July 04, 2001

The freedom of religion. Free speech. Innocence until proven guilty, and the right to a fair speedy trial. The prohibition of slavery. What would a country be without basic human rights?

As the barbecues sear and the Independence Day fireworks burst above the Rocky Mountain skyline, several in Douglas County will think of family and friends in China whose lives are threatened by the absence of basic human rights.

Highlands Ranch resident Chunguang Yang is desperately trying to get his parents out of China. During a visit in December 1999, Yang said, he was detained by the Chinese government. Yang said he fears for his parents' safety. Yang said he watched one of his friends be interrogated, arrested and sent to a government labor camp.

"At about 1 a.m. on Dec. 31, 1999, in Beijing at my friend's dormitory we were awakened by loud noises, someone was kicking the door," Yang said. "They arrested my friend without showing any warrant because he practices Falun Gong. He ended up in a labor camp."

In Yang's case, he was detained for seven hours and released on the condition that he leave the country soon. The police followed him, Yang said.

Falun Gong is a series of five gentle, slow-motion exercises.

Falun Gong practitioners look like they are peacefully "sort of massaging the energy field around their body," said one jogger who passed by a session in the middle of Washington Park on a recent Saturday in June.

For thousands of years, the meditative exercises were only taught to heirs of practitioners. In the early 1990s, a Chinese man named Li Hongzhi adapted the ancient exercises for the general public.

Hongzhi taught Falun Gong for two years. His teachings became so popular, he then decided to just write a book. After the book, a video and audio tapes were produced, Hongzhi quit teaching.

With a different approach than Buddhism, Falun Gong has a similar goal to teach "truth, compassion and forbearance." Practitioners believe in the power of an energy field that surrounds their body.

"The very simple point is to be a nice person," Yang said. "Since I began Falun Gong, when hard times come, I feel less anger, more peaceful. I believe this change has helped my restaurant; business is very good."

Falun Gong caught on rapidly through the mid-1990s, spreading largely by word of mouth, said Viviam Lam, a local Falun Gong practitioner. An estimated 70-100 million people practice Falun Gong, Lam said. People continually tout the health benefits associated with the meditation exercises. From 1992-1998, the Chinese government saw nothing wrong with Falun Gong, and endorsed its health benefits.

Lam and several others regularly practice Falun Gong in Highlands Ranch parks. They also meet Denver metro friends on Saturday mornings at Washington Park in Denver.

The unusual feature of Falun Gong is its lack of formal organization or membership. There are no temples or leaders. Practitioners teach the exercises for free to anyone who wants to learn, without any initiation. The other tenet Hongzhi established, Lam said, is that Falun Gong must not be political.

Douglas County practitioners said that the Chinese government endorsed the health benefits of Falun Gong for several years. That is, until the [party' name omitted] regime discovered there were reportedly more practitioners than [party' name omitted] party members.

In July 1999, the Chinese government began persecuting Falun Gong practitioners, warning them through the government-run media not to practice in public. Amnesty International, the international human rights advocate group, has taken up the crackdown as one of its key issues.

"This movement is not a political movement. This is primarily average citizens of China who are exercising their fundamental rights. They've never done harm to other people," said T. Kumar, Asia-Pacific advocacy director with Amnesty International.

The calls by Amnesty International for release of Falun Gong practitioners have gone unheard. The group documented nearly 300 deaths resulting from Chinese government torture so far, most of which have occurred in the last six months, Lam said. An estimated 50,000 people have been detained in the last two years since the crackdown began, said a Falun Gong Web site.

Former Highlands Ranch resident Jian Tang said she was tortured by the Chinese government. She said she flew in November from Denver International Airport to Guang-Zhou in southern China to visit friends. Chinese police stormed into a friend's apartment and began hitting Tang and her friends, Tang said. Police hand-cuffed Tang and other Falun Gong practitioners and took them to Tian-He detention center, Tang said.

Protesting her arrest, Tang began a hunger strike. She told police they had no reason to arrest her, and that she had not received any trial. Angered, they began to torture her.

"They pushed me down and put shackles on me. I felt someone squeeze my nose and I could not breathe. Then a large tube was inserted into my mouth. My mouth was filled with salt water, and since I could not breathe I had to swallow the grains of salt with little water added," Tang said. "I thought I was dying. They did not stop until my stomach was full of salt."

Sick to her stomach, Tang said she was then forced into a cell to make little plastic flowers from morning to evening without resting. She was eventually transferred to Yue-Xiu detention center for two weeks, where prisoners were served rotten food.

"I was released with the help of many kind-hearted people, including Sen. Wayne Allard," Tang said. "But some of the Falun Gong practitioners arrested with me were sentenced to more than four years in jails, and some were sent to labor camps."

Chinese media, operated by the government, have reported that Falun Gong practitioners are mentally insane. The government reports that Falun Gong practitioners are trouble makers, and broadcast alleged practitioners setting themselves on fire. But Falun Gong advocates said that the fire demonstration was staged. Chinese police who were patrolling Tiananmen Square "happened to have fire extinguishers with them that day," said Lam and others.

Other tortures documented by Amnesty International include rape, electric shock and beatings, said Lam.

Another Highlands Ranch resident who refused to give her name for fear of retribution on her family said it wasn't long ago when she could publicly practice Falun Gong in China. As a senior, she said liver spots on her skin have lightened noticeably and she does not have to take medication since learning Falun Gong.

"The government fears people with their own beliefs," said the woman, who is a professor. "I feel that people who practice the principles of truth, compassion and forbearance are beneficial to society."

Yang said he agreed. When he was detained, Yang said the senior officer said the crackdown was Chinese President Jiang Zemin's way to reinforce the totalitarian state. The Chinese government declared the country officially atheist, although people practice Buddhism, Taoism, Muslim and Christian religions.

"Pretty soon we're going to have a holocaust here," Lam said.

Douglas County residents this summer have noticed red and white stickers on stop signs throughout the county that say "Stop buying Chinese products." It is not known who put the stickers on the signs. But Yang said there is no way to tell whether Chinese products are made in work camps or at factories where people earn a wage.

Similar to other martial arts such as Tai-chi, groups gather in parks in Highlands Ranch, Denver, San Francisco, New York, Australia, Canada Europe and other areas to practice Falun Gong together. Although the movement did not reportedly begin as a political one, mayors, governors and city councils across the United States have commended Hongzhi and Falun Gong practitioners.

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