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Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/Persecution of Falun Gong

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The following discussion is an archived debate of the proposed deletion of the article below. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made on the appropriate discussion page (such as the article's talk page or in a deletion review). No further edits should be made to this page.
A summary of this AfD

The result was TRAINWRECK. With seven subsections, three or four "compromise proposals," and apparently detailed statistical analysis of sources, you'd think we'd have some result from all of this, but it seems I'm mistaken. From what I'm able to tell from how jumbled this has become, support for keeping and deleting the article is split roughly down the middle, as is support for all of the alternative proposals. This discussion seems to have veered heavily from the scope of this forum, and if anything is clear from all of this it's that we have absolutely no consensus to do anything here. Hersfold (t/a/c) 22:41, 23 October 2009 (UTC)[reply]

Persecution of Falun Gong

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Persecution of Falun Gong (edit | talk | history | protect | delete | links | watch | logs | views) – (View log)
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Reason After extensive debate content from previous Persecution of Falun Gong moved and merged with other content to create History of Falun Gong a minority of editors dissatisfied with this move. One of these editors recreated Persecution of Falun Gong - with blatant disregard for WP:FORK. Simonm223 (talk) 17:52, 16 October 2009 (UTC)[reply]

  • Comment With all due respect this PoV fork is just an end-run around consensus and offensive to me, as an editor who put substantial time into trying, since July, to fix this damaged group of articles; as have many other editors despite considerable resistance. It's just plain frustrating.Simonm223 (talk) 18:02, 16 October 2009 (UTC)[reply]
  • Delete. Again, it's not because the subject is not notable, but we should at least work out the bigger pieces like history first. I thought this was a very clear conesnsus. Colipon+(Talk) 18:22, 16 October 2009 (UTC)[reply]


The article has to get away from overreliance on Falun Gong (and PRC) primary sources, but the topic as such is clearly notable. Arguments such as that we must not have an article on this topic until we have created a standalone article on the overall history of the movement are not persuasive. --JN466 18:57, 16 October 2009 (UTC)[reply]
*I've made a compromise proposal below and am putting my vote on hold for now, pending further discussion. --JN466 13:21, 17 October 2009 (UTC)[reply]
  • Keep because History of Falun Gong and Persecution of Falun Gong are obviously two different topics, of these I'm not sure if "History of Falun Gong" is notable enough, because sources exists only since 1992, but "Persecution of Falun Gong" is something that is strongly documented, and sources include, United Nations, Amnesty International, US Government, etc... Since the topics are different I don't see WP:FORK here, and as it is mentioned bellow Notability is not even being questioned. --HappyInGeneral (talk) 18:56, 16 October 2009 (UTC)[reply]
Sorry. While I'm sympathetic I think that having "persecution" in the article title just doesn't work.--JohnnyB256 (talk) 19:47, 16 October 2009 (UTC)[reply]
See here: Category:Religious persecution and Category:Persecution. This was brought up by SilkTorc. --HappyInGeneral (talk) 19:55, 16 October 2009 (UTC)[reply]
Hmmmmm...... I see your point. Changing my vote to keep.--JohnnyB256 (talk) 22:04, 16 October 2009 (UTC)[reply]
Comment I felt the same way until it was pointed out to me that there are indeed articles on the Persecution of the Jews, Persecution of Buddhists and several other religious groups. The Falun Gong are today defined by their conflicts with Chinese authorities. There was even a Law & Order episode on it a few years ago - that's how much persecution and conflict are part of their identity. --JohnnyB256 (talk) 01:45, 17 October 2009 (UTC)[reply]
  • comment - that seems to be a straw man - no one is proposing to do so. One might argue that all articles in WP are forks of the Universe article.- Sinneed 23:16, 16 October 2009 (UTC) Expanding a bit... the history article would certainly need a summary of the persecution, and the persecution would refer to bits of the history.- Sinneed 23:18, 16 October 2009 (UTC)[reply]
This way the old page, Persecution of Falun Gong keeps it's history and the new page, can do that from now. What do you think? --HappyInGeneral (talk) 23:41, 16 October 2009 (UTC)[reply]
  • When a spin-out article is created from an article with more general scope, copy-paste is the normal method used. Spin-out articles are not built from the ground up, starting life as a stub. So the present arrangement between parent and daughter article histories is quite normal – daughter articles based on a section of the parent article do not inherit the entire parent article's edit history.
  • The edit history is better off staying with the History of Falun Gong article, because much of the content that was built there is not about the Persecution of Falun Gong at all, but about the movement's history. To that extent, the page move from "persecution" to "history" made sense. However, we still need an article on the persecution, as this is a major topic with a substantial literature. --JN466 00:46, 17 October 2009 (UTC)[reply]
  • Delete History keeps repeating itself. There is no place in Wikiverse for yet another battlefield where Falun Gong single-purpose accounts can feel at home and pontificate and push their point of view. It was renamed by consensus (after RfC) and now it's back. I don't actually feel it's productive to delete it at this stage because there seem to be some dedicated people willing to roll their sleeves up to fix this. So keep it as you will, but remember that one more article which is now automatically subject to Arbcom probation, like a baby born into captivity. Surely not a sane way to proceed considering the History of Falun Gong has not even found its feet. As the persecution is the most important subset of the history of FLG (other than the fairy tale of its creation), I actually think the best thing is to redirect it back to 'History of Falun Gong', until such time that article is stable and mature, and we can spin out the content in a controlled manner. Ohconfucius ¡digame! 02:21, 17 October 2009 (UTC)[reply]

