Wednesday, January 24, 2007
A group of 11 Sydney high school students have stopped off in Dubbo on a tour to Broken Hill to raise awareness of the persecution of Falun Gong practitioners in China.
The ancient Chinese practice of mind and body includes five sets of meditation exercises and refers to a set of religious beliefs. [editor's note: While Falun Gong places emphasis on a high standard of morality and cultivation of character, it is not a religion.]
When it was banned by the Government of the People's Republic of China in 1999, 70 million people practiced Falun Gong.
Kathy He from the Sydney Girls High School says 3,000 people have been killed as a result, leaving many children orphaned.
"We really want to just give these children a voice because in China they have no voice at all, they cannot even say, 'stop persecuting my parents', because all their parents have been taken away to labour camps and even tortured to death because of this crackdown on Falun Gong which started in 1999," she said.