Falun Gong and self immolation an original synthesis This is just about the one section called Falun Gong and self immolation which AnnaInDC removed This section is a piece of propaganda in wikipedia it s called a Synthesis of published material that advances a position The edict there is to not combine material from multiple sources to reach or imply a conclusion not explicitly stated by any of the sources and If one reliable source says A and another reliable source says B do not join A and B together to imply a conclusion C that is not mentioned by either of the sources This section hovers between legitimate commentary and quotes and synthesis propaganda in its descriptions I will write sentence by sentence referring to the text I thought it would be easier to present the sentence in italics first then a starred remark Falun Gong stated that there had been no incidents of self immolation among Falun Gong practitioners in the world before 23 January 2001 Neutral statement However the China Association for Cultic Studies published details of 3 instances of Falun Gong followers who they claim committed self immolation prior to 2001 the earliest one in 1997 and 3 further instances said to have taken place subsequent to the incident in Tiananmen Square Propagandamaking this juxtaposition is not okay It s not a reliable source to begin with anyway facts org cn is the CCP s very own attack web site If you know Chinese check the virulent original Want to know more Try searching 610 site gov cn It s a propaganda website which has no credentials to discuss Falun Gong Academics such as Chang 1991 Rahn 2001 Lindsey 2001 and Li Cheng 1997 recognised that suicide is a traditional gesture of protest in China ter Haar 2001 postulated that former Buddhists may have brought with them the respectable Buddhist tradition of self immolation as a sacrifice to the Buddha Next it refers to academics who talk about suicide as a traditional gesture of protest in China no mention of Falun Gong and ter Haar who postulates that former Buddhists may have brought with them the respectable Buddhist tradition of self immolation as a sacrifice to the Buddha this is also totally irrelevant That link is dead now anyway so we can t check but there s nothing here that indicates any relevance to Falun Gong so it s all a subtle original synthesis By referring to a traditional gesture of protest in China and former Buddhists etc it kind of implicates Falun Gong without doing so explicitly A form of original synthesis The Guardian commented that Li Hongzhi s new scripture released on 1 January 2001 Beyond the Limits of Forbearance had confused his supporters Next paragraph I know Gittings is an old China hand This could be attributed better though and mentioned alongside other pertinent commentaries These are cherry picked opinions designed to give an impression not a full representation of what commentators have said regarding whether it s likely they were practitioners or not Matthew Forney in Time magazine believed the message had spread into China via the internet and informal networks of followers and reached more radical practitioners there Forney in Time this seems okay but what it s building to and the context it s placed in make it problematic Falun Gong headquarters in New York admitted ten days after the release of the scripture that certain disciples had some extreme interpretations and thought we are going to resort to violence and asserted that Li s message merely meant time had come to let the truth be known about China s atrocities The headquarters admitted could be better attributed or ommited since these aren t the terms used by the entity referred to I would suggest that in this context they are words to avoid or weasely If they don t add anything do they then why not just say what the Falun Dafa Information Center said rather than what Falun Gong headquarters admitted Jensen and Weston remarked it was clear from Li Hongzhi s messages that he advocated martyrdom over prudence and that if the Chinese authorities lit the fire Li just as clearly fanned the flames The use of this remark is misleading The authors were not referring to self immolation in