NBC：The Epoch Times is a pro-Trump media outlet opposed to the Chinese government

 How a fake persona laid the groundwork for a Hunter Biden conspiracy deluge

A 64-page document that was later disseminated by close associates of President Donald Trump appears to be the work of a fake "intelligence firm."

Hunter Biden speaks at the World Food Program USA's annual awards ceremony in Washington in April 2016.Paul Morigi / Getty Images file

Oct. 30, 2020, 5:30 AM CST / Updated Oct. 30, 2020

By Ben Collins and Brandy Zadrozny

One month before a purported leak of files from Hunter Biden's laptop, a fake "intelligence" document about him went viral on the right-wing internet, asserting an elaborate conspiracy theory involving former Vice President Joe Biden's son and business in China.

The document, a 64-page composition that was later disseminated by close associates of President Donald Trump, appears to be the work of a fake "intelligence firm" called Typhoon Investigations, according to researchers and public documents.

The author of the document, a self-identified Swiss security analyst named Martin Aspen, is a fabricated identity, according to analysis by disinformation researchers, who also concluded that Aspen's profile picture was created with an artificial intelligence face generator. The intelligence firm that Aspen lists as his previous employer said that no one by that name had ever worked for the company and that no one by that name lives in Switzerland, according to public records and social media searches.

One of the original posters of the document, a blogger and professor named Christopher Balding, took credit for writing parts of it when asked about it and said Aspen does not exist.

Despite the document's questionable authorship and anonymous sourcing, its claims that Hunter Biden has a problematic connection to the Communist Party of China have been used by people who oppose the Chinese government, as well as by far-right influencers, to baselessly accuse candidate Joe Biden of being beholden to the Chinese government.

The document and its spread have become part of a wider effort to smear Hunter Biden and weaken Joe Biden's presidential campaign, which moved from the fringes of the internet to more mainstream conservative news outlets.

An unverified leak of documents — including salacious pictures from what President Donald Trump's personal attorney Rudy Giuliani and a Delaware Apple repair store owner claimed to be Hunter Biden's hard drive — were published in the New York Post on Oct. 14. Associates close to Trump, including Giuliani and former White House chief strategist Steve Bannon, have promised more blockbuster leaks and secrets, which have yet to materialize.

The fake intelligence document, however, preceded the leak by months, and it helped lay the groundwork among right-wing media for what would become a failed October surprise: a viral pile-on of conspiracy theories about Hunter Biden.

Behind Typhoon

The Typhoon Investigations document was first posted in September to Intelligence Quarterly, an anonymous blog "dedicated to collecting important daily news," according to its "about" section. Historical domain records show the blog was registered to Albert Marko, a self-described political and economic adviser, who also lists the blog on his Twitter bio. When asked about the provenance of the document, Marko said he received it from Balding.

Balding, previously an associate professor at Fulbright University Vietnam who studied the Chinese economy and financial markets, posted the document on his blog on Oct. 22, seven weeks after it was initially published.

"I had really not wanted to do this but roughly 2 months ago I was handed a report about Biden activities in China the press has simply refused to cover. I want to strongly emphasize I did not write the report but I know who did," Balding said in an email.

Balding later claimed to NBC News that he wrote some of the document.

"I authored small parts of the report and was involved in report preparation and review. As a researcher, and due to the understandable worry about foreign disinformation, it was paramount that the report document activity from acknowledged and public sources," Balding said. "Great care was taken to document, cite, and retain information so that acknowledged facts could be placed in the public domain."

Balding said Aspen is "an entirely fictional individual created solely for the purpose of releasing this report." Balding did not name the document's main author, saying "the primary author of the report, due to personal and professional risks, requires anonymity."

A viral dossier about Hunter Biden was written by "Martin Aspen," a fake identity whose profile picture was created by artificial intelligence.TyphoonInvesti1 / via Twitter

Balding claimed that the document was commissioned by Apple Daily, a Hong Kong-based tabloid that is frequently critical of the Chinese government. A spokesperson for Apple Daily confirmed it had worked with Balding on the document.