Notability by numbers

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Trying to get more accurate numbers, still under work
Source Searching for
"History of Falun Gong" 		Searching for
"Persecution of Falun Gong" 		Results returned for
"History of Falun Gong" 		Results returned for
"Persecution of Falun Gong" 		Ratio
google.com link link 134000 913000 7
google.com without FLG sites link link 102000 66000 0.64
news.google.com link link 14 1800 129
books.google.com link link 9 172 19
scholar.google.com link link 11 176 16
images.google.com link link 70 565 8
The table above measures how many time the exact phrase of "History of Falun Gong" appears vs. "Persecution of Falun Gong" --HappyInGeneral (talk) 18:45, 17 October 2009 (UTC)[reply]
Editors should note that among the news sources mentioning "persecution of Falun Gong", around half are Falun Gong sources (Epoch Times etc.) Many others are articles quoting Falun Gong adherents speaking of persecution, rather than using the term in the article's editorial voice. However, this still leaves genuine third-party news articles whose editorial voice speaks of the "persecution of Falun Gong". It might be interesting to do a frequency analysis to establish if "persecution of Falun Gong" (as opposed to repression etc.) is the term most commonly used by third-party sources to characterise what is happening in the PRC. --JN466 20:22, 17 October 2009 (UTC)[reply]
That is correct, after Epoch Times is filtered out see here return count is 1680 instead of 1800, for persecution and for history is 13 instead of 14. The ratio now is 1680/13=129.23 Now I'm not sure how to filter out when they quote Falun Gong practitioners talking about their plight, but I think since that is quoted by a third party source, it is fine to count it in. As for "Suppression/Repression of Falun Gong" that was covered here, but I guess I can update the table. --HappyInGeneral (talk) 20:44, 17 October 2009 (UTC)[reply]
This frankly strikes me as blatant wikilawyering. "History of Falun Gong" is a topical title, which roughly follows Wikipedia format "History of [Religion]". On Google you will find that "Islamic Jihad" has a 4:1 "search-notability ratio" to "History of Islam". This does not somehow make "Islamic Jihad" more notable than "History of Islam". I can't think of any user who will buy this "table" as a method to establish notability of "persecution of Falun Gong" over "History of Falun Gong". Colipon+(Talk) 21:20, 17 October 2009 (UTC)[reply]
The table method does show just how notable the Persecution is. Also as Sinneed mentioned according to WP:RS coverage, the most notable topic on Falun Gong is it's persecution right now. So Falun Gong and implicitly the history of Falun Gong draws on that notability. --HappyInGeneral (talk) 21:42, 17 October 2009 (UTC)[reply]

I didn't have time to completely debunk your googling, but I added one line which clearly shows the effect of googlebombing on your results. Ohconfucius ¡digame! 13:38, 18 October 2009 (UTC)[reply]

Ah, and if you take out "WOIPFG", you get this, roughly 64,000 results. Colipon+(Talk) 14:30, 18 October 2009 (UTC)[reply]
Trying to get more accurate numbers, still under work
Source Repression Suppression Crackdown History Persecution Repression Suppression Crackdown History Persecution Ratio Persecution/History
google.com link link link link link 47,800 84,200 60400 134000 913000 7
google.com without FLG sites link link 102000 66000 0.64
news.google.com link link link link link 50 110 441 12 797 66
books.google.com link link link link link 80 113 289 9 172 19
scholar.google.com link link link link link 52 81 113 11 176 16
images.google.com link link link link link 132 314 431 70 565 8

