TASK 1.4 (ASSIGNMENT 1):
How has the internet been used to resist or counteract religious persecution and human rights abuse? As a start, navigate to the Falun Dafa Information Centre (you may use other examples). Less than 500 words.
Faith
–noun
1. Confidence or trust in a person or thing: faith in another's ability.
2. Belief that is not based on proof: He had faith that the hypothesis would be substantiated by fact.
3. Belief in god or in the doctrines or teachings of religion: the firm faith of the Pilgrims.
4. Belief in anything, as a code of ethics, standards of merit, etc.: to be of the same faith with someone concerning honesty.
5. A system of religious belief: the Christian faith; the Jewish faith.
To believe so strongly in those words means that an individual or a group can be singled out, exploited, beaten or have their basic human rights violated and take away from them by a government body who declares that it’s their governing policy and only theirs that should be followed. Religious and belief persecution has been noted in the history books of the world since humans could write e.g. the Spanish inquisition, religious persecution during the English reformation, witch hunts in 18th century North America, Judaism in Germany during World War 2. What they did not have and what we have today is the World Wide Web.
I utilised the link Falun Dafa Information Centre that was supplied by Curtin University Course Net 102 and was taken to the ‘official source on Falun Gong and the Human Rights Crisis in China’. (Over the past two decades I have heard a great deal about the human rights issues within China and other countries via other media e.g. television, news papers and radio broadcasts.) Falun Gong is a belief system that as an individual I have not heard about before now (Falun Gong utilises Qi Gong and recognises a charismatic living leader (1)). A report attached to the site “Why doesn’t Falun Gong feature in the news more often?” clarified this lack of information for me in that there is hardly any information leaving China particularly in regard to suppression of individuals and groups human rights. The Chinese government has gone to great lengths within its own country to dam the leaks by any means necessary, especially in regard to Falun Gong. What is interesting here is that Falun Gong appears to be fully “wired” to the internet and is still able to bring its message to the world via the web.(2).
So how is the internet used to counteract religious persecution and human rights abuse? Quite possibly by having a group of individuals sympathetic to a particular cause live in a country such as North America, whose constitutional right ‘freedom of speech’ enables them to draw attention to and highlight atrocities within a particular country via the medium of a web page, in such media to the masses.
Reference
Falun Dafa Information Centre http://www.faluninfo.net/
On line dictionary http://dictionary.reference.com/browse/faith
Faluninfo.net/article :Why doesn’t Falun Gong feature in the news more often? http://faluninfo.net/article/912/
Falun Gong and the Internet http://www.ojr.org/ojr/ethics/1017964337.php
(1) “Its founder, Li Hongzi, was probably born in 1951 (the question of his precise birth date has been the source of controversy) and established his peculiar brand of Qi Gong in 1992, after having left the semi-official Federation. In 1998, Li moved permanently to New York City, from where he oversees the expansion of Falun Gong internationally. Small groups exist in the main metropolitan areas of the U.S. and Canada, and in some thirty other countries”. (Introvigne, 2010) http://www.cesnur.org/testi/falung101.htm
(2)“The group's secretive leader, Li Hongzhi, lives in New York and directs his movement from abroad with Internet, fax, and telephone. The group is thoroughly wired, with Falun Gong Web sites all over the world, including Asia, the USA, UK, Canada, Israel, and Australia.” (O'Leary, 2000) http://www.ojr.org/ojr/ethics/1017964337.php
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