In addition to posting the document to his blog, Balding also promoted it in far-right media, appearing on Bannon's podcast and on "China Unscripted," a podcast produced by The Epoch Times, a pro-Trump media outlet opposed to the Chinese government.

Balding, an American who taught economics at China's Peking University HSBC Business School until 2018, is often critical of the Chinese government. He made news this year as a source uncovering a global bulk data collection operation by the Chinese company Shenzhen Zhenhua Data Technology.

Blog posts highlighting the most salacious parts of the document, including articles from the Intelligence Quarterly Blog, Revolver News and Balding's blog, received 70,000 public interactions — which includes reactions, comments and shares — across Facebook, Twitter and Reddit, according to the social media analysis tool BuzzSumo.

Balding's blog was the primary driver of virality in conservative and conspiracy communities. The report itself was shared across Facebook and Twitter around 5,000 times, according to BuzzSumo, and more than 80 sites linked back to the blog, which was shared more than 25,000 times on Facebook and Twitter. Hyperpartisan and conspiracy sites like ZeroHedge and WorldNetDaily led the pack.

After the promise of a big reveal one day earlier, the document was also posted on the extremist forum 8kun by Q, the anonymous account behind the QAnon conspiracy theory movement.

On Twitter, the document was pushed by influencers in the QAnon community, as well as by Dinggang Wang, an anti-Chinese government YouTube personality who works for Guo Wengui, a billionaire who fled China amid accusations of bribery and other crimes. Republican Newt Gingrich, the former speaker of the House of Representatives, tweeted the document to his 2.3 million followers.

'Immediately suspicious'

The document gained attention from disinformation researchers in part because of the image of the document's author.

Elise Thomas, a researcher at the Australian Strategic Policy Institute, first spotted telltale signs of a fake photo when she went searching for Typhoon Investigations' Aspen on the web. Thomas found a Twitter account for Aspen named @TyphoonInvesti1, which had posted a link to Typhoon's WordPress page that contained the document on Aug. 15.

The profile picture for Aspen immediately showed signs of being a computer-generated image that can be created by computers and even some websites. Aspen's ears were asymmetrical, for one, but his left eye is what gave away that he did not really exist. Aspen's left iris juts out and appears to form a second pupil, a somewhat frequent error with computer-generated faces.

"The most obvious tell was the irregular shape of the irises," Thomas said. "The profile picture looks pretty convincing in the Twitter thumbnail, but when I popped it up into full view I was immediately suspicious."

Thomas then consulted with Ben Nimmo, director of investigations at the analytics company Graphika, who noted the other telltale sign of a computer-generated face.

"One of the things he and his team have figured out is that if you layer a lot of these images over the top of one another, the eyes align," Thomas said. "He did that with this image, and the eyes matched up."

Other parts of Aspen's identity were clearly stolen from disparate parts of the web. Aspen's Facebook page was created in August, and it featured only two pictures, both from his "new house," which were tracked back to reviews on the travel website Tripadvisor. The logo for Typhoon Investigations was lifted from the Taiwan Fact-Checking Center, a digital literacy nonprofit.

Aspen claimed on his LinkedIn profile to have worked for a company called Swiss Security Solutions from 2016 to 2020. Swiss Security Solutions denied having ever employed anyone named Aspen, and it said it had found fake accounts for two other people pretending to have worked for the company.

"Martin Aspen was never a freelancer or worker of the Swiss Security Solutions. We do not know this person. According to our Due Diligence Software, this person does not exist in Switzerland," Swiss Security Solutions Chairman Bojan Ilic said, adding that the company has reported the profile to LinkedIn.

Fake faces

Computer-generated faces have become a staple of large-scale disinformation operations in the run-up to the election. In December, Facebook took down a network of fake accounts using computer-created faces tied to The Epoch Times. Facebook removed over 600 accounts tied to the operation, which pushed pro-Trump messages and even served as moderators of some Facebook groups. Stephen Gregory, publisher of the U.S. editions of The Epoch Times, has denied any connection to the accounts.