OK, here is the updated table, now the news searches do not contain Epoch Times as a source. Also I included crackdown additionally to suppression/repression, because that is more notable on every front then suppression/repression. If you think that the Persecution per History ratio column does not contain valuable information, please ignore that column. --HappyInGeneral (talk) 21:37, 17 October 2009 (UTC)[reply]

(edit conflict) After filtering out all the Epoch Times sites, I'm left with less than 800 matches – still substantial though. Reading through them, most – but not all of them – are quotes of what followers have said. The BBC tends to speak of "alleged" persecution. All sources agree that it is banned. On the other hand, amnesty international is absolutely positive in its charges of "persecution": [3]. So is the U.S. Department of State: [4] Perhaps we should ask for advice at the Human Rights project. --JN466 21:40, 17 October 2009 (UTC)[reply]
That's really the best reason not to go for 'persecution' in the title - that that paragon of NPOV refrains from using the term. Ohconfucius ¡digame! 13:59, 18 October 2009 (UTC)[reply]
Can you please show me how did you filter out all Epoch Times sites? I used source:"-epochtimes", based on the template provided by the header of this AfD. Thanks --HappyInGeneral (talk) 21:44, 17 October 2009 (UTC)[reply]
This is the search result I got, using parameter -site:epochtimes.com and -site:en.epochtimes.com: [5] I think that gets them all. --JN466 21:46, 17 October 2009 (UTC)[reply]
Thank you! --HappyInGeneral (talk) 21:48, 17 October 2009 (UTC)[reply]
I updated the table again. --HappyInGeneral (talk) 21:54, 17 October 2009 (UTC)[reply]
Actually, I spoke too soon. It doesn't get them all. Have a look at the last search page: [6] I think many of these are still Falun Gong-owned sites. --JN466 21:50, 17 October 2009 (UTC)[reply]
Right, ok, I guess, I'll wait and stop updating the table until we have a better way to filter. --HappyInGeneral (talk) 21:54, 17 October 2009 (UTC)[reply]

One doesn't have to look far. Just look at these basic google search results of those keywords. All results on the first page point to a Falun Gong site, Falun Gong-related site, Falun Gong-sponsored site, or Wikipedia. Of the one source outside this realm, the Guardian, we see that they call it "crackdown", and avoid using "persecution" except in the context of a quote. No major media outlets explicitly refer to it as "persecution", as evidenced by a recent Google News search, all the results were basically from the Epoch Times, or quoting a practitioner. From this we can gauge that the phrase "Persecution of Falun Gong" is used, but it is primarily used by Falun Gong sources and Falun Gong media.

[ec] These search results also highlight just to what extent the Falun Gong Public Relations network has infiltrated the World Wide Web. I would therefore argue that using "persecution" explicitly to describe the Chinese government's actions is very much analogous to using "cult" to describe Falun Gong. Both of these terms carry inherently non-neutral connotations that should be avoided on Wikipedia. Colipon+(Talk) 21:54, 17 October 2009 (UTC)[reply]

