Law firm's 'cult' claim crosses the line

The Daily Journal's "Falun Gong-associated video platform accuses Wilson Sonsini of being a Chinese puppet," (Apr. 18, 2025), quotes from a court filing in which Wilson Sonsini accused lawyers for Gan Jing World of acting "beneath the dignity of the bar." The accusation reportedly came in response to Gan Jing World's suggestion that Wilson Sonsini and its client, YouTube, were furthering the policy aims of an "authoritarian foreign power hostile to the United States" (China) with their lawsuit against Gan Jing World.

Whatever the merits of the lawsuit, Wilson Sonsini is in no position to lecture anyone concerning the "dignity of the Bar" given its conduct in the case. In its complaint, Wilson Sonsini gratuitously referred to the religious beliefs of Gan Jing World's owners, describing the company as affiliated with "the Falun Gong 'cult.'" The complaint did not cite any factual basis to smear Falun Gong as a "cult." It cited a Columbia Journalism Review article immediately after the smear, but that article did not claim that Falun Gong is a cult. It merely recounted (accurately) that the Chinese government had "declared it an 'evil cult.'" Thus, Wilson Sonsini did not cite any basis for the slur apart from Chinese government propaganda.

Wilson Sonsini should know that the "cult" smear bolsters a long-standing propaganda campaign by the Chinese government to vilify Falun Gong, to incite hatred and justify ongoing persecution of the millions of Falun Gong members in China. In their book, "Bloody Harvest: The Killing of Falun Gong for Their Organs," (Seraphim Editions 2009), at p. 19, David Matas and David Kilgour wrote that "the Chinese government labeling of the Falun Gong as an evil cult is a component of the repression of the Falun Gong, a pretext for that repression as well as a defamation, incitement to hatred, depersonalization, marginalization and dehumanization." Professor David Ownby wrote in the preface of his book, "Falun Gong and the Future of China," (Oxford University Press 2008), that "the entire issue of the supposed cultic nature of Falun Gong was a red herring from the beginning, cleverly exploited by the Chinese state to blunt the appeal of Falun Gong and the effectiveness of the group's activities outside of China."

For a prominent law firm to promote the Chinese government's propaganda is unconscionable given that, according to the U.S. State Department, the millions of Falun Gong practitioners in China continue to face propaganda campaigns, harassment, arbitrary arrest and detention, severe discrimination, and other "gross violations of human rights." The Independent Tribunal into Forced Organ Harvesting from Prisoners of Conscience in China concluded in its own March 2020 report (https://chinatribunal.com/final-judgment-report/ at p. 150) that "acts of torture, generally, reveal an overall consistent attitude and approach of the Chinese state towards practitioners of Falun Gong, which is systematic in nature and designed to punish, ostracise, humiliate, dehumanise, demean and demonise practitioners of Falun Gong into renouncing and abandoning their practice of it."

Wilson Sonsini's "cult" slur was inaccurate, malicious, and unprofessional. It also may have violated the Rules of Professional Conduct. California Rule of Professional Conduct 8.4.1(a) states that "...a lawyer shall not: (1) unlawfully harass or unlawfully discriminate against persons on the basis of any protected characteristic." Comment 2 to that Rule explains the type of conduct it prohibits by quoting from the California Code of Judicial Ethics, canon 3B(6): "A judge shall require lawyers in proceedings before the judge to refrain from manifesting, by words or conduct, bias or prejudice based upon ... religion ... against parties, witnesses, counsel, or others." Similarly, Comment 3 to the ABA's Model Rule 8.4(d) states that "A lawyer who, in the course of representing a client, knowingly manifests by words or conduct, bias or prejudice based upon ... religion... violates paragraph (d) when such actions are prejudicial to the administration of justice...").

Wilson Sonsini easily could have referred to Falun Gong (if it needed to at all) as a "spiritual group," a "faith," a "new religious movement," or even a "sect." It opted instead for religious bigotry, to the great shame of that law firm.