New Haven Register: Falun Gong Practitioners Hold Hunger Strike

August 24, 2001 NEW HAVEN -- In exercising body, mind and spirit, practitioners of Falun Gong hope to achieve the teachings of the movement: truthfulness, compassion, tolerance.

At least one of those qualities came in handy on the New Haven Green Thursday.

As a handful of Falun Gong adherents congregated on the tented jazz festival stage to begin a hunger strike in support of jailed practitioners in China, a misty rain made for strange bedfellows.

Even as the practitioners demonstrated the sweeping movements and serene meditation, a lively group of revelers joined them on stage sipping spirits and chatting saucily.

The spectacle belied the seriousness of their message.

"The persecution is very brutal," said Zhenju Sun, a practitioner who emigrated from China nine years ago. "This is to try to raise the awareness of the persecution of the Falun Gong."

The five Connecticut practitioners started the two-day hunger strike in recognition of 10 fellow adherents who began a hunger strike Aug. 17 in front of the Chinese Embassy in Washington, D.C.

The group in Washington -- including one Connecticut resident -- is demanding the immediate release of 130 prisoners in China.

"The more people who know about it, the sooner it will end," said Scott Roberson, a computer consultant from New Haven who has practiced Falun Gong for two years.

In China, the government continued a brutal crackdown on the group that has sent many practitioners in that country underground, ending once daily protests in Tiananmen Square.

However, the movement has become more and more active overseas in a mounting campaign for international backing against China's crackdown.

In recent weeks, Chinese courts have jailed 45 Falun Gong organizers for up to 13 years.

The movement claims more than 50,000 practitioners have been sent to prisons, labor camps and mental hospitals since China banned the group in 1999. Human rights groups estimate some 200 Falun Gong adherents have died from torture during detention in China.

The government has acknowledged several deaths in custody, but ascribed them to suicide or illnesses.

In the latest action, eight followers launched a hunger strike in front of the Chinese Embassy in Washington D.C. to appeal for the release of practitioners held in China.

The [party's name omitted] Party accuses Falun Gong, which shocked the country's leaders with a mass protest outside its central Beijing compound in April 1999, of aspiring to overthrow the government.

But practitioner Tracy Zhu of Bethany said the movement is not a cult and is not a religion, but merely a spiritual outlet toward self-realization.

"It's just a way to improve yourself."