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Practitioners are under fire for spiritual meditation
Americans take religious and spiritual rights for granted, rarely stopping to think that not everybody is able to enjoy these freedoms. However, religious persecutions occur regularly in China.
In July of 1999, the Chinese Communist Party ordered the persecution of practitioners of Falun Gong, a meditation exercise that uses slow movements and follows the principles of Truthfulness, Compassion and Tolerance. Falun Gong is a form of Qigong, a category of exercises that includes yoga and tai chi.
China's then-Head of State Jiang Zemin deemed the practice an evil cult and ordered government officials to defame (practitioners') reputations, (and) destroy them physically and financially, according to World Organization to Investigate the Persecution of Falun Gong Web site (zhuichaguoji.org).
The strictly atheist Chinese Communist Party discourages and often outlaws any type of spirituality or religion, and also has a history of fearing any large group, junior Christine Lin, a Falun Gong practitioner said, citing the Tiananmen Square student democratic and anti-rightist movements.
Lin discovered that Falun Gong was effective at curing illnesses. I was sick as a child, she said. I always had a cold and in (the) third grade; I developed a permanent rash. My mom (also) had ovarian cancer. When we began practicing Falun Gong, it all went away.
While some find Falun Gong to be the answer to their health problems, others find it the answer to their spiritual questions.
Class of Fall '67, Marian Null, an avid practitioner, is one of the latter. Raised in a Catholic home, she rejected Catholicism at age 13 when she realized that organized religion couldn't fulfill her needs. As a child, she said she was very inquisitive and discovered that her Catholic community wasn't accommodating to her values.
Falun Gong provides me with answers to my questions that are very profound, Null said. Also, as a dancer I found the movements of Falun Dafa to be extremely powerful.
As the practice gained popularity in China after its introduction in 1992, Jiang grew increasingly alarmed at the size of the group, which reached an approximated 70 to 100 million people in China alone, according to Chinese government estimates.
San Francisco's Chinese Consul Tong Defa said that Falun Gong is a cult and the cult of Falun Gong is anti-China. That is why it is banned in China, according to Tong.
You can see, those people sit in front of our office everyday, Tong said. In China, Falun Gong practitioners hijack ordinary TV programs to show their own programs, which violates Chinese laws, according to Tong. However Tong insisted that what is occurring in China is not a persecution.
Ivan Velinov, who started practicing Falun Gong three years ago, disagrees with Tong. Velinov grew up in communist Bulgaria and has sympathy for practitioners in China. In Bulgaria, society had lots of restrictions, he said. I would never choose to live there again.
In Bulgarian schools, nobody would mention God or (spiritual) beliefs, but I always believed in a higher power, Velinov said. People were forced to believe in communism, the opposite of believing in God. You can only believe in what is real (and) very materialistic, he said.
When the Chinese Communist Party saw so many people practicing Falun Gong, they felt they were losing control over people's minds, Velinov said.
Null said, Hundreds of thousands of people practice outside in parks in China. The government saw this and felt threatened. The popularity of Falun Gong had a lot to do with why the government was so against it, according to Null, and the Chinese government immediately began banning the practice. The government works through fear and manipulation, Null said.
Velinov agreed that the Chinese Communist Party is very restrictive. Only in China are practitioners arrested and beaten just for what they believe in, he said. All around the world, people have peacefully appealed to stop the persecution in China. Although the practice was warmly welcomed in more than 60 countries around the world and received many awards and proclamations, it is still persecuted in communist China.
Since the banning of Falun Gong, tens of thousands of practitioners in China have been illegally detained and tortured, according to the Friends of Falun Gong (FOFG), a non-profit organization that protects the rights of practitioners. According to a continuous count by Clear Wisdom, 2,747 people have been confirmed killed for practicing Falun Gong as of Oct. 10.
In detention centers, practitioners suffer painful torture ordered by police. Upon entering the center, practitioners have to register; as they wait for registration, each person must squat on their legs, hold their hands behind their heads, and look only at their toes, according to Clear Wisdom. Every day, practitioners have to beg for their meals by bowing 90 degrees and asking clearly for food without any mistakes. If practitioners refuse to cooperate, guards beat and punish them. Many are sleep deprived or go through brainwashing, in which guards tell them lies that slander Falun Gong, according to Clear Wisdom. Practitioners are also tortured, according to the Web site of Falun Gong Human Rights Working Group (flghrwg.net).
Persecution of Falun Gong has moved beyond China's borders. The Chinese Communist Party is spreading the persecution through their consulates around the world, according to Lin.
Pan Jun, a San Franciscan Falun Gong practitioner since 1998, was a victim of an attack on the discipline. Pan and other practitioners were doing the exercises in Chinatown's Portsmouth Square on Oct. 22, 2000. Women were passing out flyers about the practice when several men began insulting and harassing them. I tried to stop the couple of guys, Pan said. Then they started coming after me and beating the rest of the practitioners.
This incident may have been a result of misunderstanding. They think we're against the Chinese government, Pan said. They treat us like we're betraying China. They have their own political view.
Pan's experience, demonstrates opposition in western society. The persecution of Falun Gong is naturally a focus for The Epoch Times, an independent newspaper that started in May 2000 as a Chinese newspaper, according to Lin. The original Chinese version was established by a group of Chinese-Americans who wanted free reporting independent of the Chinese government, Lin said. Falun Gong is one of the issues the Chinese government wants (to) cover up.
The Epoch Times recently hosted a downtown art exhibit named the National Treasures of China in September. Supervisor Fiona Ma, whose praise was printed on promotional flyers, withdrew her support for the exhibit after allegedly being pressured by the Chinese government, according to The Epoch Times.
I know that the Chinese Communist Party pressured Fiona Ma out of supporting the exhibit, said Velinov, who worked at the exhibit. She was saying good things about the exhibit, and all of a sudden, after visiting China, she withdrew her support.
However, Ma said that she decided not to attend the exhibit for her own reasons. I did not attend the exhibit because it appeared to me that the exhibit was turning into a Falun Gong political event versus a strictly arts and culture event, Ma said. I do not (support) political events, especially (those) surrounding Falun Gong.
The Epoch Times and its sister news organizations, New Tang Dynasty Satellite TV and the Sound of Hope Radio Station, are working to raise awareness about the persecution. These three voices are the only ones brave enough to speak out for Falun Gong, Lin said. When people who want freedom of speech and belief understand what is happening and why, they will do all (they can) in their power to object to it, and the persecution's days will be numbered.
Pan agreed on the need for awareness. The more people know about the truth, the more people will stand on the right side (and) help stop the persecution, he said. The persecution will end. The evil will not win. The good always wins in the end.
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