Last month, Facebook removed another batch of computer-generated profiles originating in China and the Philippines, some of which made anti-Trump posts.

Renee DiResta, a researcher at the Stanford Internet Observatory, said computer-created identities are becoming common for disinformation campaigns, in part because they are easy to create.

DiResta, who helped examine a ring of AI-generated faces tied to the conservative nonprofit Turning Point USA last month, said computer-generated profile pictures can be used to "build an army of fake people" to artificially support a cause or to make "disinformation operations harder to discover."

"One of the things that investigators look at to understand the narrative that is spreading is whether the accounts are authentic, whether they're real," DiResta said. "If they were to use a stock photo, it confirms something dishonest is likely happening. By using an AI-generated face, you're guaranteeing you won't find that person elsewhere on the internet."

CORRECTION (Oct 30, 2020. 11:19 a.m. ET): An earlier version of this article misstated Christopher Balding’s position at Fulbright University Vietnam. As of Thursday afternoon, the university had listed him as being currently employed, but later put out a statement saying he was a former professor. He is no longer an employee of the university as of Sept. 10, 2020.

How Steve Bannon and a Chinese Billionaire Created a Right-Wing Coronavirus Media Sensation

 Increasingly allied, the American far right and members of the Chinese diaspora tapped into social media to give a Hong Kong researcher a vast audience for peddling unsubstantiated pandemic claims.

By Amy Qin, Vivian Wang and Danny Hakim

Nov. 20, 2020

Dr. Li-Meng Yan wanted to remain anonymous. It was mid-January, and Dr. Yan, a researcher in Hong Kong, had been hearing rumors about a dangerous new virus in mainland China that the government was playing down. Terrified for her personal safety and career, she reached out to her favorite Chinese YouTube host, known for criticizing the Chinese government.

Within days, the host was telling his 100,000 followers that the coronavirus had been deliberately released by the Chinese Communist Party. He wouldn’t name the whistle-blower, he said, because officials could make the person “disappear.”

By September, Dr. Yan had abandoned caution. She appeared in the United States on Fox News making the unsubstantiated claim to millions that the coronavirus was a bio-weapon manufactured by China.

Overnight, Dr. Yan became a right-wing media sensation, with top advisers to President Trump and conservative pundits hailing her as a hero. Nearly as quickly, her interview was labeled on social media as containing “false information,” while scientists rejected her research as a polemic dressed up in jargon.

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Her evolution was the product of a collaboration between two separate but increasingly allied groups that peddle misinformation: a small but active corner of the Chinese diaspora and the highly influential far right in the United States.

ImageDr. Li-Meng Yan’s interview on Tucker Carlson’s show in September racked up at least 8.8 million views online. Facebook and Instagram flagged it as false information.

Dr. Li-Meng Yan’s interview on Tucker Carlson’s show in September racked up at least 8.8 million views online. Facebook and Instagram flagged it as false information.Credit...Fox News

Each saw an opportunity in the pandemic to push its agenda. For the diaspora, Dr. Yan and her unfounded claims provided a cudgel for those intent on bringing down China’s government. For American conservatives, they played to rising anti-Chinese sentiment and distracted from the Trump administration’s bungled handling of the outbreak.

Both sides took advantage of the dearth of information coming out of China, where the government has refused to share samples of the virus and has resisted a transparent, independent investigation. Its initial cover-up of the outbreak has further fueled suspicion about the origins of the virus.

An overwhelming body of evidence shows that the virus almost certainly originated in an animal, most likely a bat, before evolving to make the leap into humans. While U.S. intelligence agencies have not ruled out the possibility of a lab leak, they have not found any proof so far to back up that theory.

Dr. Yan’s trajectory was carefully crafted by Guo Wengui, a fugitive Chinese billionaire, and Stephen K. Bannon, a former adviser to Mr. Trump.

