The Capital (Maryland): Marylanders protest Falun Gong persecution

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The half dozen demonstrators were allowed to start after 11 a.m., but for thousands of their fellow Falun Gong practitioners, run-ins with Chinese police lead to harassment and beatings.

"If I went to a public park in Mainland China and did the exercises, I could be beaten and arrested on the spot," said Ron Sugarman, a Falun Gong practitioner from Annapolis.

He helped organize a news conference at Market Space as part of a continuing worldwide demonstration against the Chinese persecution and torture of Falun Gong followers.

The event brought together two small groups of Falun Gong practitioners who marched from Washington, D.C., and Baltimore to Annapolis during the weekend.

Similar SOS-Global RescueWalks have been staged worldwide since summer as people try to bring attention to developments in China.

"In the United States we are blessed with the freedom of religion, the freedom of speech, the freedom to gather in public, and other civil liberties," Mr. Sugarman said. "Not everyone is so fortunate."

Some 70 million of the world's 100 million Falun Gong practitioners live in China. More than 100,000 followers have been arrested there, and another 20,000 have been sent to labor camps, Mr. Sugarman said.

At least 300 have been tortured to death, including an 8-month-old infant, he said.

Such acts are "out of any humanity," said Bjorn Neumann of Washington.

Falun Gong, also known as Falun Dafa, was founded in 1992 in China by Li Hongzhi. It is a form of meditation done while performing five exercises from sitting and standing positions. The exercises resemble tai chi.

The movement grew quickly, apparently too quickly for the Chinese goverment, which banned the practice in 1999 when Falun Gong members outnumbered [party name omitted] Party members, Mr. Sugarman said.

Before China's ban, Falun Gong practitioners would gather by the hundreds in public places. Now those gatherings are broken up by police.

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"Even with all this massive persecution, Falun Gong practitioners are not against China or the Chinese government," Mr. Sugarman said.

"We are simply asking that Jiang Zemin, the president of China, to remove the ban and end the persecution."

áhttp://www.hometownannapolis.com/cgi-bin/read/live/11_06-14/TOP