineties. The CONGRESSIONAL-EXECUTIVE COMMISSION ON CHINA and the US COMMISSION ON INTERNATIONAL RELIGIOUS FREEDOM corroborate the PATTERN — continued prosecution under Article 300 for possessing texts, meeting to study them, or discussing the persecution — WITHOUT BEING ABLE TO VERIFY THE TOTALS. Treat the pattern as established and the arithmetic as one side’s.
23 January 2001 THE TIANANMEN SQUARE SELF-IMMOLATIONS. Five people set themselves on fire in the square; two die, including a 12-year-old girl. The Chinese state presents this as proof of the movement's danger; Falun Gong maintains the event was staged. Independent analysis of the footage is contested, and the truth is genuinely not established.
2006 onward Allegations, investigated by Kilgour and Matas and later by the independent China Tribunal (2019, chaired by Sir Geoffrey Nice QC), that Falun Gong prisoners of conscience have been killed for FORCED ORGAN HARVESTING. The China Tribunal concluded that forced organ harvesting had occurred on a significant scale and that Falun Gong practitioners were a principal source. China denies this.
2000s–present Li Hongzhi lives in the United States; the movement operates Dragon Springs in Deerpark, New York, and Shen Yun, which tours globally.
2020–2024 US reporting (New York Times, NBC) on labour conditions and injuries among young Shen Yun performers, and on the Epoch Times' role in political disinformation. In 2024 the Epoch Times' CFO was charged with money laundering.
2025–2026 SHEN YUN COMES UNDER CRIMINAL INVESTIGATION for possible visa fraud and labour violations, alongside an investigation by the New York State Department of Labor. Federal lawsuits by former child performers allege forced labour, physical abuse and denial of medical care at DRAGON SPRINGS, the 400-acre New York compound. One plaintiff, a dancer from age 13 to 24, describes the organisation as a forced labour enterprise. Shen Yun and Falun Gong deny the allegations.

Its people

Li Hongzhi

Master Li

Founder, Falun Gong · born 1951 or 1952 · active 1992–present

A former grain office clerk and trumpet player who began teaching a qigong practice in 1992 during China's qigong boom and drew, by state estimates, somewhere between 2 and 70 million practitioners — possibly more than the Communist Party had members. He has lived in the United States since the late 1990s and oversees the Epoch Times, New Tang Dynasty Television and Shen Yun.

Before the law. Wanted in China; no charges elsewhere. NOTE: the persecution of Falun Gong practitioners in China — including the China Tribunal's 2019 finding of forced organ harvesting — is real and severe.

Where things stand. Living in the United States. Both a persecuted figure and the head of a high-control organisation; both are true.

13 May 1992 Begins teaching publicly in Changchun.
1995 Zhuan Falun becomes a bestseller.
25 April 1999 10,000–15,000 practitioners silently surround the Zhongnanhai leadership compound.
22 July 1999 Falun Gong banned; the 610 Office begins a mass campaign of arrests and torture.
2000s–present Based at Dragon Springs, New York.

Checked 2026-08-24 · living: health details are kept at home

Sir Geoffrey Nice KC

—

Chair, the China Tribunal · born 1945 · active 2018–2019

The barrister who led the prosecution of Slobodan Milosevic at the International Criminal Tribunal for the Former Yugoslavia, and who chaired the independent China Tribunal on forced organ harvesting. On 17 June 2019 the Tribunal delivered its final judgment: that forced organ harvesting had been carried out on a significant scale across China for years, and that FALUN GONG PRACTITIONERS WERE THE PRINCIPAL SOURCE OF ORGANS, with Uyghurs, Tibetan Buddhists and house church Christians possibly also affected. The Tribunal had no state backing and no enforcement power; its authority rests entirely on the rigour of its process.

Before the law. Barrister; tribunal chair. The Tribunal is a private body, not a court; China rejects its findings entirely.

Where things stand. LIVING AND ACTIVE — confirmed August 2026. A barrister since 1971, he served at the INTERNATIONAL CRIMINAL TRIBUNAL FOR THE FORMER YUGOSLAVIA from 1998 to 2006, where he LED THE PROSECUTION OF SLOBODAN MILOŠEVIĆ. He chaired the CHINA TRIBUNAL and, from 2021, the UYGHUR TRIBUNAL, which he still chairs. ONE PRECISION: he was GRESHAM PROFESSOR OF LAW FROM 2012 TO 2016 — a past appointment, not a present one, and it should not be written in the present tense.

1998–2006 Leads the ICTY prosecution of Slobodan Milosevic.
2018 Agrees to chair the independent China Tribunal.
2018–19 The Tribunal hears dozens of witnesses and experts.
17 JUNE 2019 FINAL JUDGMENT: forced organ harvesting has occurred on a significant scale; Falun Gong practitioners are the principal source.
2019–present Testifies before legislatures including the US Congress.

Checked 2026-08-24 · living: health details are kept at home

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