Sunday, May 16, 2004 11:36 AM EDT

Christina Hong, fourth-grader at Ming Hui School in Rockville, gives flowers to riders, from left, John Yu, Kitty Ellis, Brian Nieh and Willem Zuur in the Pedals for Peace bike ride during a stop in Cumberland at City Hall Saturday morning. (Photo credit: John A. Bone/Times-News)

CUMBERLAND - About a dozen bikers received a hero's welcome at Cumberland's City Hall on Saturday morning. The teen-agers and their adult chaperones smiled and accepted applause and flowers from students as they dismounted their bikes.

Why the attention?

Yen Ching who spoke to the gathering at City Hall said, "They are riding to save the lives of children and teen-agers in China because of their own belief or their parents' spiritual belief in Falun Gong."

Falun Gong, also known as Falun Dafa, is a practice of meditation and exercises with teachings based on the universal principles of "Truthfulness-Compassion-Tolerance." It is practiced freely in more than 60 countries worldwide. The Falun Dafa Information Center, which tracks the persecution in China, has verified more than 955 deaths there.

Keith Ware, who coordinated the bike project, said that it was meant to call attention to the problem and "hopefully stems the tide of senseless persecution of children in China."

The group left Washington on May 13 and is on a 700-mile, weeklong journey to Chicago. They will be making stops along the way, like the one in Cumberland, to call attention to the persecution and torture of the Falun Gong practitioners in China.

"I was especially shocked to see students as young as our age deprived of their right to an education," said Hal Wong, one of the bikers. Wong is from Boston and a freshman at Yale.

The Pedals of Peace were inspired by a young Falun Gong practitioner, Fadu, whose father was killed for his beliefs. In 1999, the Chinese government outlawed the practice and began a campaign of persecution that continues to this day. Now 3-year-old, Fadu travels the world with her mother telling people about their loss.

"We don't know the exact number of children suffering from the persecution, but we do know it has affected kids from 8 months to 17 years old, some of whom died in police custody. Others have had their families torn apart," said Ware.

Karen Chen, a 10-year-old Falun Gong practitioner, told the gathering, "My grandmother is also a Falun Dafa practitioner like me and she was arrested in her home last year. The police took my granny and put her under arrest for two months not letting anyone see her. They even took away her passport and told her she was not allowed to come see her relatives in the United States."

Councilman Ed Hedrick welcomed the riders to Cumberland and told them that "our sacrifices through history are our foundation stones for the future."

The Pedals of Peace group will travel north, then west from Washington through Cumberland, Pittsburgh, Columbus and Indianapolis, arriving in Chicago on May 21. They will be greeted by supporters who have tracked their journey on the website www.pedalsofpeace.org. Several adults, including experienced bikers, will join the teens in their continuous, relay-style ride.

http://www.times-news.com/articles/2004/05/16/sections/regional_news /general/news66.txt