A Falun Gong demonstration on Penn Square on a sunny Saturday afternoon seemed to onlookers to be nothing more than a series of peaceful exercises. But doing the exercises would be dangerous had the group been doing them in China.

The group of about 15 Falun Gong practitioners from the Philadelphia area was in Reading to raise awareness of the persecution of practitioners in China.

The Chinese government banned Falun Gong in 1999, calling it a harmful[term omitted]. Thousands of practitioners have been forced into re-education and hard-labor camps, where some have been tortured and killed. The government claims all have committed suicide or died of natural causes.

Dr. Jingduan Yang said the [Jiang Zemin] government feels threatened by something that has attracted so many people. He said it is not a [term omitted], noting it has no membership, no leader and no fees. Practitioners share information with interested people but do not pressure anyone.

James Li, a software developer, said he believes his brother Baifan was among those killed for refusing to renounce Falun Gong.

The day before he died, Baifan had called his parents, telling them he would be allowed to visit them for the first time since he was arrested 18 months before.

His mother went to the meeting place, but Baifan never arrived. Later police told her he jumped out of a 10th-floor window. The family did not believe the suicide story because they found no visible bruises on his body.

"From the Falun Gong principles, we're strictly forbidden from killing," Li said. "Suicide is a form of killing. I believe they murdered my brother."

Yang said it is difficult to believe [Jiang Zemin] government feels threatened by such a peaceful practice.

[...]

Doing Falun Gong exercises make him feel healthy and energetic, enabling him to do a better job helping patients, he said.

Yang, a psychiatric resident at Thomas Jefferson Hospital in Philadelphia, said the approaches of Chinese and Western medicine are different, but both assume diseases occur when body systems go haywire.

In Chinese medicine, acupuncture and herbal medicines keep energy flowing properly through the systems, he said.

Research in Western medicine shows that nearly 70 percent of all diseases are caused by bad lifestyles: smoking, drinking, taking drugs, eating the wrong foods, dealing with stress and not getting enough rest, he said. So doctors treat behaviors as well as symptoms.

People who do the Falun Gong exercises and live by the principles of Truthfulness, Compassion and Tolerance lose their bad habits, Yang said.

"It made sense from both Chinese and Western medicine," he said. "If you reduce stress, your systems will have a chance to adjust themselves. This totally alters lifestyles. Of course, you will be healthier."

http://www.readingeagle.com/re/news/904590.asp