Actually google has a way to filter out certain sites, when we have a good way to filter it, will run the tests again, sounds good? --HappyInGeneral (talk) 21:55, 17 October 2009 (UTC)[reply]
Also if you look in the table above on the news searches, you will see that such filtering is already done, and it does catch most of them, only not all just yet. We are working on it. --HappyInGeneral (talk) 21:57, 17 October 2009 (UTC)[reply]
Colipon wrote, No major media outlets explicitly refer to it as "persecution". That statement is not quite true, either. Here are some mainstream news organizations using the word "persecution":
But I am having difficulty finding similarly clear statements on the BBC or CNN websites. They more often refer to "alleged persecution", or state that Falun Gong members call it persecution, and so forth. To recap though, the US Department of State does call it persecution, as does amnesty international. --JN466 22:56, 17 October 2009 (UTC)[reply]
Respectfully, three of those four sources are opinion pieces from individual editors. If we can demonstrate that the use of "persecution of Falun Gong" in mainstream media (and not just American media) to describe the topic area is in the clear majority, then it is fair to say that "persecution of Falun Gong" is a suitable title to describe the subject. Colipon+(Talk) 23:10, 17 October 2009 (UTC)[reply]
Here is an interview in Deutsche Welle (the German equivalent of the BBC World Service) with a Professor specialising in Asian Politics (given that he refers to Li's "huge propaganda machine", I think we can safely assume he is not a follower); the headline is "Ten years of persecution of Falun Gong": google translation
Here an article in Der Standard, a major Austrian daily, speaking of "brutal persecution" etc.: google translation
Here an article in Frankfurter Allgemeine Zeitung, saying it is undeniable, even taking into account the massive Falun Gong public relations effort, that there is "massive persecution" of Falun Gong in China: google translation
I wonder though: if, as many of these reports say, people are tortured, arrested and put in labour camps without a trial, and not a few end up dying in prison, all because of their adherence to Falun Gong, what would be the difference between what is happening and religious persecution? JN466 23:58, 17 October 2009 (UTC)[reply]
What I find in other German mainstream publications (Die Welt, Der Spiegel, etc.) is similar to the above. Around 30% of all German-language articles mentioning Falun Gong also raise the issue of persecution ("verfolgt" or "verfolgung" in German).
Here is an article in the Washington Post: Persecution of the Falun Gong and another in the New York Post that has Bush accusing China of religious persecution. JN466 01:07, 18 October 2009 (UTC)[reply]
Our main book references on Falun Gong—Ownby, academic, Porter, academic, Schechter, journalist, Lewis, academic, Gallagher/Ashcraft, academic, Davis, academic—all say that there is persecution, using that word, even as they say that Li Hongzhi and his followers are media savvy and highly manipulative of the media in their survival of the persecution JN466 01:07, 18 October 2009 (UTC)[reply]
  • HappyInGeneral, from a manual count, I think if you assume 600 third-party (non-Falun Gong) mentions of "persecution of Falun Gong" in google news, you won't be far off the mark. --JN466 01:12, 18 October 2009 (UTC)[reply]
Note OhConfucius' search results for "persecution" without these Falun Gong websites, and then note that even within those results, the usage of the word is mostly allusions to Falun Gong practitioners using the term or links to yet another Falun Gong organization - the Coalition to Investigate the Persecution of Falun Gong. Once we filter out those sites as well it is safe to conclude that about 90 - 95% of these "persecution of Falun Gong" websites that HappyInGeneral believes legitimizes that term are either self-published Falun Gong sources or Falun Gong PR vehicles run by Falun Gong practitioners. Brilliant facade, maybe, but I'm not buying any of it. Colipon+(Talk) 14:25, 18 October 2009 (UTC)[reply]
Did you try also news, books and scholar? There I don't see much changes in the ration, but you are welcome to prove me wrong. --HappyInGeneral (talk) 21:48, 18 October 2009 (UTC)[reply]
  • When you did the search, you excluded words instead of sites. See here how to exclude sites. But even after we exclude a few sites, there are still many SPS sources, or questionable sources like mirrors - wapedia, torrents, all kinds of blogs, still remain. These are automatically excluded in the news, scholar, and books. Now in news I already filtered out somewhat Epoch Times, and Jayen466 did a manual estimate and came up with about 600 reputable sources on Falun Gong, of which a few where already mentioned in this thread. --HappyInGeneral (talk) 22:21, 18 October 2009 (UTC)[reply]
  • Heaven knows what other domain names FLG practitioners have created to bypass the Golden Shield Project... Technically, Happy may be correct. However, in my revised search, the only term which could have incorrectly filtered is 'clearwisdom'. The others are pretty unambiguous domain names not much used elsewhere. I would add that I had omitted epochtimes, and all the wiki mirrors, of which there are thousands. Ohconfucius ¡digame! 02:31, 19 October 2009 (UTC)[reply]
"Demand-side" analysis - this is what people type into their search engines, expecting to see results.

I have already debunked the Supply-side metric - the number of web article with it as a title, or in the metadata as a search term, - is highly susceptible to manipulation and google-bombing. We should not confuse this with the "demand side" of what people are actually typing into their internet search engines.

This search indicates that most people search for 'Falun Gong' on its own. Other variants, such as 'Persecution of..', 'Suppression of..', 'Repression of..' are not even in the same order of magnitude.

