The story of a TV protest by the Falun Gong movement, and its painful aftermath, is told through the eyes of exiled Chinese comic-book artist Daxiong
Here is a vivid, troubling documentary that reconstructs how Chinese activists hijacked the airwaves of state TV in the northeastern city of Changchun in March 2002. The group were followers of a banned spiritual practice called Falun Gong, labelled an “evil cult” by the ruling Communist party.
Watching archive footage of a Falun Gong gathering, it’s hard to see what all the fuss was about: hundreds of followers in a public square silently practising sequences of gentle movements; it looks like a tai chi class. But Falun Gong’s growing popularity spooked the government, enough to outlaw the group in 1999. On the night of the TV hijacking, followers replaced the teatime news with a pro-Falun Gong message.