March 16 2002
GLASTONBURY -- A local man plans to fast for 36 hours this weekend in protest of
violence against Falun Gong adherents in China.
Shun-Tien "Ted" Lin, 40, said Friday that his hunger strike is a
response to mounting violence against practitioners of Falun Gong, a regimen of
stretching exercises and meditation banned in China.
The Chinese government outlawed the practice in 1999 [...]. Since then, China
has brutally repressed Falun Gong, practitioners and human rights advocates say,
detaining more than 50,000 people. As of Friday, 378 of those detainees are said
to have died in custody, amid allegations they were tortured. Nearly half of
those people have died since last May, human rights advocates say.
"None of these people belonged in prison. They weren't doing anything
wrong," said Mickey Spiegel, a research consultant with Human Rights Watch
in New York.
Lin said he hopes his hunger strike will draw attention to the crackdown in
China, which practitioners say has intensified in recent weeks.
"Four practitioners have been shot in the street in China, and I'd just
like to protest so that we can raise the concern and put voices out to try to
stop this persecution," said Lin, an engineer at Hamilton Sundstrand.
Lin plans to begin his hunger strike this morning, and he will be in Bushnell
Park near the Capitol about 3 p.m. to hand out literature and demonstrate Falun
Gong exercises, which practitioners say have health benefits. Since he started
practicing the regimen of exercises and meditation in 1998, Lin says, his own
health has improved and a chronic stomach ailment has disappeared.
Lin will also present a seminar on Falun Gong from 7 to 9 p.m. on March 25 at
the Raymond Library, 840 Main St., in East Hartford.
http://www.ctnow.com/news/local/hc-glahunger0316.artmar16.story?coll=hc%2Dheadlines%2Dlocal
Category: Falun Dafa in the Media