They put Dr. Yan on a plane to the United States, gave her a place to stay, coached her on media appearances and helped her secure interviews with popular conservative television hosts like Tucker Carlson and Lou Dobbs, who have shows on Fox. They nurtured her seemingly deep belief that the virus was genetically engineered, uncritically embracing what she provided as proof.

“I said from Day 1, there’s no conspiracies,” Mr. Bannon said in an interview. “But there are also no coincidences.”

Mr. Bannon noted that unlike Dr. Yan, he did not believe the Chinese government “purposely did this.” But he has pushed the theory about an accidental leak of risky laboratory research and has been intent on creating a debate about the new coronavirus’s origins.

“Dr. Yan is one small voice, but at least she’s a voice,” he said.

The media outlets that cater to the Chinese diaspora — a jumble of independent websites, YouTube channels and Twitter accounts with anti-Beijing leanings — have formed a fast-growing echo chamber for misinformation. With few reliable Chinese-language news sources to fact-check them, rumors can quickly harden into a distorted reality. Increasingly, they are feeding and being fed by far-right American media.

Wang Dinggang, the YouTube host contacted by Dr. Yan and a close associate of Mr. Guo, appears to have been the first to seed rumors related to Hunter Biden, a son of President-elect Joseph R. Biden Jr. A site owned by Mr. Guo amplified the baseless claims about Hunter Biden’s involvement in a child abuse conspiracy. They were picked up by Infowars and other fringe American outlets. Mr. Bannon, Mr. Wang and Mr. Guo are now all promoting the false idea that the presidential election was rigged.

Big technology companies have started to push back, as Facebook and Twitter try to better police content. Twitter permanently banned one of Mr. Bannon’s accounts for violating its rules on glorifying violence after he suggested on his podcast that the heads of the F.B.I. director and Dr. Anthony S. Fauci, the nation’s top infectious disease expert, should be put on pikes.

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But such mainstream notoriety has only bolstered their anti-establishment credentials. Mr. Wang’s YouTube following has nearly doubled since January. Traffic for two of Mr. Guo’s websites soared to more than 135 million last month, up from fewer than five million visits last December, according to SimilarWeb, an online data provider. Many conservatives who claim Facebook and Twitter censor right-wing voices are also flocking to new social media platforms such as Parler — and Dr. Yan, Mr. Wang and Mr. Guo have already joined them.

Dr. Yan, through representatives for Mr. Bannon and Mr. Guo, declined multiple requests for an interview. So did Mr. Wang, citing The New York Times’s “reputation for fake news.”

In a statement sent through a lawyer, Mr. Guo said he had only offered “encouragement” for Dr. Yan’s efforts “to stand up against the C.C.P. mafia and tell the world the truth about Covid-19.”

“I would gladly assist others seeking to tell the world the truth,” he said.

Finding a platform

As the new year began, Mr. Wang was doing what he did best: attacking the Chinese Communist Party on YouTube. He railed against China’s crackdown on Muslims and pontificated on the U.S. trade war.

Then on Jan. 19, he suddenly shifted to the emerging outbreak in the central Chinese city of Wuhan. It was early in the crisis, before the lockdown in the city, before China had disclosed that the virus was spreading among humans, before the world was paying attention.

In an 80-minute show devoted to an unnamed whistle-blower, Mr. Wang said that he had heard from “the world’s absolute top coronavirus expert,” who had told him China was not being transparent. “I think this is very believable, and very scary,” he said.

Wang Dinggang, left, a YouTube host and China critic, and his frequent co-host, known as Ai Li. In January, Mr. Wang suddenly shifted his attention to the emerging coronavirus outbreak in Wuhan.

Wang Dinggang, left, a YouTube host and China critic, and his frequent co-host, known as Ai Li. In January, Mr. Wang suddenly shifted his attention to the emerging coronavirus outbreak in Wuhan.Credit...YouTube

Mr. Wang, who was a businessman in China before moving to the United States for unknown reasons, is part of a growing group of commentators that have emerged on the Chinese-language internet. Their shows, which mix punditry, serious analysis and outright rumor, cater to a diaspora that often does not trust Chinese state media and has few reliable sources of news in its native language.

