New Jersey Online: China takes a hard line in banning Falun Gong

07/08/01

On April 25, 1999, more than 10,000 practitioners of Falun Gong (also known as Falun Dafa) gathered around the Chinese government complex in Beijing to appeal for tolerance.

The peaceful demonstration followed the decision by the government of the People's Republic of China to prohibit the publication of the main Falun Gong text, Zhuan [Falun] by Master Li Hongzhi, and the imprisonment of dozens of practitioners in the city of Tianjin just two days before. The practitioners also asked the [party' name omitted] authorities to allow people to practice Falun Gong without fear of harassment.

At the time, the demonstration appeared to be a success. A number of practitioners met with [party' name omitted] leaders and, after an orderly and lawful appeal for tolerance, the crowd quietly dispersed and went home.

But the tolerance they sought was not to be. On July 22, 1999, in its harshest and most chilling move against popular movements since the student protests of 1989, the government branded Falun Gong "[Jiang Zemin government's slanderous term omitted]" and outlawed its practice throughout the People's Republic.

During the past two years, Falun Gong supporters claim that 217 practitioners have been killed, thousands brutally tortured and more than 40,000 sent to labor camps for "re-education." Amnesty International has documented the crimes against humanity that have occurred since the ban, and investigative reporting of human rights abuses won two Wall Street Journal reporters the Pulitzer Prize this year.

"The persecution of Falun Gong is certainly going on, there is no doubt about it," says Perry Link, professor of East Asian Studies and Chinese Language and Literature at Princeton University. Link believes the size and organization of the April 1999 demonstration frightened leaders who had not encountered anything on this scale in 10 years.

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Scholars agree that the persecution of Falun Gong reflects the [party' name omitted] government's hardline stance against religion, even though practitioners of the meditation system consider it a teaching and practice, rather than a religion or philosophy.

Chinese Christians, for example, also report abuses such as fines, arrests, beatings, torture, labor camp and even death[...]. However, no religious group has been banned to the extent of Falun Gong.

David Brown, a graduate of Princeton University in Chinese studies, spent 30 years as an officer of the State Department, much of it in China. Currently associate director of the Asian Studies Program at Johns Hopkins University, Brown encourages anyone with an interest in the persecution of Falun Gong to read Ian Johnson's articles on the subject in The Wall Street Journal over the past year and a half.

"The [party' name omitted] Party is nervous about its control in China," he says. "The leaders feel they are sitting on a tinder box. They are absolutely determined not to let any group or ideology challenge their control."

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"Many scholars recommended that the leaders humor the movement," says Brown, "but instead, they chose obliteration."

And take steps to obliterate, they did. Falun Gong literature and its news Web site, www.faluninfo.net, depict graphic scenes and descriptions of torture, including burning, bludgeoning, sexual torture and forced administration of deadly drugs. "Torture is how they crack down on opposition," says Brown. "They've also launched a major PR campaign to discredit Falun Gong, including a scene of alleged immolations in Tiananmen Square by practitioners earlier this year."

Viewed in slow motion video, the immolations are clearly a hoax. "Falun Gong teaches that no form of killing is allowed," says Ceci Martin, a local practitioner who grew up in Beijing. "These supposed immolations (in January) took place in crowded Tiananmen Square, with police all around. There was no way to carry gasoline cans into so closely a guarded place. The fire was extinguished in a minute, suggesting that police were already patroling the area carrying fire extinguishers."

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