Centre Daily Times [Pennsylvania]: Falun Gong devotees 'spread truth' on campus

UNIVERSITY PARK -- Edmond Lee knew what practicing Falun Gong exercises at Tiananmen Square last July might mean: imprisonment, physical abuse or revocation of his Chinese visa.

It resulted in all three.

Lee, a 43-year-old native of mainland China and a Falun Gong practitioner, was baffled by the Chinese government's diatribes against the spiritual group -- which the government has sought to discredit and, reportedly, eradicate since summer 1999.

Determined to spread "the truth about Falun Gong," Lee traveled from his home near Princeton, N.J., to China on July 4, 2000, and soon began personal exercises in Tiananmen Square in Beijing.

"It was a demonstration to the Chinese government (to show) the goodness of Falun Gong," Lee said Tuesday.

Police soon detained Lee, however, hit him while in custody, revoked his Chinese visa and, within two days, permanently expelled him from the country, he said

China's government has deemed Falun Gong a subversive political [group]. Falun Gong devotees, though, maintain their practices are only a spiritual manner of living and pose no threat to the Chinese establishment.

Lee is one of three Falun Gong practitioners demonstrating physical exercises and sharing harmony-seeking beliefs on the University Park campus this week. Demonstrations will accompany an exhibit of eight posters that illustrate Falun Gong, or Falun Dafa, practice -- all a part of awareness efforts by Penn State's Falun Dafa/Falun Gong Club.

More than 250 Falun Gong practitioners have died of torture inflicted by the Chinese government since 1999, according to Lee. In response to the most recent deaths, however, Chinese officials say Falun Gong members in custody committed suicide.

Increased awareness of persecution, Lee said, is a goal of this week's exhibit at Penn State, which is timed to coincide with the Central Pennsylvania Festival of the Arts.

"One of our purposes is to support the human rights of Falun Gong around the world," said Kuan-Yuan Hsieh, 29, who founded the 20-member Penn State group in March.

"The other purpose is that we want to help the faculty, staff, students and all of the people in State College to create a better life," Hsieh said.

A 13-day "SOS" walk involving hundreds of Falun Gong practitioners has brought increased attention to the plight of the spiritual movement. Both Hsieh and the three visiting practitioners at Penn State took part in an early leg of the protest march, which began in New York and ends Tuesday in Washington, D.C.

Hsieh -- a Taiwan native and graduate of Tokyo University now studying English at Penn State -- regularly draws the attention of passers-by while performing slow-motion exercises on campus lawns. That interest prompted her to begin the Penn State Falun Gong club, which often attracted 30 to 40 people daily for outdoor physical exercises during the spring semester.

Hsieh's group plans to re-establish its daily group exercises in the fall semester.

Meanwhile, each of the three visiting practitioners who are demonstrating this week -- all of them natives of China who now live in New Jersey -- has felt the Chinese government's ire over their spiritual activities.

[...]

One of the Falun Gong practitioners visiting Penn State, Xu Jing, 31, left China in 1996 to pursue higher education in Japan. By 1998, a year before the Chinese government initiated its pressure against Falun Gong, she began pursuing the spiritual activities.

When Jing attempted to return home in 1999, she was banned from the country because of her Falun Gong involvement.

"On my Chinese passport, I still have the seals from the Chinese customs officials -- 'canceled,' 'canceled,' 'canceled,'" said Jing, speaking through Lee as a translator.

"I left my family, my parents, my brother (for school)," said Jing. "However, due to my practice of Falun Gong, I was not permitted to return home."

Chinese officials sent to Jing to Hong Kong, then to Thailand, where the United Nations High Commission for Refugees routed her to the United States. She arrived in New Jersey earlier this month and is now staying with Lee.

Hsieh said the Chinese government's campaign against Falun Gong even reaches the University Park campus. She explained the Falun Gong club at times faces challenges from Chinese students, some of whom follow the [party' name omitted] government's word that Falun Gong is dangerous.

Hsieh's response to the challengers: A verbal explanation and conversation that, she says, often spurs a sense of understanding and respect.

The Chinese government "try to slander us as much as they can, make us look evil," said Lee. "But Falun Gong was the nature I had been looking for." http://web.centredaily.com/content/centredaily/2001/07/11/news_local/11falungong.htm