Since starting his program several years ago, Mr. Wang, who broadcasts under the name Lu De, has emerged as one of the genre’s most popular personalities, in part for his embrace of outlandish theories. He has accused Chinese officials of using “sex and seduction” to entrap enemies, and urged his audience to hoard food in preparation for the Communist Party’s collapse.

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His January show on the unnamed whistle-blower combined the same elements of fact and fiction. He called his source, later revealed to be Dr. Yan, an expert, but greatly exaggerated her credentials.

She had studied influenza before the outbreak, but not coronaviruses. She did work at one of the world’s top virology labs, at the University of Hong Kong, but was fairly new to the field and hired for her experience with lab animals, according to two university employees who knew her. She helped investigate the new outbreak, but was not overseeing the effort.

The episode caught the attention of Mr. Bannon, who said he started worrying about the virus when China began locking down. Someone, he didn’t say who, pointed out the show and translated it.

A few months later, Mr. Wang suddenly told Dr. Yan to flee Hong Kong for her safety, he explained in later broadcasts. Mr. Guo, his primary patron, paid for her to fly first class, he added.

On April 28, Dr. Yan quietly left for the airport. Her family and friends panicked but could not reach her, said Jean-Marc Cavaillon, a retired professor of immunology at the Pasteur Institute in Paris who has known Dr. Yan since 2017. A missing persons report was filed in Hong Kong.

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Two weeks later, she resurfaced in the United States.

“I’m currently in New York, very safe and relaxed” with the “best bodyguards and lawyers,” Dr. Yan wrote on WeChat, in a screenshot seen by The Times. “What I’m doing now is helping the whole world take control of the pandemic.”

A media makeover

After Dr. Yan arrived in the United States, Mr. Bannon, Mr. Guo and their allies immediately set out to package her as a whistle-blower they could sell to the American public.

They installed her in a “safe house” outside of New York City and hired lawyers, Mr. Bannon said. They found her a media coach, since English is not her first language. Mr. Bannon also asked her to submit multiple papers summarizing her purported evidence, Dr. Yan later said.

“Make sure you can walk people through this logically,” Mr. Bannon recalled telling her.

Mr. Bannon and Mr. Guo have been on a mission for years to, as they put it, bring down the Chinese Communist Party.

Mr. Guo, who also goes by Miles Kwok, was a property magnate in China with ties to senior party officials, until he fled the country about five years ago under the shadow of corruption allegations. He has since styled himself as a freedom fighter, though many are skeptical of his motivations.

Mr. Bannon, who patrolled the South China Sea as a young naval officer, has long focused much of his energy on China. During his time in the White House, he counseled Mr. Trump to take a tough approach toward the country, which he has described as “the greatest existential threat ever faced by the United States.”

Mr. Guo’s deep pockets and Mr. Bannon’s extensive network have given them an influential platform. The two men set up a $100 million fund to investigate corruption in China. They spread conspiracy theories about the accidental death of a Chinese tycoon in France, calling it a fake suicide orchestrated by Beijing.

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By late January, they were both acutely focused on the outbreak in China.

mage

Guo Wengui and Steve Bannon at a news conference in 2018. Mr. Bannon and Mr. Guo have been on a mission for years to, as they put it, bring down the Chinese Communist Party.

Guo Wengui and Steve Bannon at a news conference in 2018. Mr. Bannon and Mr. Guo have been on a mission for years to, as they put it, bring down the Chinese Communist Party.Credit...Don Emmert/Agence France-Presse — Getty Images

Mr. Bannon pivoted his podcast to the coronavirus. He was calling it “the C.C.P. virus” long before Mr. Trump started using xenophobic labels for the pandemic. He invited fierce critics of China to the show to discuss how the outbreak exemplified the global threat posed by the Chinese Communist Party.

