NEW YORK -- Since the Chinese Communist Party (CCP) first launched its campaign in 1999 to "eradicate Falun Gong," it has often taken incidents of injustice or violence in China and through state-run media, either framed them on Falun Gong or used them to incite hatred against Falun Gong.

The protests in Shishou in June are a clear example where local citizens protested over an injustice having nothing to do with Falun Gong, while the state-run media aimed to portray it as Falun Gong-incited unrest. Since the Olympics last year, CCP officials have used this tactic with greater frequency. The purpose is apparently two-fold: 1) to divert attention away from the injustice at hand and 2) to utilize and build upon the stigma against Falun Gong that has been fostered by the Chinese state-run media over the past ten years in an effort to facilitate a systematic, CCP-run campaign that has left thousands of Falun Gong practitioners dead from torture and abuse, and millions victimized by arbitrary detention or imprisonment.