Saturday, May 19, 2001

Judy Li traces a gentle, curving pattern with her hands as a portable stereo fills the air with the strains of an ancient Chinese melody.

It's an unseasonably chilly May morning, and Li synchronizes her movements with those of a handful of other people as she stretches her arms out and folds them behind her head in a graceful blending of ballet and martial arts.

The joggers who whiz by the grassy slope where the group is gathered in Inman Park barely cast a glance in their direction.

But an ocean away in China --- which spawned the exercise Li is engaged in --- an ongoing campaign to suppress its spread has resulted in pervasive human rights abuses including killings, jailings and torture.

Falun Gong, a nonviolent, anti-materialist spiritual practice that began quietly in 1992, turns 9 years old this month. And ironically, the Chinese government's repression has become the most effective engine in helping spark its growth.

Today, the practice has spread to 40 countries and 104 towns and cities in America, attracting more than 100 million people, its practitioners say.

In Atlanta, close to 200 practitioners attend classes every week, with many more practicing the exercises at home or in parks.

For them, Falun Gong is more than simply performing exercises each morning and reading its texts at night. In response to the continuing crackdown by the Chinese government, the faithful have expanded their practice into a sophisticated effort to document human rights abuses and to challenge the Chinese government's position.

"Our brothers and sisters in the mainland are the suffering body," said Judy Li, a software engineer in Alpharetta who began practicing Falun Gong five years ago. "We have to be their unheard voices."

Founder in exile

Falun Gong (FAH-loon goan), also known as Falun Dafa (FAH-loon DAH-fah), traces its origin to a one-time granary clerk named Li Hongzhi, who now lives in exile in New York.

Li, a [...] master, founded the movement in 1992 in China by drawing on qigong --- an ancient Chinese exercise system that seeks to tap internal energy forces, or qi (pronounced chi). Li says he modified the original practice by adding elements [...] to make it more accessible to the public.

To the casual eye, the exercise system may look like tai chi or some martial art featuring distinctive slow-motion moves. Yet Falun Gong aspires to a deeper approach to human development, say its practitioners.

[...]

Learning to utilize the wheel -- through reading the movement's writings and practicing its five simple relaxation exercises -- allows the practitioner to absorb energy from the universe to ascend to a higher plane of existence.

"When I first read the book, it was as if all the questions I had been asking all my life had been answered," said Becky Yao, an Atlanta piano teacher, referring to one of several bright blue books in which the 50-year-old Li lays out the movement's philosophy. "I felt like I was reborn."

Practitioners also claim that Li's teachings promote health, cure illnesses and endow them with supernatural abilities once a certain level is attained.

Yuan Li, an engineer in Duluth, said that after he began performing the prescribed exercises, his energy level improved, he needed less sleep, and his allergies disappeared. Other practitioners claim to have been cured of chronic illnesses, such as hepatitis B, and even cancer.

"It's hard to describe the transformation," Yuan said. "But the change is easy to see."

[...]

Government turnabout

Initially, the Chinese government strongly supported the practice's benign, positive nature, but soon after, it branded Falun Gong [Chinese government's slanderous terms omitted]

[...]

After 10,000 practitioners staged a quiet sit-in on April 25, 1999, in front of Beijing's leadership compound to protest attacks by some of China's state-controlled newspapers on their movement, Chinese officials were rattled by the movement's ability to mobilize thousands swiftly. It began to consider Falun Gong a serious threat to the country's stability, and began a brutal crackdown to stamp out the practice.

[...]

In recent months, Chinese officials have sent thousands of Falun Gong practitioners to labor camps and committed hundreds more to mental institutions for "re-education." Human rights groups say 202 practitioners have died in police custody --- almost half of them this year.

[...]

Practitioners say there's nothing sinister about Falun Gong. It's a spiritual practice with no political aspirations, they say. And unlike a [term omitted], it does not ask practitioners to give up possessions, separate themselves from nonpractitioners, or declare personal loyalty to Li Hongzhi.

Li's supernatural claims have been exaggerated as well, they say.

"When Master Li speaks of having supernatural powers, he is talking about energies that can be harnessed to make you more healthy, more pure," said Gail Rachlin, spokeswoman for the movement's New York-based press office.

'Appeal is obvious'

Falun Gong was introduced in the United States in 1995, and it began attracting a sizable following among Chinese immigrants and second-generation Chinese-Americans mostly through word of mouth. It wasn't until English versions of Li's teachings became easily available on the Internet two years ago that more and more non-Asians joined the movement.

U.S. practitioners estimate their current numbers at 20,000 to 30,000, but precise figures are difficult to come by because Falun Gong doesn't keep membership rolls.

As in other cities nationwide, the movement in Atlanta is burgeoning too, with Americans interested in Falun Gong enrolling in free classes offered at college campuses, community centers and parks from Midtown to Stone Mountain.

"The appeal is obvious," said Scott Roberson, a computer consultant in Atlanta who became a practitioner two years ago.

"Even if you strictly adhere to the religious background you came from, there still isn't any inherent conflict between your religious heritage and your new practice since Falun Gong is not a religion," Roberson said.

The Atlanta practitioners, like those in other U.S. cities, have lobbied Congress, signed petitions and held vigils to do what their spiritual brethren in China cannot: Educate others about Falun Gong in hopes of stopping the persecution there.

In the process, they too have felt the intensity of the Chinese government's suppression.

Last September, Xiaohua Du, a software engineer in Norcross, was detained for days in China after she entered the country with Falun Gong literature. She was released three weeks later after pressure from the U.S. State Department.

In a flurry of media interviews on her return, Du remained determined to publicize the practice that landed her in trouble.

"It's not right," she said. "We're not against the government. We're not into politics.

"We just want to be able to practice something that gives us peace of mind. I can't see how they can be against that."