Editing Falun Gong (section)

==International reception==
Since 1999, numerous Western governments and human rights organizations have expressed condemnation of the Chinese government's suppression of Falun Gong.<ref>{{harvp|Ownby|2008|p=229}}</ref> Since 1999, members of the United States Congress have made public pronouncements and introduced several resolutions in support of Falun Gong.<ref name="CRS2006">{{Cite web |url=https://fpc.state.gov/documents/organization/67820.pdf |title=CRS Report for Congress: China and Falun Gong |first=Thomas |last=Lum |date=25 May 2006 |publisher=Congressional Research Service |url-status=live |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20170904105343/https://fpc.state.gov/documents/organization/67820.pdf |archive-date=4 September 2017 |access-date=25 June 2017}}</ref> In 2010, U.S. House of Representatives Resolution 605 called for "an immediate end to the campaign to persecute, intimidate, imprison, and torture Falun Gong practitioners", condemned the Chinese authorities' efforts to distribute "false propaganda" about the practice worldwide, and expressed sympathy to persecuted Falun Gong practitioners and their families.<ref>[http://www.gpo.gov/fdsys/pkg/BILLS-111hres605eh/pdf/BILLS-111hres605eh.pdf United States House Resolution 605] {{Webarchive|url=https://web.archive.org/web/20160305194905/http://www.gpo.gov/fdsys/pkg/BILLS-111hres605eh/pdf/BILLS-111hres605eh.pdf |date=5 March 2016 }}, United States Government Printing Office, 17 March 2010</ref>

Adam Frank writes that in reporting on the Falun Gong, the Western tradition of casting the Chinese as "exotic" took dominance, and that while the facts were generally correct in Western media coverage, "the normalcy that millions of Chinese practitioners associated with the practice had all but disappeared."<ref>{{cite book| last = Frank | first = Adam | editor-last1 = Tétreault| editor-first1 = Mary Ann| editor-last2 = Denemark| editor-first2 = Robert Allen| date = 2004| title = Gods, Guns, and Globalization: Religious Radicalism and International Political Economy| chapter = Falun Gong and the Threat of History| url = | location = Boulder, Colorado| publisher = Lynne Rienner| page = 241| isbn = 1588262537}}</ref> David Ownby wrote that alongside these tactics, the "cult" label applied to Falun Gong by the Chinese authorities never entirely went away in the minds of some Westerners, and the stigma still plays a role in wary public perceptions of Falun Gong.<ref>{{harvp|Ownby|2008|p=248}}</ref>

To counter the support of Falun Gong in the West, the Chinese government expanded their efforts against the group internationally. This included visits to newspaper officers by diplomats to "extol the virtues of Communist China and the evils of Falun Gong",<ref name="jte">{{cite news| last = Turley-Ewart | first= John| url = http://www.ansleyandcompany.com/NationalPost-PersecutionToCanada0627-2001.html | title=Falun Gong persecution spreads to Canada| work = National Post | date = 20 March 2004| publisher= Ansley and Company|archive-date=4 July 2012|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20120704140258/http://www.ansleyandcompany.com/NationalPost-PersecutionToCanada0627-2001.html|url-status=live}}</ref> linking support for Falun Gong with "jeopardizing trade relations", and sending letters to local politicians telling them to withdraw support for the practice.<ref name=jte/> According to [[Perry Link]], pressure on Western institutions also takes more subtle forms, including academic self-censorship, whereby research on Falun Gong could result in a denial of visa for fieldwork in China; or exclusion and discrimination from business and community groups who have connections with China and fear angering Chinese government.<ref name=jte/><ref>{{cite web |first=Perry |last=Link |url=http://www.asianresearch.org/articles/2599.html |title=The Anaconda in the Chandelier: Chinese censorship today |website=AFAR |url-status=dead |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20161106003311/http://www.asianresearch.org/articles/2599.html |archive-date=6 November 2016 |date=27 May 2005}}</ref>

Although the persecution of Falun Gong has drawn condemnation outside China, some observers assert that Falun Gong has failed to attract the level of sympathy and sustained attention afforded to other Chinese dissident groups.<ref name=gutmann_carrytorch/>

