SARS: The Price of Lying

Xinming from Taiwan

PureInsight | June 30, 2003

[PureInsight.org] SARS broke out in Guangdong Province in November of 2002. Because the Chinese government intentionally withheld SARS information and lied in press conferences, SARS spread throughout China and the world. At a critical time a courageous retired doctor told the world the truth about SARS. After being attacked by media all over the world, the Chinese government began to take real action towards eliminating SARS. Through this, people found that telling the truth could save lives.

Think about it. If the Chinese Government hadn't cracked down on Falun Gong, there would have been at least 100 million people in the world who would dare to expose the truth about SARS. If a doctor had not stepped out to reveal the truth half a year after the outbreak, this epidemic would have spread to many more countries.

People might say that it's not only Falun Gong practitioners who would tell the truth. They may say that a lot of people, including themselves, would publicly speak out.

In fact, a lot of things are not as simple as they look. Under the threat of unemployment, prison, torn apart families, homelessness and even losing one's life, who would feel duty-bound to step forward to tell the truth?

Often, people who stand up against adversity are singled out and suffer for their conviction in exposing the truth. People with such moral courage in today's society are extremely rare.

Jiang's political gang cracked down on Falun Gong practitioners. Thousands of courageous Chinese who told truth to the government were persecuted, tortured and murdered.

Maybe you do not believe in Falun Gong's teachings. You may say that the actions of Falun Gong practitioners don't directly concern you. But as SARS is found throughout the world, we can look back at what Falun Gong practitioners have been doing for the past four years. It is not hard to see what they earnestly practice and advocate – exposing the truth!

A farmer who is a Falun Gong practitioner distributes fliers that she writes by hand everyday at the risk of being arrested and tortured. The flier reads, "Please trust me – Falun Dafa is good! I would not risk my life to tell you lies." Her spirit and courage are most touching.

In the past four years of persecution against Falun Gong, more than 100,000 innocent people have been tortured or even killed. Jiang's regime has always lied about the persecution. They even decorated forced labor camps and made them look like vacation resorts and health clubs and then conditionally invited foreign reporters to visit.

Because the SARS epidemic spread to the whole world and resulted in so many deaths, China has been condemned and questioned by the international community. But the fact that Falun Gong practitioners are being killed everyday is still being concealed.

Fire can be never covered up with paper; the truth will reveal itself.

China paid a high price for lying. During the "Cultural Revolution" in the 1950's more than 500,000 elite academicians were murdered in cold blood. In 1958, Chinese propaganda claimed, "an acre produces more than ten thousand jin (a unit of weight equal to 0.5 kg) of rice." Behind this deception, great starvation took place from 1958 to 1961 and as a result over 20 million people died. In the ten years of the "Cultural Revolution" the most precious historical and cultural roots of China from the previous five thousand years were destroyed.

Since the outbreak of SARS, the behavior of Chinese officials demonstrated that most of the government leadership would clandestinely sacrifice the lives of Chinese people to safeguard their own careers. For example, when a county health official commented on the AIDS village in Henan Province, he said, "when all those AIDS patients die, the AIDS problem will automatically cease to exist."

It is not the first time that China has tried to conceal the spread of an epidemic and lost the best opportunity to apply preventive and control measures. A few years ago, when the first group of AIDS patients who were infected through blood transfusions was discovered, the government chose to cover up the truth, which resulted in the massive spread of AIDS to a many provinces in central China. Many designated AIDS villages emerged and now exist.

The WHO estimated that there are at least 1 million people in China who have been infected with AIDS. People learned of the existence of the AIDS villages because Dr. Gao in Henan Province blew the whistle. As a matter of fact, people in the health and medical community knew that there were similar villages in Shanxi Province and Anhui Province. Some of them told their relatives and friends not to give or receive blood transfusions.

A Beijing medical worker who knew some inside information pointed out that Chinese law on infectious diseases stipulates that any possible epidemic outbreak should be reported within 6-12 hours. But in the case of SARS, the Chinese Government tried to conceal the outbreak for half a year. Obviously, this case is not an exception because it seems to be standard procedure for the CCP to cover up national epidemics.

Outbreaks of SARS took place in metropolitan areas, which made it hard for the Chinese Government to truly deceive the Chinese people. However, when the disease occurred more frequently in the countryside, especially in poor areas, the deception was clearly evident. Farmers who lived in the AIDS villages simply had to submit to the will of Heaven. Country people weren't as apt to submit during the deception of the SARS outbreak. Many rioted over the government's actions.

The first SARS patients were discovered in November 2002. It was not until February 11, 2003 that the Chinese authorities held a press conference claiming that the epidemic was under control. They even told Chinese people not to wear masks, which were said to have "side effects." They told the world that SARS was under control, and it was safe to enter China. The government forced people to attend the Guangzhou Trade Fair, which aided the spreading of SARS.

The former Minister of Health lied and gave false data about SARS. At the same time, hospitals transferred SARS patients to other places in order to mislead WHO investigators. When all this was exposed, major media in Mainland China charged the overseas media with "looking at everything from the angle of politics" and "exaggerating with evil intent."

The persecution of Falun Gong has been going on for four years and the lives and families of millions of people have been seriously endangered. The Chinese Government told foreign media that the persecution wasn't happening, and human rights in China was top notch.

Chinese people have been anaesthetized by lies for a long time. For example, they know that the government lied about the "June 4" massacre, but they chose to keep silent. No matter how ridiculous the lies were, nobody spoke up.

Nothing is more lamentable and dangerous than lying, especially when it comes to lying to an entire country about matters of life and death. If the Chinese government had not lied, SARS would not have been so serious and infected so many people. This is the price people paid for their silence and acceptance of lies.

Translated from http://www.zhengjian.org/zj/articles/2003/6/4/21887.html

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