Amid Closer Ties With China, Russia Raids Homes of Falun Gong Practitioners

Russian authorities on May 3 raided the homes of five practitioners of the Falun Gong spiritual discipline, under a controversial law that includes “carrying out the activities of an undesirable organization.” The home searches conducted by Moscow police are the latest escalation in a campaign against the spiritual group, which has included the banning of books, confiscation of literature, harassment, and interrogations. The May 3 raids were highly publicized by Russian authorities and state-owned outlets. In describing Falun Gong, Russian media outlets regurgitated extreme, decades-old Chinese Communist Party disinformation about the peaceful practice. Falun Gong is a traditional Chinese meditation practice rooted in the principles of truthfulness, compassion, and forbearance. It is practiced in countries around the world but in China, where an estimated 70 to 100 million practiced Falun Gong by 1999, the year the Chinese regime began a brutal persecution campaign involving forced labor, psychiatric abuse, and forced organ harvesting....