Mr. Guo began claiming that the virus was an attack ordered by China’s vice president. He circulated the same claims on his media operation, which includes GTV, a video platform, and GNews, a site that features glowing coverage of Mr. Guo and his associates. He released a song called “Take Down the C.C.P.,” which briefly hit No. 1 worldwide on the Apple iTunes chart.

The men have continued to target the Chinese government even as they battle their own legal woes. Mr. Guo is reportedly under investigation by U.S. federal authorities over fund-raising tactics at his media company. Mr. Bannon, who was arrested this summer on Mr. Guo’s yacht, is facing fraud charges for a nonprofit he helped set up to build a wall along the Mexican border.

In Dr. Yan, the two men found an ideal face for their campaign.

On July 10, she revealed her identity for the first time in a 13-minute interview on the Fox News website. She said that the Chinese government had concealed evidence of human-to-human transmission of the virus. She accused, without proof, professors at the University of Hong Kong of assisting in the cover-up. (The university quickly rejected her accusations as “hearsay.”)

“The reason I came to the U.S. is because I deliver the message of the truth of Covid-19,” she said.

She made no mention of Mr. Guo or Mr. Bannon, by design.

“Don’t link yourself to Bannon, don’t link yourself to Guo Wengui,” Mr. Guo on his own show recounted telling Dr. Yan. “Once you mention us, those American extreme leftists will attack and say you have a political agenda.”

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After the first Fox interview, Dr. Yan embarked on a whirlwind tour of right-wing media, echoing conservative talking points. She said that she took hydroxychloroquine to ward off the virus, even though the F.D.A. had warned that it was not effective. She suggested that the World Health Organization helped cover up the outbreak.

Those interviews were amplified by social media accounts proclaiming allegiance to Mr. Guo. They translated her appearances into Chinese, then posted multiple versions on YouTube and retweeted posts by other pro-Guo accounts.

Some of the accounts have tens of thousands of followers — of a dubious nature. Many have multiple indicators of so-called inauthentic behavior, according to an analysis by First Draft, a nonprofit that studies misinformation. The analysis found that they were created in the past two years, lacked background photos and had user names that were jumbles of letters and numbers.

Collectively, the followers created online momentum for the conservative media world, which in turn re-energized the pro-Guo accounts. “The two are filtering and feeding off of each other,” said Anne Kruger, First Draft’s Asia Pacific director.

Going mainstream

In early September, Dr. Yan met with Dr. Daniel Lucey, an infectious disease expert at Georgetown University who had floated the possibility that the virus was the product of a laboratory experiment. Dr. Lucey said Dr. Yan’s associates, who set up the meeting, wanted to find a credible scientist to endorse her claims. “That was the only reason for bringing me there,” he said.

For more than four hours, Dr. Yan discussed her background and research, while one of her associates, whom Dr. Lucey declined to name, impatiently walked in and out of the room. He said that Dr. Yan appeared to genuinely believe that the virus had been weaponized but struggled to explain why.

At the end, the associate asked Dr. Lucey if he thought Dr. Yan had a “smoking gun.” When Dr. Lucey said no, the meeting quickly ended.

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Days later, Dr. Yan released a 26-page research paper that she said proved the virus was manufactured. It spread rapidly online.

The paper, which was not peer-reviewed or published in a scientific journal, was posted on an online open-access repository. It was backed by two nonprofits funded by Mr. Guo. The three other co-authors on the paper were pseudonyms for safety reasons, according to Mr. Bannon.

Image

The Wuhan Institute of Virology in China. Among the unsubstantiated claims that have circulated about the coronavirus is that it originated in a Chinese laboratory.

The Wuhan Institute of Virology in China. Among the unsubstantiated claims that have circulated about the coronavirus is that it originated in a Chinese laboratory.Credit...Hector Retamal/Agence France-Presse — Getty Images

Virologists quickly dismissed the paper as “pseudoscience” and “based on conjecture.” Some worried that the paper — laden with charts and scientific jargon, such as “unique furin cleavage site” and “RBM-hACE2 binding” — would lend her claims a veneer of credibility.

