Utah KSL TV: Falun Gong Movement

Members of the Falun Gong movement visited Salt Lake this weekend. They demonstrated their ritualistic spiritual exercises, and focused attention on shocking atrocities against Falun Gong in China. News Specialist John Hollenhorst has more on the story.

A very timely event here in Salt Lake. Less than a week ago it was revealed that more than two dozen Falun Gong practitioners died on the same day in a Chinese prison camp.

[...] Falun Gong practitioners say it was mass murder. Chinese police persecution of the Falun Gong movement has been constant and brutal over the last two years, supporters say, and photographers must risk their own lives to take pictures and smuggle the evidence out of the country.

Two years ago, the Chinese government outlawed Falun Gong, a movement that stresses [...] exercise and individual spiritual development. The practitioners who stopped in Salt Lake on Sunday say the Chinese government has used harassment, beatings and outright murder.

"We're calling for the help of all kind-hearted people."

These practitioners are from the West Coast, enroute to a mass rally in Washington calling attention to Chinese atrocities.

Estelle Morgan/Falun Gong practitioner: "it's a very brutal situation in which we just want to bring to light that people are being unjustly persecuted for a very peaceful exercise practice."

They claim 250 Falun Gong practitioners have been killed in police custody, 35 last month alone.

Brad Carson/Falun Gong practitioner: "to give you the scope of the people that are being brutally persecuted, 8-month-old babies to 80-year-old women are being beaten to death."

Estelle Morgan/Falun Gong practitioner: "we ask you to join us to stop the murder, to stop the torture and rape, to seek the release of all imprisoned practitioners of Falun gong in china."

The brutal suppression of Falun Gong has generated outrage in international organizations. Chinese leaders are apparently willing to live with that because they see Falun Gong as an... internal political threat.

Estelle Morgan/Falun Gong practitioner: "Falun Gong practitioners are not interested in politics. Basically they just want to become better people through practicing truthfulness, compassion and tolerance. The main principle of Falun Gong."

Members of Congress and the European Union have urged the IOC to deny China the Olympics because of the persecution.

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