I would also add that, as a very close parallel, 'Tiananmen massacre' scores much more strongly than 'Tiananmen protests' as a frequent Gsearch term, for Tiananmen Square. Yet our article is called 'Tiananmen Square protests of 1989'. I don't see anyone having problems with that. Ohconfucius ¡digame! 10:49, 20 October 2009 (UTC)[reply]

Kind of interesting to see that the highest number of searches are coming in from Ottawa. I believe this is where Falun Gong's organization in Canada is based. I seem to recall some Falun Gong media articles being tampered by a bunch of IP addresses from Ottawa. They were quickly reverted though. Colipon+(Talk) 10:53, 20 October 2009 (UTC)[reply]


We have a search history tool on Wikipedia which is very accurate. Persecution of Falun Gong searches last month [7], Repression_of_Falun_Gong [8], History of Faulun Gong [9], and for comparison - Tiananmen Square massacre [10], Tiananmen Square protest [11]. We really should be following WP:Common name and giving our articles the titles that readers are looking for. This tool is available via the history tab. Once accessed, any search term can be input to find the results. SilkTork *YES! 14:16, 20 October 2009 (UTC)[reply]

SilkTork, that tool is used for article hits, not for article keyword searches. Colipon+(Talk) 15:54, 20 October 2009 (UTC)[reply]
  • I was well aware of the tool, and wasn't even going to go there, for reasons which were all too obvious to me - that being the way what is available drives the result. Externally, 'Persecution' is the first WP page on GSearch for "Suppression of Falun Gong". Internally, there are articles around WP which link directly to 'Persecution', including the main {{Falun Gong}} template, while not many articles are directly link to 'History' or 'Suppression'. If a search term not available, it goes to a list of search results of available items. Ohconfucius ¡digame! 03:02, 21 October 2009 (UTC)[reply]
Even so, if you compare on this month the Persecution of Falun Gong with History of Falun Gong that will give a pretty clear picture on what people are looking for. --HappyInGeneral (talk) 16:55, 20 October 2009 (UTC)[reply]
As I said above, it is an utterly fallacious comparison. Ohconfucius ¡digame! 03:11, 21 October 2009 (UTC)[reply]

Not a simple issue

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I do not doubt that academics and media use the term "persecution", nor do I oppose using the term to describe the topic area of the persecution of Falun Gong practitioners. But I must remind all editors here that this is part of a much broader issue related to Falun Gong articles that cannot be solved with a simplistic notability check from Google searches. The reason I have held reservations from the beginning is that the articles' scope is limited to a confined subject area most extensively employed as a public relations tool for Falun Gong, and as such amounts to a POV fork, even if we can work to neutralize the content. A look into the articles' history and it will be clear that "Persecution of Falun Gong" was an article began by Falun Gong SPAs for the purpose of Falun Gong advocacy.

The persecution of Falun Gong practitioners takes place within the greater context of the suppression of the Falun Gong movement, which is part of the history of Falun Gong. Having an article on "Persecution" implies that the article will be about how Falun Gong practitioners are mistreated, tortured, organs harvested etc., but the greater campaign against Falun Gong by the Chinese government, such as the media campaign, is part of the suppression of the movement, of which persecution is only one of the means.

If we want the article to cover such topics as - how many Falun Gong practitioners have died under the hands of the PRC gov't, what are the torture methods used, are organ harvesting allegations true - then indeed, "persecution" may be the best title. But the much wider topical area - the suppression of the movement - such as the 6-10 office, extensive propaganda, mobilization of schools/work places - is, by definition, not persecution. Within this greater context, it would be difficult to argue that "persecution" can be placed in priority sequence over both the suppression of the movement on the wider scale, and on top of that the movement's history in general, and that we place its notability above both, and we dedicate our energies to it above both.

Of course, all of this still does not change that even within the persecution context, "persecution" is not universally agreed upon as a NPOV term, but at this stage, that is only a secondary consideration. Colipon+(Talk) 01:53, 18 October 2009 (UTC)[reply]

I think the persecution page, can cover without any problem the media campaign, the 610 office, etc. Since it is part of the mechanics of the persecution. --HappyInGeneral (talk) 11:48, 18 October 2009 (UTC)[reply]
*Sigh* Did you even read what I wrote? Colipon+(Talk) 14:17, 18 October 2009 (UTC)[reply]
Sure. Actually twice (again tonight), just to make sure if I missed something notable. --HappyInGeneral (talk) 22:25, 18 October 2009 (UTC)[reply]

Compromise proposal

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Having thought this over, I would like to suggest the following compromise:

