Falun Gong or Falun Dafa is a new religious movement. Falun Gong was founded by its leader Li Hongzhi in China in the early 1990s. Falun Gong has its global headquarters in Dragon Springs, a 400-acre (160 ha) compound around Cuddebackville in Deerpark, New York, near the current residence of Li Hongzhi. Falun Gong's performance arts extension, Shen Yun and two closely connected schools, Fei Tian College and Fei Tian Academy of the Arts, also operate in and around Dragon Springs.
David William Kilgour is a Canadian human rights activist, author, former lawyer, and politician. He is also a Senior Fellow to the Raoul Wallenberg Centre for Human Rights.
Li Hongzhi is a Chinese religious leader. He is the founder and leader of Falun Gong, or Falun Dafa, a United States-based new religious movement. Li began his public teachings of Falun Gong on 13 May 1992 in Changchun, and subsequently gave lectures and taught Falun Gong exercises across China.
Dhirajlal Hirachand Ambani, popularly known as Dhirubhai Ambani was an Indian business tycoon who founded Reliance Industries. Ambani took Reliance public in 1977 and was worth US $2.9 billion in 2002 upon his death. In 2016, he was honoured posthumously with the Padma Vibhushan, India's second-highest civilian honour for his contributions to trade and industry.
Mukesh Dhirubhai Ambani is an Indian billionaire businessman, and the chairman, managing director, and largest shareholder of Reliance Industries Ltd. (RIL), a Fortune Global 500 company and India's most valuable company by market value. According to Forbes, he is the richest person in Asia with a net worth of US$102.1 billion and the 10th richest person in the world, as of 14th October 2021.
Anil Dhirubhai Ambani is an Indian businessman. He is the chairman of Reliance Group, which was created in July 2006 following a demerger from Reliance Industries Limited. He leads a number of stocks listed corporations including Reliance Capital, Reliance Infrastructure, Reliance Power and Reliance Communications. Ambani, once the sixth richest person in the world, declared before a UK court in February 2020 that his net worth is zero and he is bankrupt, although the veracity of that claim is in question. He served in the Rajya Sabha, the upper house of the Parliament of India from Uttar Pradesh as an Independent MP between 2004 and 2006.
New Tang Dynasty Television is a multilingual American television broadcaster, founded by adherents of the Falun Gong new religious movement and based in New York City. The station was founded in 2001 as a Chinese-language broadcaster, but has since expanded its language offerings. The company retains a focus on mainland China in its news broadcasts. It is a major part of a group of media outlets representing Falun Gong. During the COVID-19 pandemic, the news channel have been criticized for spreading COVID-19 vaccine misinformation.
The Epoch Times is a far-right international multi-language newspaper and media company affiliated with the Falun Gong new religious movement. The newspaper, based in New York City, is part of the Epoch Media Group, which also operates New Tang Dynasty (NTD) Television. The Epoch Times has websites in 35 countries but is blocked in mainland China.
Falun Gong, also called Falun Dafa, is a spiritual practice and system of beliefs that combines the practice of meditation with the moral philosophy articulated by its founder, Li Hongzhi. It emerged on the public radar in the Spring of 1992 in the northeastern Chinese city of Changchun, and was classified as a system of qigong identifying with the Buddhist tradition. Falun Gong initially enjoyed official sanction and support from Chinese government agencies, and the practice grew quickly on account of the simplicity of its exercise movements, impact on health, the absence of fees or formal membership, and moral and philosophical teachings.
Falun Gong, a new religious movement that combines meditation with the moral philosophy articulated by founder Li Hongzhi, first began spreading widely in China in 1992. Li's first lectures outside mainland China took place in Paris in 1995. At the invitation of the Chinese ambassador to France, he lectured on his teachings and practice methods to the embassy staff and others. From that time on, Li gave lectures in other major cities in Europe, Asia, Oceania, and North America. He has resided permanently in the United States since 1998. Falun Gong is now practiced in some 70 countries worldwide, and the teachings have been translated to over 40 languages. The international Falun Gong community is estimated to number in the hundreds of thousands, though participation estimates are imprecise on account of a lack of formal membership.
The Tiananmen Square self-immolation incident took place in Tiananmen Square in central Beijing, on the eve of Chinese New Year on 23 January 2001. There is controversy over the incident; Chinese government sources say that five members of Falun Gong, a new religious movement that is persecuted in mainland China, set themselves on fire in the square. Falun Gong sources disputed the accuracy of these portrayals, and claimed that their teachings explicitly forbid violence or suicide. Several journalists have suggested the self-immolations were staged.
Swaminathan Gurumurthy , also known as Thuglaq Gurumurthy, is an RSS Ideologue. He is also a journalist editing the Tamil political weekly Thuglak and a Chartered Accountant. He is also the editor of Rajasthan Patrika.
The Kilgour–Matas report is a 2006/2007 investigative report into allegations of live organ harvesting in China conducted by Canadian MP David Kilgour and human rights lawyer David Matas. The report was requested by the Coalition to Investigate the Persecution of Falun Gong (CIPFG) after allegations emerged that Falun Gong practitioners were secretly having their organs removed against their will at Sujiatun Thrombosis Hospital. The report, based on circumstantial evidence, concluded that "there has been, and continues today to be, large-scale organ seizures from unwilling Falun Gong practitioners." China has consistently denied the allegations.
The Weiquan movement is a non-centralized group of lawyers, legal experts, and intellectuals in China who seek to protect and defend the civil rights of the citizenry through litigation and legal activism. The movement, which began in the early 2000s, has organized demonstrations, sought reform via the legal system and media, defended victims of human rights abuses, and written appeal letters, despite opposition from Communist Party authorities. Among the issues adopted by Weiquan lawyers are property and housing rights, protection for AIDS victims, environmental damage, religious freedom, freedom of speech and the press, and defending the rights of other lawyers facing disbarment or imprisonment.
Manohar J. Pherwani was a Chairman of the Unit Trust of India for almost a decade until November 1989. He was also the Chairman of the National Housing Bank (NHB). He was also known for his involvement in the 1992 Indian stock market scam.
The persecution of Falun Gong is the antireligious campaign initiated in 1999 by the Chinese Communist Party (CCP) to eliminate the spiritual practice of Falun Gong in China, maintaining a doctrine of state atheism. It is characterized by a multifaceted propaganda campaign, a program of enforced ideological conversion and re-education and reportedly a variety of extralegal coercive measures such as arbitrary arrests, forced labor and physical torture, sometimes resulting in death.
Tonse Ananth Pai, was an Indian banker and politician, who was responsible for the success of Syndicate Bank as its general manager and later as chairman. He is also the founder of T. A. Pai Management Institute.
The Polyester Prince: The Rise of Dhirubhai Ambani is an unauthorised biography of the Indian business tycoon and founder of Reliance Industries Limited (RIL) Dhirubhai Ambani by Hamish McDonald, an Australian journalist and author. This book was published in 1998 in Australia by Allen & Unwin but never published in India.
Ethan Gutmann is an American writer, researcher, author, and a Senior Research Fellow in China Studies at the Victims of Communism Memorial Foundation whose work has investigated surveillance and organ harvesting in China.
Forced organ harvesting from Falun Gong practitioners and other political prisoners in China has raised increasing concern within the international community. According to a report by former lawmaker David Kilgour, human rights lawyer David Matas and journalist Ethan Gutmann, political prisoners, mainly Falun Gong practitioners, are being executed "on demand" in order to provide organs for transplant to recipients. The organ harvesting has taken place both as a result of the Chinese Communist Party's persecution of Falun Gong and because of the financial incentives available to the institutions and individuals involved in the trade.
