The Tragic Story Behind The World's Most Famous Pin

Few pieces of jewelry are as worn and appreciated as the tiny pin. We see it on the lapel of men's jackets, adorning women's blouses, or even on sportsmen coats.

Some pins are quite expensive, made out of gold and precious stones such as diamonds, sapphires, emeralds, and rubies, while others may be cheap and simple and are made to show membership in an organization, a league, a club, or a nation.

But no matter how it looks or how precious or cheap it is, the pin is a common piece of jewelry worn without problems by people all over the globe.

But there is a place in this world where wearing a simple pin can result in imprisonment, torture, and even death. As incredible as it may sound, this is the case in communist China where peaceful people are killed by the state authorities if they wear the pin below.

Why is that? Because wearing it shows ones' association with Falun Dafa (or Falun Gong), a well-known spiritual practice severely persecuted by the Chinese Communist Party for over two decades.

Falun Dafa and the Persecution in China

Falun Dafa is a spiritual practice that combines a set of five gentle qigong exercises, including meditation, with a moral philosophy guided by the principle of Truthfulness, Compassion, and Forbearance. All practitioners try to respect these three principles in their daily life, thus they try to become better persons, to consider other first, to be respectful, hard-working, and polite.

Practitioners of Falun Gong try to replace anger with forgiveness, anxiety with calm and frustration, and greed with serenity and inner peace. And this, combined with the powerful exercises helps them to dramatically improve their health and energy.

No wonder the practice became very popular among Chinese people. So popular that Falun Gong became a target for the ruling Communist Party.

Frustrated that Falun Gong had more members than the Chinese Communist Party and frightened by the practice's popularity, the Chinese dictator Jiang Zemin decided to eradicate it in 1999. On June 10 that year, at his order, the "610 Office" was created. It is the extra-legal police task force responsible for carrying out the mission of eliminating Falun Dafa. Many experts called it China’s Gestapo.

On July 20, the "ban" on Falun Gong was officially declared and the brutal persecution was unleashed.

CCP launched a Fierce Campaign against Falun Gong

And things didn't stop there... With the prisons full of healthy people who did not want to give up on their spiritual beliefs, the Chinese Communist Party come up with a terrific plan. According to several independent investigations, since the early 2000s, the CCP has been systematically killing innocent Falun Dafa practitioners on a large scale and extracting their vital organs to fuel a multi-billion dollar organ transplant industry.

The story was first revealed in March 2006, when the wife of a former Chinese surgeon stated that as many as 4,000 Falun Dafa had been killed for their organs at the hospital in which she had worked. She told the Western press that her husband had disclosed to her that he had removed cornea from the living bodies of 2,000 Falun Gong practitioners.

The story, which is almost too dreadful to believe, got the attention of the former Secretary of State for the Asia Pacific David Kilgour and of the renowned Canadian human rights attorney David Matas, who investigated the facts. Three years late, they published a report that stated that the allegations are true: Falun Gong practitioners are killed for their organs by the Communist Party in China.

Investigations continued and in June 2016, Kilgour, Matas, and the investigation journalist Ethan Gutmann came with a new shocking report dedicated to this ongoing mass murder. The report revealed that the Chinese regime operated around 1.5 million unjustified transplants and pointed out that most of the victims sacrificed on the operating tables were Falun Dafa practitioners.

Crime and Torture Cannot Defeat Truth, Compassion, and Forbearance

Although the CCP dictator Jiang Zemin believed that he would be able to eliminate Falun Gong in three months, his intention was shattered by the peaceful resistance of practitioners. A peaceful but firm and dignified resistance that has produced, over the years, shock waves in Chinese society.

As practitioners kept informing the people about the crimes committed by the CCP, many Chinese people have been able to see beyond the official propaganda against Falun Gong. Furthermore, many who participated in one way or another in the persecution stopped working with the criminal regime. From high-ranking officials to guards or police officers, many have reconsidered their position and sided with justice. The shock of finding out the truth about his persecution on a large scale led to a huge stream of resignations from the Party and its affiliated organizations.

And Falun Gong continued to spread both in China and around the world. Falun Gong is now practiced - always free of cost - in more than 100 countries around the world.

About the Falun Gong Pin

The Falun Gong pin reproduces the symbol of the practice - the Falun (a term that translates literally as "law wheel"). In round shape, the Falun symbol features a large swastika (also known as "wan" in Chinese culture) surrounded by four smaller ones, interspersed with four small Taiji (yin-yang) symbols.

Though many people associate the swastika with Hitler, in reality, this is an ancient symbol associated with the Buddha School. More information on this subject, here.