  • Support Ohconfucius ¡digame! 13:27, 17 October 2009 (UTC)[reply]
    • Support - One of the problems that I believe we are likely to encounter is the wars over which content gets placed in which article and the various likely "fork"-wars that would arise. I myself have said from the beginning that there is grounds for both articles, but anticipated that these forking problems would be more counterproductive than useful. Also, regarding the notability issue, I clearly acknowledge the multiple news reports regarding the persecution. However, it should be noted that in the one source I at this point pretty much carry with me everywhere I go, the book by the recognized expert on Falun Gong, Ownby, the first chapter after the introduction is a "history for Falun Gong", and the persecution is not in fact explicitly mentioned in any of the chapter titles. The one chapter covering the subject is about the "conflict between Falun Gong and the Chinese State." John Carter (talk) 13:53, 17 October 2009 (UTC)[reply]
  • Support (Basically, that was (almost) everyone's thought from the start) Choyoołʼįįhí:Seb az86556 13:43, 17 October 2009 (UTC)[reply]
  • Support. Yes. This was basically the plan from the beginning. Colipon+(Talk) 14:45, 17 October 2009 (UTC)[reply]
  • Conditional Support I think that a spin-off may not be entirely necessary at this time; it is certainly something that merits discussion and a decision should depend on how discussion proceeds on that issue. Notwithstanding that your proposal would satisfy me. Simonm223 (talk) 15:10, 17 October 2009 (UTC)[reply]
  • Oppose - Why? So that those who oppose the name can have more time with an article without that name in the encyclopdedia? Again, the notability is for the persecution, not the faith/practice/organization. Why not say "Compromise proposal: Delete Falun Gong and History of Falun Gong, and if notability is shown outside the claimed persecution, those articles can be added after the persecution article is stable?- Sinneed 16:05, 17 October 2009 (UTC)[reply]
    • The idea is to have one place to focus on, to work on developing this content in something approaching an orderly and collaborative fashion.
    • Re notability:
      • Showing notability for Falun Gong is not a problem: apart from several book-length studies covering all aspects of the movement, it is covered in standard reference works on new religious movements. Two representative overviews are here, for your reference: [12][13]
      • Having a History of Falun Gong article is dependent on the quantity of material available, and the overall length of the Falun Gong article if all that material were retained there.
      • The Persecution of Falun Gong is an article-worthy and notable topic.
    • I hear Ohconfucius though when he says he just wants one place to work on this material. This topic has been very contentious and volatile, and it can be really tough to keep track of content spread out across multiple articles. Ohconfucius has just worked very hard to get the related Tiananmen Square self-immolation incident to FA status. Chances of getting the other articles stable are improved if we all get together at one place and work things out. As far as I am concerned, that can just as well be Persecution of Falun Gong, but things will be easier and make more manageable demands on editors' time if we can agree on one place. --JN466 17:35, 17 October 2009 (UTC)[reply]
  • Oppose - This does not make sense from the start. Since everybody is saying that notability for "Persecution of Falun Gong" is perfectly valid, I don't see any grounds on which this can be deleted/moved/diluted/etc... I actually do agree to build up a history section in the "persecution" article/page, then when it is mature enough move it out in it's own article/space. I mean really if you think about it rationally, this is the only sensible option. --HappyInGeneral (talk) 18:48, 17 October 2009 (UTC)[reply]
  • Support Edward130603 (talk) 14:23, 18 October 2009 (UTC)[reply]

Compromise proposal 2

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We temporarily delete all content relating to the persecution of Falun Gong from the History of Falun Gong article, replacing it with a 2- or 3-sentence summary and a "main article" link to Persecution of Falun Gong. We'll then work on the material in Persecution of Falun Gong and place a more complete abstract in History of Falun Gong once we have got mature and stable content. --JN466 19:51, 17 October 2009 (UTC)[reply]

  • Support - this is my position on the original AfD.- Sinneed 21:48, 17 October 2009 (UTC)[reply]
  • Support SilkTork *YES! 21:56, 17 October 2009 (UTC)[reply]
  • Oppose. To me, it's common sense to say that the persecution of Falun Gong should be understood in the context of the movement's history. This is as true for readers as it is for editors. I believe first collaborating on the "history" article facilitates a better overall picture of the subject matter. I think if we all worked together on "history" first, we can all gain a better understanding of the greater context in general, which would facilitate a more rapid process in constructing a "persecution" article thereafter. Colipon+(Talk) 23:23, 17 October 2009 (UTC)[reply]
  • Comment Falun Gong was first made public in 1992, until 1996 it was encouraged by the PRC, after that the books where banned, and there where some orders issued to find faults in it, in 1999 it was officially banned and the persecution began which still continues today. Now I'm sure that the persecution page should have a background section, which will lead to History of Falun Gong as a main article. I don't see why the whole persecution topic which is highly notable should go under History of Falun Gong. That does not make any sense to me. --HappyInGeneral (talk) 00:04, 18 October 2009 (UTC)[reply]