[[Ethan Gutmann]], a journalist reporting on China since the early 1990s, has attempted to explain this apparent dearth of public sympathy for Falun Gong as stemming, in part, from the group's shortcomings in public relations. Unlike the democracy activists or Tibetans, who have found a comfortable place in Western perceptions, "Falun Gong marched to a distinctly Chinese drum", Gutmann writes. Moreover, practitioners' attempts at getting their message across carried some of the uncouthness of Communist Party culture, including a perception that practitioners tended to exaggerate, create "torture tableaux straight out of a Cultural Revolution opera", or "spout slogans rather than facts".<ref name="gutmann">{{Cite web |url=http://www.weeklystandard.com/Content/Public/Articles/000/000/015/824qbcjr.asp |title=China's Gruesome Organ Harvest. The whole world isn't watching. Why not? |last=Gutmann |first=Ethan |date=24 November 2008 |website=[[Weekly Standard]] |url-status=dead |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20120524133009/http://www.weeklystandard.com/Content/Public/Articles/000/000/015/824qbcjr.asp |archive-date=24 May 2012 |access-date=26 May 2012}}</ref> Gutmann also says that media organizations and human rights groups also self-censor on the topic, given the PRC governments vehement attitude toward the practice, and the potential repercussions that may follow for making overt representations on Falun Gong's behalf.<ref name="gutmann_carrytorch">{{cite news |first=Ethan |last=Gutmann |author-link=Ethan Gutmann |url=http://www.weeklystandard.com/print/Content/Public/Articles/000/000/014/986himak.asp |title=Carrying a Torch for China |archive-url=https://archive.today/20130105205655/http://www.weeklystandard.com/print/Content/Public/Articles/000/000/014/986himak.asp |archive-date=5 January 2013 |newspaper=[[Weekly Standard]]|date=21 April 2008}}</ref>

Richard Madsen writes that Falun Gong lacks robust backing from the American constituencies that usually support religious freedom. For instance, Falun Gong's conservative moral beliefs have alienated some liberal constituencies in the West (e.g. its teachings against promiscuity and homosexual behavior).<ref name=wildgrass/>{{rp|211}} He also states that Christian conservatives do not support Falun Gong while they do support Chinese Christians.<ref name="Madsen247">{{Cite journal |last=Madsen |first=Richard |date=2000 |title=Understanding Falun Gong |journal=[[Current History]] |volume=99 |issue=638 |pages=247 |doi=10.1525/curh.2000.99.638.243 |jstor=45318453 |issn=0011-3530 |doi-access=free }}</ref> Madsen charges that the American political center does not want to push the human rights issue so hard that it would disrupt commercial and political relations with China. Thus, Falun Gong practitioners have largely had to rely on their own resources in responding to suppression.<ref name=Madsen247/>

In August 2007, the newly reestablished Rabbinic [[2004 attempt to revive the Sanhedrin|Sanhedrin]] deliberated persecution of the movement by the Chinese government at the request of Falun Gong.<ref>{{Cite news |url=http://www.ynetnews.com/articles/0,7340,L-3439266,00.html |title=Self-appointed Torah court takes on China |newspaper=YNet News |date=2007-08-20 |url-status=live |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20160623183853/http://www.ynetnews.com/articles/0,7340,L-3439266,00.html |archive-date=23 June 2016 |access-date=18 May 2016|last=Zinger |first=Zvi}}</ref><ref>{{Cite web |url=http://www.israelnationalnews.com/News/Flash.aspx/132050 |work=Israel National News |title=Sanhedrin May Hear Complaint against Chinese Torture |date=22 August 2007 |url-status=live |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20160610020200/http://www.israelnationalnews.com/News/Flash.aspx/132050 |archive-date=10 June 2016 |access-date=18 May 2016}}</ref><ref>{{Cite web |url=http://www.nfc.co.il/Archive/001-D-138226-00.html?tag=10-17-51 |work=[[News1|NFC]] |title=International Court of Justice, according to the laws of the torah |url-status=live |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20070929120730/http://www.nfc.co.il/Archive/001-D-138226-00.html?tag=10-17-51 |archive-date=29 September 2007 |access-date=18 May 2016}}</ref>

Sociologist Andrew Junker stated that "secularist biases" and the risk of "severe professional sanction" by the Chinese government are two primary factors that distort Western scholars' understanding of Falun Gong.<ref name="JUNKER-2019-2">Junker (2019), p. 2.</ref> He wrote: "The combined result of these two factors is a kind of blindness. As we try to stand outside the historical episode of Falun Gong and peer in, it is as if one of our eyes has been poked out by the Chinese state, whereas we cover the other eye with our own hand."<ref name="JUNKER-2019-2">Junker (2019), p. 2.</ref>