April 12-18, 2002

Since July 1999, the Chinese government has enacted a series of repressive and often brutal measures against practitioners of Falun-Gong, a slow-moving [cultivation practice with exercises] not unlike Tai Chi. This repression [...] has lead to the deaths, according to Amnesty International, of at least 350 Falun-Gong practitioners while they were in police custody.

Falun-Gong, which was first introduced in 1992, acquired over 70 million Chinese adherents before the government banned its practice and called for the arrest of Falun-Gong's creator, Li Hongzhi. The call for Li's arrest, however, was ignored by the United States, Li's permanent residence, which viewed China's demands for his arrest and extradition as politically motivated.

China's reason for persecuting practitioners [...] is unclear, particularly since Falun-Gong was widely endorsed by President Jiang Zemin's government before 1999. John Nania, a Falun-Gong practitioner from Minnesota, said he believes the Chinese leadership feels threatened [...].

"Some, or all, of the people in the [Chinese] government are scared of losing power, even indirectly," Nania said. "They saw a huge number of people involved in something they couldn't control, because there is no formal organization within Falun Gong. So they reacted in the only way they knew how."

Nania, who has been practicing Falun Gong since 1999, was a member of a group of over 30 Western Falun-Gong practitioners from 12 different nations who traveled to China and staged a protest in Tiananmen Square in November 2001. The protest only lasted a matter of minutes. The group raised a yellow flag in the center of the square printed with, in both Chinese characters and in English, the central doctrine of Falun-Gong: Truth, compassion, and tolerance.

The police quickly surrounded and arrested all 30 protestors. According to Nania, they were held in a detention center for 19 hours, where they were denied sleep and repeatedly interrogated. When the police finished, they escorted the protestors, who were told that they could not return to China for at least five years, to a plane that removed them from the mainland.

The treatment Nania and his fellow protestors received was very gentle, compared to the methods Chinese authorities use when dealing with practitioners from their own country. Several Falun Gong reports, which are backed by Amnesty International, have claimed that in 2001 the Chinese government issued instructions that removed all restraint from police, allowing them to beat Falun Gong practitioners to death during interrogations and to kill through torture. Moreover, in response to a televised protest orchestrated in Changchun City last month, President Zemin called for the killing of [those responsible] "without mercy."

Responses from the Western world have been highly critical of the Chinese government's actions against the Falun Gong. Congress passed Resolutions 218 and 217, the first of which was passed unanimously by the House of Representatives, that call for an immediate end to the persecution of Falun Gong practitioners. This call has been echoed by President Bush, who said in March "there is no justification for [the Chinese government's] brutal repression of Falun Gong members."

Sonny Lei, a local Falun Gong practitioner and a student at the University of Wisconsin, said she feels this kind of pressure is the only way the Chinese government's violations of human rights will cease.

"International help can make a difference," Lei said. "If more people know the truth, we will be able to help those who are being persecuted in China. Their voices won't be heard if we do not get the word out."

"The Chinese government does care what the rest of the world thinks, and if they are condemned enough times they will begin to change their behavior," Nania added. "If enough people's hearts are changed, then we will be making a difference; and we will most certainly hasten the end of this."