Former CCP Leader Jiang Zemin, Responsible for Persecution of Falun Gong, Dies at Age 96...

by Frank Fang at The Epoch Times

Former Chinese communist party leader Jiang Zemin, who single-handedly launched one of the most brutal persecutions against a faith group in modern times, died at the age of 96, according to China’s state-run media.

Jiang, who was the communist regime’s top leader from 1993 to 2003, passed away owing to leukemia and multiple organ failure. He died at 12:13 p.m. local time in Shanghai, where he was once the city’s mayor.

His legacy stands as one of the worst human rights abusers in history, responsible for countless deaths over his lead role in launching the persecution against Falun Gong in 1999.

Epoch Times Photo — A Chinese policeman approaches a Falun Gong practitioner at Tiananmen Square in Beijing as he holds a banner with the Chinese characters for “truthfulness, compassion, and tolerance,” the core tenets of Falun Gong. (Courtesy of Minghui.org)

Political Rise

Jiang was born on Aug. 17, 1926, in Yangzhou in the eastern coastal province of Zhejiang, a region northwest of the financial hub of Shanghai.

According to Jiang, he was adopted at the age of 13 by his uncle, a communist icon who was killed while fighting the Japanese army during World War II. While historians remain skeptical of Jiang’s claim, it’s clear he sought to distance himself from his father, Jiang Shijun. The elder Jiang was once a minister in the puppet government under Japanese occupation in the 1940s, a position that was regarded as traitorous.

According to his biography in People’s Daily,…