By Philip P. Pan Washington Post Foreign Service Tuesday, July 9, 2002; Page A18
BEIJING, July 8 -- The banned Falun Gong spiritual movement jammed one of China's main television satellites for eight days and briefly beamed a video into millions of homes during last month's World Cup soccer finals, the government said today.
The hijacking of the government's Sinosat-1 satellite disrupted TV transmissions from June 23 to 30 and scratched plans for a live broadcast of a speech by President Jiang Zemin. It was the latest act of defiance by a group that has survived a three-year campaign of repression; it also marked the most sophisticated challenge so far to the Communist Party's control of the media.
Chinese officials said Falun Gong members began bombarding the satellite with illegal signals shortly after 7 p.m. on June 23, interrupting transmission of nine national channels and 10 provincial stations to rural areas without access to regular TV broadcasts. Television screens went blank for several minutes, then began playing a Falun Gong video with images of followers meditating in a stadium and then a plaza. Officials said the video was cut off after only 20 seconds, replaced by a blank screen again.
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/articles/A41297-2002Jul8.html