GHI/Geneva : Falun Gong – Unleashing the Terror Against 'Dreamers'

October 26, 2000

Falun Gong practitioners have been persecuted in China since July 1999, as confirmed by Amnesty International. The repression has taken a particularly brutal toll -- the imprisonment of 50,000 people, many of them forced to do hard labor and tortured. Falun Gong is a peaceful exercise, generally practiced in parks and consisting of breathing exercises and meditation, hardly a threatening movement. It seems that its rapidly gained popularity in China is what caused fear to the Chinese authorities. We went to talk to Falun Gong followers in the Parc des Bastions in Switzerland one Sunday morning. This is what we found.

BRUTAL REPRESSION IN CHINA

Why are they afraid of Falun Gong?

The persecution of Falun Gong is unbelievable and unjustifiable. The Chinese Government is currently attacking millions of men and women who practice meditation and breathing exercises in parks or at home.

Imagine members of a yoga or sophrology class being imprisoned in Bochuz (translator's note: a prison in western Switzerland) or in police stations! This is what is happening just now in China.

Nearly 100 million practitioners of Falun Gong have been subjected to the persecution of the Chinese authorities. This persecution is not just going on at a local level, but instead at a national level. Since June 1999, China has been engaged in unprecedented persecution in a fashion that is hard to comprehend by those in living in the West.

A strange threat

Falun Gong is neither a religion nor a cult; it combines meditation and breathing exercises intended to improve the physical and mental state of the individual. There are no clerics, no "church collection" and no religious activities. Falun Gong takes its inspiration from Buddhism and Oriental philosophies and seeks to develop "truthfulness, compassion and tolerance". Initially, the Chinese Government encouraged it and then turned violently against it. It is true that Falun Gong developed very rapidly, even drawing in members of the Communist Party and becoming numerically larger than the all-powerful Party itself.

What a strange threat to a power apparently solidly grounded and recognized by every country in the world, including Switzerland! These are not revolutionaries, nor the defenders of a religion, and this is not an aggressive ideology. No, these are people who go to parks to do their exercises and meditate; to an unknowing bystander, Falun Gong resembles a gentle form of gymnastics.

Human rights

This spring, Amnesty International published a report on the persecution endured by Falun Gong and other similar movements that the authorities consider to be "heretical". Amnesty International, which defends human rights around the world, has asked the Chinese Government to put an end to the mass arbitrary arrests, the unjust sentences and other human rights violations.

Since Falun Gong was outlawed, says Amnesty, tens of thousands of followers have been arbitrarily detained, some of them repeatedly for short periods of time and pressured to renounce their beliefs. Many have reportedly been tortured or ill treated during their detention, and some have been detained in psychiatric hospitals. According to an instance cited by Amnesty International, practitioners of Falun Gong in the province of Hainan in southern China have received extremely heavy sentences -- 12, 7 or 3 years. It is apparently not a good idea to practise meditation in China!

Deaths from torture

Marianne Grangier, a Swiss practitioner of Falun Gong, reports that "more than 50,000 people are allegedly in prison. Women, the elderly and teenagers make up 70 percent of this number. To our knowledge, 55 people have died under torture. Thousands have been sent to forced labour camps, where they have to work 18 hours a day." According to testimony which has reached the West, the persecution is sometimes carried out secretively: "You can be denounced simply if a neighbour sees you doing the Falun Gong exercises," Marianne Grangier tells us. "You then lose everything, your job, your house ... And to think that these people are persecuted for their ideas and their practices. The testimonies are often heart-rending to read. There are even instances of foreigners -- of Chinese origin who can be mistaken for nationals -- who have been arrested because they have participated in the exercises in the parks. They are tortured and ultimately released. We are very afraid for the Falun Gong practitioners who have been arrested."

Fears

The situation has deteriorated still further in recent weeks and there is no sign that the persecution of Falun Gong is going to stop. In the West, where our first thought is to maintain economic relations with China, we forget only too often that this is a country that currently does not respect human rights and acts like a dictatorship. Like all totalitarian regimes, the Chinese Government not only seeks to possess political power but also to hold sway over the citizens' minds.

During this time, men and women have been suffering for their ideas, for practising their exercises -- to almost general indifference.

"It is not a XX!"

F.B. -- XX: the word is out, set loose like a dog after game. The big press agencies defined Falun Gong as a "XX" and took up the Chinese Government's version without checking first.

"XX" is generally used to describe a minority religion, heavy on indoctrination, with a power structure and no freedom for its "followers", who are forced to finance the organization.

None of the above exists in Falun Gong. There is no hierarchy, no list of members, and no "priests". Thanks to Internet and to the openness of its philosophy, Falun Gong has expanded considerably in just a few years.

It can perhaps be classed with the numerous Chinese techniques known as Qi Gong, which are physical exercises aimed at improving the health of their practitioners. Li Hongzhi, a Chinese who has now emigrated to the United States, developed Falun Gong, also known as Falun Dafa, in the late 1980s. It is one of the traditions passed down from master to pupil from ancient times to Li Hongzhi, who has adapted it for general use.

In Chinese, "Falun Gong" means "exercise of the Wheel of the Law." According to the Swiss Falun Gong Association, "the practice develops a sensation of energy rotating in the centre of the body -- the Falun, which regulates the everything around it. Dafa means 'Great Law' -- 'law' here in the sense of the principles of the Universe." It is practised in the form of a series of five exercises. Amnesty International in its report says that it is incorrect to describe it as a "xx".

We should add that relations with the authorities have not always been bad. The Chinese Government supported Falun Dafa in its early days, when it was part of the Qi Gong Research Society. After several years of being on good terms, the People's Republic of China became paranoid and initiated the persecution in July 1999.

In Switzerland too

F.B. In the half-light of the Parc des Bastions in Geneva, at 8 o'clock on this Sunday morning, some figures are approaching. About fifteen people have come for over an hour and a half of meditation and exercises, accompanied by music and words in Chinese from a cassette recorder.

It is not only in China that Falun Gong has developed so rapidly. In Switzerland the number of practitioners seems to be growing, as one of them, Marianne Grangier, tells us: "In Geneva, but also in Lausanne -- at the lakeside in summer -- in Nyon and in other towns, groups are being formed to practise Falun Gong. It has changed my life. I'm more balanced, happier, much more tolerant. I sleep less and have more energy." But isn't it some kind of religion? "Absolutely not," says Marianne Grangier. "There's no enrollment, no pyramid of power. Falun Gong has been an enlightenment in my Christian faith and thanks to it I have a better understanding of the Bible. Are the people who practise Falun Gong religious or not? It's hard to say. We don't talk about our beliefs but more about our health."

Sitting in the lotus position the Falun Gong practitioners begin their meditation and their slow exercises. In the grey dawn of this autumn day the sun will soon be rising. The "Wheel of the Law" goes on turning.

(In the Parc des Bastons, Falun Gong is practised early in the morning at weekends).

(Chinese version available at

http://www.minghui.cc/gb/0001/Nov/18/Geneva-family-news_111800_shishi.html)