Tiananmen Square Self-immolation Incident - Chinese State Media Reports

Chinese State Media Reports

Xinhua released details of the incident to foreign media 2 hours after the self-immolation occurred. Xinhua then distributed a fuller press release seven days later on Tuesday, 30 January, in response to other media reports on the incident.

On 31 January, a 30-minute special edition of the current affairs programme Forum told the state's version of the events to the Chinese public. China Central Television aired footage, said to be taken by nearby surveillance cameras, of five people in flames.

Filming by the CNN crew on Tiananmen Square was stopped by the police almost immediately after it began, and their tapes were confiscated. Articles in the Yangcheng Evening News and the Southern Daily reported that police had evidence that a few foreign reporters had advance knowledge of the incident, and suggested that such reporters could be charged with "instigating and abetting a suicide." State media claimed surveillance video showed six or seven reporters from CNN, the Associated Press and Agence France-Presse arriving just 10 minutes before the self-immolations took place; however, all three agencies denied advance knowledge of the incident—AP and AFP said they had no reporters in the square at the time, while CNN's chief news executive, Eason Jordan, said the CNN crew were there on a routine check for a possible Falun Gong protest.

The Chinese authorities stated that the seven people who had come to Tiananmen Square with the intention of committing suicide were all from the city of Kaifeng in Henan province. The state-run Xinhua News Agency asserted that the self-immolators were "avid practitioners" of Falun Gong who had taken up the practice between 1994 and 1997, and that they fantasised during the preceding week about "how wonderful it would be to enter heaven". Six of them reportedly took the train on 16 January, meeting Chen Guo, the daughter of one of them, upon their arrival in Beijing. The seven agreed to light themselves in different parts of the Square at 2:30 pm on the designated day with gasoline smuggled there in plastic soda bottles; each had been armed with two lighters in case one would fail. According to the government-run China Association For Cultic Studies website, Wang Jindong stated afterwards that the group arrived in Tiananmen Square by two taxis, and were dropped off at the south of the Great Hall of the People, from where they walked to the spot where they would ignite themselves. Wang said he was approached by police as he was splitting open the soda bottles, and ignited himself hurriedly without assuming the lotus position. A press release from the Chinese government says that Liu Yunfang felt that the police were able to stop him burning himself because he had not attained the "required spiritual level."