Airwaves and newspapers had capitalized on a self-immolation incident at Tiananmen Square earlier that year-shown later to be staged under Beijing’s orders-designed to cast the adherents as suicidal. The persecution had also just reached new heights in 2001. Police detain a Falun Gong protester in Tiananmen Square as a crowd watches in Beijing on Oct. Many were driven out of work or school, and had their books relating to the practice confiscated and burned. But this came to a screeching halt in July 1999, when the CCP unleashed a nationwide campaign to eradicate the practice.Īdherents had since become the victims of harassment, physical torment, detention, and slave labor. During the 1990s, rows and rows of Falun Gong practitioners could be seen doing the practice’s slow-moving exercises every morning in parks and squares across the country. That was two years after the Chinese Communist Party (CCP) had declared Falun Gong, also known as Falun Dafa, an enemy for no apparent reason other than the spiritual practice’s vast popularity estimates at the time placed the number of practitioners between 70 million and 100 million.
Joel Chipkar (L) secretly videotapes the appeal of 36 Westerners in Tiananmen Square in Beijing on Nov. The police would swarm in, and arrests would follow.Īnd Chipkar’s role was to watch-and document it all. But this was a ruse they would later sit in a meditation position, while some would unfurl an eight-foot-long golden banner bearing the Chinese and English words for “truthfulness, compassion, and tolerance”-the three core principles of the persecuted faith group Falun Gong.
In a few moments, the group of Westerners would congregate, standing or sitting in four rows as if posing for a group shot in front of the iconic Tiananmen Tower. There was suppressed excitement hanging in the air. Drawing any attention to himself could be detrimental to the plan. He recognized a few faces, but thought it wise not to greet anyone. It was still uncommon to see so many Western faces in that country.Ĭhipkar stopped himself while at some distance from the group. The scene was attracting quite a few curious glances.
It took no time for Chipkar to find what he was looking for: 20 feet west of the Chinese flag pole, a crowd of two or three dozen people with light hair like his had quietly gathered about, some sitting, others standing and smoothing their collars. He was making a beeline for the north end of the square. Pedestrians strolled leisurely in twos and threes over the vast stretches of gray pavement, though Chipkar didn’t notice them much. The sun was bright, and the air was crisp. 20, 2001-was as fine as it got in a city notorious for its dense, grayish smog. The brown-haired, 33-year-old real estate broker, wearing a black jacket and khaki pants, walked briskly to Tiananmen Square, the heart of China’s capital that just over a decade earlier had been reddened by the blood of thousands of students slain or wounded by the communist regime’s tanks and guns. Carrying a large backpack, and clutching a travel guide in one hand, Canadian Joel Chipkar looked the part of a typical tourist.