Daily Princetonian: Falun Gong in China

Two miles from the University, a group of Falun Gong practitioners peacefully meditate on Sunday mornings. In China, they would face torture for the same activity.

By Molly Bloom Princetonian Senior Writer

Tuesday, September 25, 2001

The grass was still wet from the dew so they all brought mats to sit on - scraps of carpet, old car floor mats, pieces of compressed house insulation, bathmats and folded towels.

Fourteen people lined up in neat rows in a small park behind the Princeton Shopping Center parking lot, the lot almost empty at 7 a.m. on a Sunday morning. Helen Xu unfurled a small folding chair at the front of the group, carefully settled a boombox on the seat and inserted a tape hand-labeled with Chinese characters.

The tape played calm instructions in Chinese and Xu and her fellow Falun Gong practitioners clasped their hands together, then raised them over their heads to the still-lightening sky in "Buddha Showing a Thousand Hands," the first exercise of Falun Gong.

Falun Gong is a practice rooted in Chinese [...] traditions and popularized in 1992 by a Chinese man named Li Hongzhi. It is also called Falun Dafa - falun is Chinese for "law wheel," gong is "practice" and dafa is "principles."

It is a type of qigong, an ancient Chinese spiritual practice characterized by slow, meditative exercises believed to improve body, mind and spirit.

But it is not a religion, exactly, nor is it just a series of physical exercises.

"It's a self-improvement practice," explained Ceci Martin, a Falun Gong practitioner from Princeton. Falun Gong is based on three principles - truthfulness, compassion and tolerance. Practicing Falun Gong means practicing these three principles and performing a series of exercises.

As the tape instructed, the Falun Gong practitioners began the second of the five Falun Gong exercises. Still standing, each person arched his or her raised arms over his or her head at the start of the Falun Standing Stance.

"There is no group leader," Martin explained. "We just come together to practice." Some people practice at home or on their own, she added. "I travel a lot for my job and I'll just practice in my hotel room."

Falun Gong spreads by word of mouth and, at least outside of China, though the internet. A website - http://www.falundafa.org offers free written and audio instructions in Chinese, English, French and Spanish.

Janet Chen, a practitioner from West Windsor, started pursuing Falun Gong on the advice of fellow students at a local Chinese school. Others discovered Falun Gong though relatives or friends. Those involved with Falun Gong in the U.S. seem eager to share their experiences - they display free informational brochures under a banner they set up outside the park during their sessions.

The yellow and red banner proclaims "Falun Gong: Free teachings," to a nearly empty parking lot.

Most of the practitioners in Princeton are of Chinese descent - all in fact, except for Irene Elliott, a college student from Franklin Lakes, N.J.

But Martin and the others are quick to point out that people of all ethnicities practice Falun Gong. Martin, an auditor at Johnson & Johnson, has taught Falun Gong classes in the company gym. "People love it," she said. "But they're so busy - they say, 'Ceci, this is great, but I don't have time to meditate for two hours!"

Though Falun Gong seems peaceful and innocuous on an early weekend morning in Princeton, Falun Gong practitioners in China are subject to harsh repression.

China's Ministry of Public Security declared Falun Gong an "unlawful organization" in July 1999, banning practitioners from advertising, distributing materials, gathering to exercise and meditate, and petitioning to protest their treatment. The declaration came after thousands of Falun Gong practitioners surrounded Chinese government buildings on Apr. 25, 1999 to protest the allegedly violent breakup by police of a smaller Falun Gong demonstration days before. [Clearwisdom editor's note: On Apr. 25, 1999, practitioners gathered in Zhongnanhai government buildings to appeal peacefully to the Chinese government. It was not a demonstration.]

The Apr. 25th demonstration was the largest demonstration seen in Beijing since the 1989 pro-democracy protests in Tiananmen Square. [Clearwisdom editor's note: please see above.]

Today at least 50,000 Falun Gong practitioners are detained in labor camps or mental hospitals, according to a United Nations human rights sub-commission report released this August. In prison, practitioners are often subject to torture and abuse, according to the U.N. report.

Thousands are beaten and many tortured to death, according to the report. Women, in particular, are often subject to brutal treatment and sexual abuse, according to an Amnesty International report on torture in China released in April.

In Princeton, viewers of the Sunday morning session may wonder how anybody could treat the Falun Gong practitioners so harshly.

The practitioners in the park, move onto the third exercise, "Penetrating the Cosmic Extremes," pointing one arm to the sky and one to the ground. Their faces are serene and their movements deliberate and graceful. The park is still, its tranquility interrupted briefly by a booming bassline from a passing car or the musical ring of a cell phone muffled in a purse.

Each of the practitioners has a story about how he or she has benefited from doing Falun Gong. Elliott, the college student, explained how Falun Gong helped her find her way out of a serious depression.

"It's really improved how I feel, how I interact with people," she said.

Chen, who also works at Johnson & Johnson, explained how Falun Gong helped her recover from brain damage and other injuries from a serious car accident. The other practitioners volunteer their own stories - kidney stones vanished from x-rays, colon problems cured, and a general sense of well-being.

In the park, the practitioners stand with arms across their chests in the fourth exercise, "Falun Heavenly Circuit."

"When you go through the exercises, your mind becomes entirely free," said Xu. "It's the best feeling." The persecution of Falun Gong practitioners is connected to the general uncertainty in China right now, said Mike Jendrzejczyk, Washington Director of Human Rights Watch's Asia Division.

"With the Party Congress next year and China about to join the WTO, the Chinese government is wary of any organization that can mobilize a large number of people outside of the government's auspices," Jendrzejczyk said. "The Falun Gong say they are non-political, a meditation group," he added, "but they are perceived as a potent political threat."

The Washington Post reported in August that the Chinese government has officially sanctioned violence against Falun Gong practitioners. The government has also set up a special task force to lead the campaign against Falun Gong, according to an Amnesty International report released this September.

The task force is part of a new campaign of "systematic" violence against Falun Gong practitioners, according to the report.

"Unwritten instructions allow . . . police and other officials to go beyond legal constraints in this campaign, discharging them of legal responsibility if a Falun Gong practitioner dies in detention due to beatings," the report noted.

According to Amnesty International, more than 250 practitioners have died in custody since Falun Gong was banned in 1999, about half of them since the increased persecution of Falun Gong practitioners and Chinese nation-wide "strike hard" campaign against crime begun this spring.

Human rights groups are urging President Bush to address the persecution of Falun Gong practitioners - along with a host of other human rights issues ?in his visit to China in two months. Their hope is that Bush's trip will pressure Chinese government to allow the U.N's Special Rapporteur for Torture and Ill Treatment to investigate the treatment of prisoners, including Falun Gong practitioners, in China, Jendrzejczyk said.

Human Rights Watch has also reported that the Chinese government has drawn up a "blacklist" of Falun Gong practitioners unwelcome in China.

Last year Martin, a Chinese-born U.S. citizen, traveled to Beijing on a business trip with a colleague. Her colleague passed through immigration without difficulty, but the immigration officers would not let Martin pass.

First they told her that her visa was not valid, but Martin explained that she had received the visa directly from the Chinese Consulate in New York.

Finally the officers relented and explained why she would have to turn back. "They said I was on the list," she explained. "I was blacklisted."

Martin was barred from entering China because she practiced Falun Gong, she said.

In the park behind the shopping center, the practitioners clasp their hands in the completion of the final exercise and rise. Martin surveyed the practitioners putting on their shoes and folding up mats.

She sighed.

"If we did this in China we'd be in jail," she said.