Staff Writer

March 25, 2005

Falun Gong is a spiritual system involving slow-motion exercises to promote good health. It has taken hold in China's cities and the government has not embraced the activity.

Liu Shulan, a practitioner of Falun Gong, is on the Chinese government's blacklist for speaking her mind, she said. She is part of a group that raises awareness of torture of Chinese people for practicing Falun Gong. And in the Free Speech area Wednesday, Falun Gong practitioners posed as torture victims to demonstrate what is allegedly happening in China.

Michelle Chen, who was tied to a bench and forced to sit up in the mock torture, [...] said she thinks of people who are persecuted in China when she performs.

[...]

She said Chinese people can't practice Falun Gong - a study of principles of truthfulness, compassion and tolerance - in their homes or speak the name without being jailed and tortured. She said pregnant women who practice [have been] tortured to death.

Chen said the Chinese government orders suspected practitioners out of their homes. If the practitioner refuses they put his family in jail to be tortured.

Of deep concern is the release of the imprisoned Dr. Charles Lee. Forty-year-old Lee took time off from his residency at Harvard to devote his time raising awareness of the atrocities in China.

The citizen from Menlo Park, Calif. was arrested in China on Jan. 22, 2003. [...]

Brad Carson, one of the event's organizers and a friend of Lee, said Lee has been force-fed, deprived of sleep, dragged down stairs and put in cells with criminals who beat him for exercising.

"They make him work as a slave laborer to make Christmas lights that are sent to the United States," Carson said.

Carson, who has been in a Chinese jail for talking about people being tortured, said, "The (Chinese) people have no defense against the government."

Returning Chico State student Mike Courter, who coordinated the event, has been practicing and raising awareness of Falun Gong since 2000.

He said the Chinese government sees the 100 million-strong spiritual system as an organization outside the communist party.

Shulan said her friends were put in jail and lost everything they had and are now [homeless]. Two of her close friends are dead and another has suffered permanent psychological problems.

In time more Chinese will be empowered by people's awareness of the atrocities, she said.

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