The Maneater [Missouri U]: Falun Dafa Week kicks off with meditation

October 2, 2001

On any given day in the United States, millions of people will participate in some form of [spiritual] practice.

In [party's name omitted] China, however, practitioners of Falun Dafa can face torture or even death for practicing [their spiritual beliefs] practitioner Sara Effner said.

"To me, it's really hard to believe that almost 300 people have been tortured to death for practicing peaceful meditation," MU student and Falun Dafa practitioner Nathan Miller said.

Falun Dafa is a traditional Chinese practice of meditative exercises meant to improve the physical and mental health of its practitioners. Falun Dafa dates back centuries in China, but it was traditionally passed only from a teacher to his pupil, practitioner Julia Jiang said. Today there are more than 100 million practitioners in 40 different nations.

"The reason that it has spread so quickly is that it really is that good," Jiang said.

Some of the Columbia area practitioners of Falun Dafa held a candlelight vigil Monday to honor those that have been killed and to protest the Chinese government's continued persecution of practitioners.

Jiang said since its introduction to the public by founder Li Hongzhi in 1992, Falun Dafa has grown to include nearly one out of 13 people in China.

At the outset of Falun Dafa's spread, the Chinese government supported and even encouraged the traditional Chinese [practice], as it enhanced the health of most of its practitioners to a degree that it saved money on health care, Miller said. But as the practice continued to spread, the government began to view it as subversive to [party's name omitted] ideology.

Miller said in 1999 the government began active persecution of Falun Dafa. Since that time, 285 are known to have been killed, and thousands have been sent to prisons, labor camps and mental institutions for its practice.

http://www.themaneater.com/story.cgi?id=11588