Contact Gail Rachlin at Rachlin Management and Media Group: 212 501-8080
NOTHING NEW IN THE NEW YEAR: CRACKDOWN CONTINUES
BEIJING, Jan 18 (AFP) - China's top security official has vowed to push ahead with the crackdown on the Falungong movement and to give priority to fighting official corruption in the new year, state press reported Tuesday. Luo Gan, head of the central committee's politics and law committee, laid out his priorities for the year, "We will continue to deepen the work on ideological education of the practitioners of 'Falungong' and strike against, in accordance with law, the key organizers and die-hard followers of the 'Falungong' sect and the illegal criminal activities of other sects," Luo said, quoted in the daily. Luo is seen as the prime mover behind the nationwide banning of the group that has been labeled the biggest threat to Communist Party power since the 1989 Tiananmen democracy protests.
Since the crackdown was launched, more than 5,000 followers of the group have been sentenced without trial to administrative detention, while some 300 have been formally tried and sentenced to jail terms, the Hong Kong-based Information Centre of Human Rights and Democratic Movement in China said.
REPRESSION ROUND UP (from News and Falun Gong Reports)
-AP: A high-ranking Chinese Air Force official has been sentenced to 17 years in prison on charges he played a key role in the banned Falun Gong meditation movement. Yu Changxin, 74 years old, a former professor at the Air Force Command Institute, was tried in secret Jan. 6 by the Air Force Military Court, the Hong Kong-based Information Center of Human Rights and Democratic Movement in China said. Yu, who held a cabinet minister-level rank, was convicted of "using a cult to undermine the law:, the center said in a statement...Xu Xin-mu, a deputy director at Shijiazhuang city's personnel division in central China, sentenced to four years in jail for leaking a speech by the general secretary of the communist party Jiang Zemin on persecuting Falun Gong,.... Li Fujun, 37, an assistant professor at Xinxiang Medical College in central Henan province sentenced to four years in prison, The court accused him of posting an article on the Internet on how Falun Gong could cure illness.....
TORTURE CONTINUES: Mrs. Liu of Jiang-xi province reports "On December 22, seven of us came to the Tiananmen Square. At about 10am, another two practitioners and I started to practice Falun Gong exercises. In only a few seconds, the police rushed over to arrest us. The police officers started to beat us and search us as soon as we were pushed onto the police van. They ordered us to take off our clothes and they also bumped our heads against the windows. Meanwhile, they pulled down the window curtains to avoid "bad effects" (e.g., their violence being caught by foreign journalists).
MEANWHILE, MORE CHINESE TURN TO RELIGION: CITE "SPIRITUAL VOID"
BEIJING (AP) -- From western China's deserts and Tibet's high plateaus to eastern China's teeming cities, officials are beset by religious and spiritual challenges. Some families are building shrines to their ancestors Millenarian sects have attracted thousands of rural converts. Millions of Christians attend unsanctioned religious gatherings, rather than government-registered churches, despite the risk of harassment, fines and detention. The past few months in particular have produced dramatic indications that the officially atheist communist government is losing ground. Followers of the Falun Gong spiritual movement, meanwhile, have continued to defy the government with daring if short-lived protests in Tiananmen Square, despite a six-month crackdown that has seen thousands detained and imprisoned. Among its millions of members, Falun Gong counts police officers, soldiers, government officials and others vital to the party's monopoly on power.
WHAT IS FALUN DAFA / FALUN GONG?
Falun Dafa (or Falun Gong) is what Chinese tradition calls a "cultivation practice". Falun Gong helps improve health and overall mental and physical wellness through a series of high-level easy to do exercises and meditations. A person's practice deepens as they study the universal laws/principles based on Truthfulness, Compassion, and Forbearance. Millions of practitioners have reported dramatically improved health and a deepened spiritual awareness. All Falun Dafa activities are free of charge.
Please call us for background on the spiritual practice and the crisis in China. Contact Gail Rachlin at Rachlin Management and Media Group: 212 501-8080. Also visit http://www.falundafa.org