October 22, 2002

Members of Falun Gong were on campus Monday handing out pamphlets to share their objections to the Chinese president's visit to the George Bush Presidential Library this week.

Falun Gong is a group of practitioners of healthy living and meditation who are typically dissenters of the Chinese government. Members based in Houston will protest with a meditation outside the site of [China Leader] Jiang Zemin's speech Thursday morning. The group has been barred from practicing in China since 1999.

[...]

Falun Gong practitioner Lilian Tee Chan of Houston said the Chinese government fabricates stories about what Falun Gong is and what it does.

"The police don't treat people right. People have the right to speak. They just shut you up," Chan said.

Chan pointed to several pictures in the magazine, A Witness to History which capture instances of violence against protesters and false representations of the group that the Chinese government propagates.

"We just want to get the truth out there, for people to realize what's going on," Chan said.

Pamphlets and magazines Falun Gong members handed out include graphic pictures of the results of imprisonment and torture of members by the Chinese government.

Robert Nappi, a Falun Gong member from Washington, D.C., participated in a protest in Tiananmen Square recently and was confined in a room with 20 other protesters while being closely monitored by 17-year-old Chinese guards, he said.

"They kept us under surveillance for 24 hours, even watching us go to the bathroom," Nappi said. "When we asked to call the embassy, they told us we were their guests. When anyone tried to leave, they were beaten up."

Finally, Nappi and the other 60 international protesters were escorted to a flight leaving Beijing and identified as terrorists to the other passengers.

Nappi said he hopes that President Bush will sit down with [the Chinese leader] at his Crawford ranch and ask him what is going on with the human rights violations in China.

Nappi said a lot of Falun Gong members in China practice in secret.

"There were 200 million people doing it when they cracked down on it (in 1999)," Nappi said. "They outnumbered the Communist Party two to one. The Communists thought Falun Gong members were taking over."

Chan said Falun Gong is not a political organization.

"We have a series of five exercises we go through, and we practice truthfulness, compassion and tolerance," Chan said.

Kent McKinney, a Falun Gong activist, came to Texas this week from Florida to participate in demonstrations before Jiang's talk.

"Recently, the U.S. House of Representatives passed a resolution condemning China's actions toward Falun Gong," he said. "I am here to raise awareness among students. This method has proven very effective in the past."

Falun Gong members will protest Thursday in front of the Presidential Conference Center from 9 a.m. to 10 a.m. in a designated free speech area, McKinney said. [The visiting dictator] is slated to speak at 11:15 a.m.

"We've already worked it out with the police how this protest is going to work," Nappi said.

"We're going to meditate and then raise a sign. We want the president to see us."

Becky O'Brien, a senior customer service assistant at Scheduling and Services, which handles all the free speech areas on campus, said that Falun Gong has registered to speak in the Academic Plaza near the Lawrence Sullivan Ross statue Tuesday and Thursday. The space around the MSC was already booked, she said.

"Anyone is welcome to use that area," O'Brien said. "They just have to schedule it through me to make sure that space is available and then (Associate Director of the University Center Complex) Dennis Busch signs off on it. If we think there's going to be a problem, we will alert security and police."

Students on campus yesterday agreed with the move, saying human rights violations are topics that need to be addressed.

Joe Couch, a senior speech communications major, said President Bush and [China's leader] were taking a move to open up relations.

"I don't think (opening up) relations is ever a bad thing," Couch said, "but social pressure when it pertains to human rights is important."

http://www.thebatt.com/vnews/display.v/ART/2002/10/22/3db4e7f366d7e