Excerpts from Media Reports on Falun Gong during U.N. Millennium Summit

Fox News: Practitioners of Falun Gong hold the portrait of a practitioner killed by the Chinese government [09/06/00]

Practitioners of Falun Gong, a spiritual movement banned in China, hold the portrait of a practitioner killed by the Chinese government.

Daily News: Protesters as Varied As UN Summit Members [09/07/00]

Daily News

September 7, 2000

As the world's leaders began an unprecedented three-day United Nations summit yesterday aimed at fostering peace, Erping Zhang - a Falun Gong member - meditated near the UN to demand his native government allow his family to be free.

Zhang says that his mother and brother, who both live in China, have gotten constant threats of detention from government officials because he practices Falun Gong, a spiritual and meditative movement that's banned in China.

[ Inset: Picture of practitioner in attachment Members of the Falun Gong movement demonstrate against China's policies at the UN summit. ]

"My mother was told by [Chinese] police to call me and say stop talking about the Chinese government's crackdown on Falun Gong," said Zhang, 39, an independent business consultant who lives on the upper West Side. "I have former classmates and friends in China who have been sentenced to eight years in prison. And some have been sent to mental hospitals because they practice Falun Gong. They are very brutal in China."

In the case of Zhang, his message of peace was directed to Chinese President Jiang Zemin, whose delegation stayed at the Waldorf-Astoria. Zhang, joined by more than 400 Falun Gong members and human rights activists, marched there yesterday.

Washington Post: Outside U.N., Demonstrators Push a Melting Pot of Causes [09/07/00]

Washington Post

September 7, 2000

NEW YORK, Sept. 6 While President Clinton addressed world leaders inside U.N. headquarters, Sun Zhenyu was sitting outside with more than 1,000 fellow protesters, all clad in bright yellow T-shirts with the slogans: "China Stop Persecuting Falun Gong" and "Truthfulness, Compassion, Forbearance."

Sun, a Chinese obstetrician who studied microbiology at Yale University and works at a Connecticut-based biotechnology firm, said she hoped world leaders would pressure China to stop its repression of Falun Gong, a spiritual and exercise regimen that Beijing has called a dangerous cult.

"The world is connected," Sun said. "We have to stop the evil. We don't want to let it spread outside China."

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Newsweek: Summit on the Street [09/07/00]

NEWSWEEK

September 7, 2000

In contrast to the agitated shouts mixing together at the Plaza was the placid protest of Falun Gong members gathered several yards away. On the pavement of 47th street, more than one thousand of the group's adherents sat cross-legged in row after row. Most donned lemon yellow T-shirts with blue lettering that demanded "China: Stop Persecuting Falun Gong." As soothing music wafted out over megaphones, the practitioners serenely meditated in protest of the Chinese government's crackdown. "Well, everybody is screaming," joked 29-year-old Feng Yuan, a Falun Gong follower from Manhattan. "it's probably better to be quiet and attract attention this way."