Compromise proposal 3

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Some editors have expressed concern about use of the term "persecution" in relation to the Falun Gong. So why not, instead, change the name of the article to Opposition to Falun Gong or some other word than "persecution"? There is no question in my mind that activity against the Falun Gong is notable and deserving of a separate article.--JohnnyB256 (talk) 14:48, 18 October 2009 (UTC)[reply]

  • Support in principle,but later. Let's develop one article first. After that, on the title, media manipulation by the PRC and Falun Gong are both prevalent and are equally unacceptable. "Persecution" is simply too loaded a term to be used here on WP, especially considering that the BBC, widely respected for its objectivity, refrains from using the word in an unqualified form. As Sinneed noted, there were far, far, far too many loaded terms in the article which this sort of title just invites, and to carry on editing the article in that vein without addressing the root cause of the problem as far as the article is concerned is just cloud cuckoo land. The loaded wording has been there almost from the start, and it was bad enough when the article was named 'Suppression', when it started becoming an attack page of the government of the People's Republic of China. But at that stage, it was the content posted mainly by the FLG possee which they used as a pretext to change it from the consensus version back to 'Persecution'. Ohconfucius ¡digame! 01:59, 19 October 2009 (UTC)[reply]
  • I'm with Jayen. Kudos to him for finding yet more high-quality sources which suggest that 'Persecution' really isn't the best title for this article. I believe this solution is pragmatic in that it gives us a way ahead, and I am sure we can agree on a clear delimitation of the scope of the articles to avoid content forking. Ohconfucius ¡digame! 01:51, 20 October 2009 (UTC)[reply]
  • Oppose the primary issue is not the title of the article so much as it is the presence of a PoV fork in the first place. I'd be happier with a sub-section called "persecution of..." within the "history of..." article than with a separate article with a less overtly PoV name as it would still be an unnecessary fork. Simonm223 (talk) 14:46, 19 October 2009 (UTC)[reply]
  • Support Repression of Falun Gong per UN position paper below, making clear in the article that this may amount to persecution. --JN466 17:01, 19 October 2009 (UTC)[reply]

Additional sources

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I've found a number of related government and UN documents that comment on the matter.

UK Border Agency

http://www.unhcr.org/refworld/pdfid/4a2f976e2.pdf

"There is widespread repression of Falun Gong by the Chinese authorities and Falun Gong practitioners/activists may face ill-treatment in China if they come to the attention of the Chinese authorities. Falun Gong practitioners and in particular Falun Gong activists who have come to the attention of the authorities are likely to face ill-treatment that may amount to persecution in China and therefore are likely to qualify for a grant of asylum under the 1951 Convention by reason of imputed political opinion.

However, the Court of Appeal found in L (China) v SSHD [2004] EWCA (Civ) 1441 that anyone can become a member or cease to be a member of Falun Gong at any time and can practise Falun Gong exercises on their own in the privacy of their home without significant risk of being ill-treated. The IAT found in [2005] UKIAT 00122 that there will not normally be any real risk from the Chinese authorities for a person who practices Falun Gong in private and with discretion. Therefore, ordinary Falun Gong practitioners who have not come to the attention of the Chinese authorities are unlikely to qualify for a grant of asylum or Humanitarian Protection." (p. 6 of 24).

Asylum cases following this line of assessment:

This latter one, from the United Nations HCR website, includes an interesting passage from the—

Position paper on Falun Gong (2005) by the United Nations High Commissioner on Refugees

[37] In a position paper published in 2005, the UNHCR stated that (despite the widespread repression of Falun Gong in China) there was no evidence to suggest that all Falun Gong members were systematically targeted by the authorities and that therefore, membership of Falun Gong alone would not give rise to refugee status, although a prominent role in certain other activities (such as proselytising or organising demonstrations) which brings the member to the attention of the authorities may do so: United Nations High Commissioner on Refugees Position paper on Falun Gong (1 January 2005).