“It’s full of science-y sorts of terms that are jumbled together to sound impressive but aren’t supported,” said Gigi Kwik Gronvall, an immunologist at Johns Hopkins University who was among several authors of a rebuttal to Dr. Yan’s report.

Other misinformation about the pandemic has also emphasized supposed expertise. In the spring, a 26-minute video that went viral featured a discredited American scientist accusing hospitals of inflating virus-related deaths. A July video showed people in white coats, calling themselves “America’s doctors” and suggesting that masks were ineffective; the video was removed by social media platforms for sharing false information.

On Sept. 15, a day after her report was published, Dr. Yan secured her biggest stage yet: an appearance with Tucker Carlson on Fox News. Mr. Carlson’s popular show has frequently served as an influential megaphone for the right.

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В России впервые запретили отделение китайской секты "Фалуньгун"

 

Москва. 10 ноября. INTERFAX.RU - Региональное отделение китайской секты "Фалуньгун", известной также под названием "Фалунь Дафа", впервые признано в России экстремистской организацией.

"Хакасская региональная организация духовного и физического самосовершенствования человека по великому закону Фалунь "Фалунь Дафа" признана экстремистской организацией, и ее деятельность на территории Российской Федерации запрещена", - говорится в поступившем в "Интерфакс" решении Пятого апелляционного суда общей юрисдикции в Новосибирске, заседание которого прошло во вторник.

В июле этого года Верховный суд Хакасии отказался признавать секту "Фалуньгун" экстремистской. Зампрокурора республики обжаловал это решение в апелляционном суде, и во вторник оно было отменено.

Религиовед, профессор МГЛУ Роман Силантьев назвал решение запретить "Фалуньгун" важной вехой в борьбе с экстремизмом. "Это крупнейшая в мире секта на данный момент, в России она также активно действует, и не только в Хакасии. Я надеюсь, что с этого момента станет возможным запретить ее на всей территории нашей страны, как это в свое время произошло со "Свидетелями Иеговы", - сказал Силантьев "Интерфаксу".

Он напомнил, что организация "Фалуньгун" была основана в Китае отставным военным Ли Хунчжи в 1992 году. "Это оккультная секта тоталитарного характера, образовавшаяся на базе увлечения физкультурой цигун. Ее основатель сумел превратить довольно безобидное занятие физкультурными практиками в ритуалы, опасные как для членов этой секты, так и для окружающих", - отметил эксперт.

С 1999 года секта запрещена в Китае из-за частых случаев помешательства и самоубийств членов этой организации, психических расстройств, отказа от медицинской помощи из-за веры в "чудесное исцеление", а также посягательств на конституционный строй.

В последние годы адепты секты "Фалуньгун" повсеместно встречали препятствия своей работе на территории России. Так, в декабре 2010 года в Элисте запретили проведение выставки "Фалуньгун", в июне 2015 года правоохранительные органы пресекли деятельность лидера ижевской ячейки этой секты, в июле 2020 года в России были признаны нежелательными шесть американских и одна британская НКО, связанные с "Фалуньгун".

One UK, 6 U.S. NGOs designated undesirable in Russia

MOSCOW. July 20 (Interfax) - Seven foreign non-governmental organizations (NGOs), six U.S. and one UK NGO, have been designated as undesirable in Russia following inspections carried out by the Russian Prosecutor General's Office.

"As a result of a study of the materials received by the Prosecutor General's Office of the Russian Federation, a decision was adopted to designate the activities of the following foreign non-governmental organizations as undesirable on the territory of the Russian Federation: World Organization to Investigate the Persecution of Falun Gong Inc. (WOIPFG, U.S.) Coalition to Investigate the Persecution of Falun Gong in China (U.S.), Global Mission to Rescue Persecuted Falun Gong Practitioners Inc. (GMRPFGP, U.S.), Friends of Falun Gong Inc. (U.S.), Doctors Against Forced Organ Harvesting (DAFON, U.S.), Dragon Springs Buddhist Inc. (U.S.), and The European Falun Dafa Association (UK)," the Prosecutor General's Office told Interfax.