New Braunfels Herald-Zeitung (Texas): Couple Seek to Drum Up Support for Falun Gong

(Clearwisdom.net)

Jason Wang and Ming Zeng say thousands are being persecuted in China for their practice of Falun Gong. For information, log on to www.falundafa.org

Two Texans with relatives who remain in China came to New Braunfels Tuesday to raise awareness of persecution of practitioners of Falun Gong.

Jason Wang and Ming Zeng made a plea Tuesday for help for family members and thousands of others they said are victims of oppression, torture and consignment to prisons, forced labor camps and insane asylums.

Falun Gong, also called Falun Dafa, is an ancient practice of meditation and exercise banned in 1999 by the government of the People's Republic of China.

The practice dates back thousands of years, but was made public in 1992 by Li Hongzhi.

"It's not a religion. It's a body and mind meditation like Yoga but more complete [...]," Wang said.

Falun Gong, based on the "universal principles of truthfulness, compassion and tolerance," has spread throughout China and proponents say is now practiced by 100 million people in China and by others in more than 50 countries.

"This has become a most important issue," said Wang, whose mother, Han Jizhen, has been locked in an insane asylum and is now under house arrest.

An American citizen, Dr. Charles Li of Menlo Park, Calif., Wang said, was imprisoned on Jan. 22, 2003, when he arrived at Guangzhou Airport, charged with sabotaging television or radio equipment.

Wang said the imprisonment is for promoting and practicing Falun Gong, which was outlawed by the Chinese dictator Jiang Zemin in July 1999.

"The reason the government is upset is the dictatorship never allows anyone freedom of thought," Wang said. "He wants everyone to think the same as him. If not, he believes they're against the country."

Zeng said her mother found the benefits of Falun Gong rejuvenating when she took up the practice at age 70 in the mid-1990s.

"She suffered many kinds of sickness and illness. She always took medicines and stayed at the hospital. I asked her to practice Falun Gong in 1996, and just a few months after she started her illnesses disappeared," Zeng said.

"She always says, "The Falun Gong gave me a second chance at life,'" Zeng said.

The problem came when Zeng's sister, Zeng Qing, showed her neighbors and friends what had changed her life.

For her efforts, she ended up in a forced labor camp.

Zeng, Han and Li's experiences are not unique.

Wang said 100,000 practitioners have been locked up and at least 560 -- and probably many more -- killed by the government or its minions.

Now, Wang said, he and Zeng are part of a worldwide effort to counter propaganda and misinformation spread about Falun Gong by the communist Chinese government, which he said staged a fake self-immolation in 2001 to frighten and mislead people.

"They have tried for the last four years to use the state-controlled media to slander Falun Gong 24 hours a day. Many people in China are afraid of persecution. If you practice Falun Gong, you can lose your job, your house and be arrested," Wang said.

"We want the truth to get out. We want to publicize the facts," Wang said.