Other documents
  • Refugee Documentation Centre (Ireland) – This is hard to summarise here, as it combines quotes from a number of disparate, but high-quality sources; the Austrian source probably speaks most emphatically of persecution, while a Canadian source only uses the word in quotation marks.
  • UN Special Rapporteur on Torture asking the PRC government to explain the reported rise in organ transplants, which seemed to correlate with the beginning of the "persecution" of Falun Gong practitioners (page 48, with PRC government response). --JN466 17:01, 19 October 2009 (UTC) Note: The direct link I gave may not work. If it doesn't, go to [20] and select the English-language version of A/HRC/7/3/Add.1. --JN466 09:08, 20 October 2009 (UTC)[reply]
I meant WP:POVFORK; forgot about the other fork-related WP page. Simonm223 (talk) 18:08, 19 October 2009 (UTC)[reply]
Simon, a POV fork would be if we had two articles like the following: The fight against Falun Gong religious superstition in the PRC and The religious persecution of Falun Gong in the PRC. They would be about the same thing, seen from two different points of view. --JN466 18:52, 19 October 2009 (UTC)[reply]
A PoV Fork need not be as blatant as that to be one. This is a clear WP:POVFORK. Simonm223 (talk) 19:01, 19 October 2009 (UTC)[reply]
If that where to be the case, this could give "legal" ground to make lots of "inconvenient" pages to disappear on Wikipedia. So I did ask the question here. --HappyInGeneral (talk) 19:20, 19 October 2009 (UTC)[reply]

A Sincere Suggestion

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Can we please limit discussion to the AfD and not rehash the same debate that we had prior to the move. This is not the right place to continue post-move discussion. Simonm223 (talk) 16:26, 20 October 2009 (UTC)[reply]

  • If we are back to 'binary mode', my !vote is delete. Ohconfucius ¡digame! 04:59, 21 October 2009 (UTC)[reply]
  • Keep. While I think the discussion on this page has been useful, this is basically an article naming dispute, and AfD is not the appropriate forum for that. Notability of the term is easily established:
    • parliaments of major countries like the US and Germany have called what is happening "persecution" and have condemned it,
    • as have human-rights organisations like amnesty international and Human Rights Watch,
    • as has practically every scholar who has written about Falun Gong (Ownby, Porter, Schechter, Lewis, Gallagher/Ashcraft, Davis).
    • Further to what I said earlier about the BBC mostly speaking about "alleged" persecution, I have since noted a few occurrence of the unqualified term even on BBC websites (e.g. [21], [22]).
  • A previous discussion of the title at WP:NPOVN [23] ended with a clear majority of uninvolved editors endorsing the title.
  • The article is not a POV fork, because there is no other article addressing this specific topic area.
  • At best there may be grounds for a redirect here, noting that redirect titles are exempt from NPOV per Wikipedia:Redirect#Neutrality_of_redirects, but even that is conditional on editors agreeing to work under an alternative title. I think we're done here. --JN466 10:22, 21 October 2009 (UTC)[reply]
JN, please read what I wrote at #Not a simple issue to see why the term is inappropriate. Colipon+(Talk) 10:57, 21 October 2009 (UTC)[reply]
Colipon, I read your comments. I am happy to meet editors half-way and call the article repression of Falun Gong or suppression of Falun Gong and treat the persecution within such an article, but that is an article naming issue, not an AfD issue. See Wikipedia:Content_forking#Article_spinouts_.E2.80.93_.22Summary_style.22_articles, Wikipedia:Content_forking#Articles_whose_subject_is_a_POV. There is a huge amount of sources on both the repression and persecution of Falun Gong; either is a valid article topic in its own right. There is no discernible difference in POV between how this is presented in History of Falun Gong and how it is presented in Persecution of Falun Gong; SilkTork simply cut and pasted existing material across (which we should work to improve). Nor is there any intention to create a different POV balance in the subarticle to the main history article. --JN466 11:10, 21 October 2009 (UTC)[reply]
Thank you for the candid reply. If we are to decide between delete and keep, I still vouch for delete. But I would otherwise be fine with moving the article to "repression", or perhaps "suppression". Colipon+(Talk) 12:00, 21 October 2009 (UTC)[reply]
The above discussion is preserved as an archive of the debate. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made on the appropriate discussion page (such as the article's talk page or in a deletion review). No further edits should be made to this page.
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