"Hong Kong's Tung Stirs New Controversy Over Falun Gong"

(AP, April 26, 2001)

HONG KONG - Hong Kong's political leader came under fire Thursday for criticizing members of the Falun Gong spiritual movement who planned to protest during a visit by China's president. Chief Executive Tung Chee-hwa stirred the latest controversy over Falun Gong activities here with a statement accusing group leaders of trying to harm the relationship between Hong Kong and China. He contends they are planning to disrupt a conference of top political and business leaders here on May 8-10.
Critics said Tung had threatened Hong Kong's freedoms by attacking Falun Gong's plans to protest during a visit by Chinese President Jiang Zemin.
Tung didn't indicate if he would take any actions against Falun Gong, but said the government "will not allow them to abuse Hong Kong's freedoms and tolerance or to affect public peace and order."
In what may have been Tung's strongest warning yet to the sect banned in mainland China as an evil cult, he said Falun Gong's plans to demonstrate during Jiang's visit were "unacceptable to the community."
Falun Gong adherents said they intend no disruptions through the protest, and pro-democracy politicians and human rights activists were outraged at Tung's statement, issued late Wednesday.
"Their protest is 100% legal," said opposition lawmaker Cyd Ho. "Why should he be so upset? Is it just because Beijing has described Falun Gong as a subversive group? That is a very horrifying statement."
Dignitaries attending the conference sponsored by Fortune magazine will also include former President Clinton.
Falun Gong says it will protest Beijing's often-violent suppression of its activities on the mainland - which the sect believes is occurring under direct orders from Jiang.
Falun Gong remains legal in Hong Kong, where citizens continue to enjoy Western-style freedoms of speech and religion that are holdovers from British colonial days.
Local Falun Gong follower Sophie Xiao said Tung's remarks were unbalanced and wrong.
"He forgot one thing," Xiao said. "There's persecution in China. We can't just blind our eyes."

"Falun Gong Holds Protests on Anniversary of Big Sit-In"

by Elisabeth Rosenthal ("New York Times," April 26, 2001)

BEIJING - Members of the banned Falun Gong spiritual group staged small scattered protests today on Tiananmen Square in an attempt to commemorate the second anniversary of a silent sit-in that the movement held outside the leadership compound in 1999.
That brazen 10,000-strong demonstration to seek official recognition took the government by surprise. It catapulted the obscure spiritual organization into international awareness, also leading a few months later to the government ban.
Today, at least 12 members were detained as they adopted the typical Falun Gong meditative pose or unfurled small banners with slogans like, "Falun Gong Is Good."
The protesters arrived in groups of two and three. Some couples had small children.
The police often pushed or hit the demonstrators as they were herded into the police vans that have become fixtures on the square in the last 18 months.
The protests were remarkably smaller than those on the first anniversary, when hundreds were detained. They demonstrated that the government's vicious 20-month campaign against Falun Gong had been at least somewhat successful in squashing a movement that once said it had 70 million practitioners on the mainland, or at least in driving the group underground.
On a bright spring day, the arrests were overshadowed by the tourists who packed the square, although foreign tourists who witnessed the events had their film confiscated, observers said.
Falun Gong was declared an "evil sect" and banned in July 1999. Since then, the state media has been filled with invective against the group. Schoolchildren have had to attend anti-Falun Gong classes, and recalcitrant members have been subjected to police harassment, detention and, for organizers, long prison terms.
Since the ban until early this year, members have staged small silent acts of civil disobedience on Tiananmen Square almost daily. The actions became a routine. One or two members would climb the stairs to the square, strike a pose indicating they were a Falun Gong practitioner and promptly be arrested.
But in January, five members, including one child, doused themselves with a flammable liquid and set themselves on fire on the square. The spectacle has caused the police to redouble their efforts to weed out members. The images of the burned child that were splayed across Chinese newspapers reinforced ideas that the movement was, indeed, extreme.
Since then, protests have been more sporadic, in part because the police have become more active. On sensitive dates like today, they check identity papers of all Chinese at the entrances to the square and sniff soda bottles to make sure that they do not contain gasoline.
After months of the crackdown, many of the most persistent members are in custody. Up to 10,000 followers are in labor camps, according to human rights groups, and more than 100 have died in custody.
Although public protests have declined, it is not clear whether the private exercises have waned. Many members continue to practice secretly at home, members say, although they face losing their jobs or being detained if they are found out.
Falun Gong combines slow motion exercises and meditation with an idiosyncratic blend of Eastern philosophies that members say promote physical and emotional health. Founded by Li Hongzhi, a former Chinese bank clerk in exile in the United States, it was widely and openly practiced in Chinese parks in the late 1990's.
Although it has no overt political goals, the sudden assembly of 10,000 protesters at the leadership compound in 1999 was an overtly political act in a country where demonstrations are banned unless they have permits.

"Hong Kong Leader Criticizes Sect"

by Dirk Beveridge (Associated Press, April 26, 2001)

HONG KONG - Hong Kong's political leader came under fire Thursday for criticizing members of the Falun Gong spiritual movement who planned to protest during a visit by China's president.
Chief Executive Tung Chee-hwa stirred the latest controversy over Falun Gong activities here with a statement accusing group leaders of trying to harm the relationship between Hong Kong and China. He contends that they are planning to disrupt a conference of top political and business leaders here on May 8-10.
Critics said Tung had threatened Hong Kong's freedoms by attacking Falun Gong's plans to protest during a visit by Chinese President Jiang Zemin.
Tung did not indicate he would take any actions against Falun Gong but said the government ``will not allow them to abuse Hong Kong's freedoms and tolerance or to affect public peace and order.''
In what may have been Tung's strongest warning yet to the sect banned in mainland China as an evil cult, he said Falun Gong's plans to demonstrate during Jiang's visit were ``unacceptable to the community.''
Falun Gong adherents said they intend no disruptions through the protest, and pro-democracy politicians and human rights activists were outraged at Tung's statement, issued late Wednesday.
``Their protest is 100 percent legal,'' said opposition lawmaker Cyd Ho. ``Why should he be so upset? Is it just because Beijing has described Falun Gong as a subversive group? That is a very horrifying statement.''
Dignitaries attending the conference sponsored by Fortune magazine will also include former President Clinton.
Falun Gong says it will protest Beijing's often-violent suppression of its activities on the mainland - which the sect believes is occurring under direct orders from Jiang.
Falun Gong remains legal in Hong Kong, where citizens continue to enjoy Western-style freedoms of speech and religion that are holdovers from British colonial days.
Local Falun Gong follower Sophie Xiao said Tung's remarks were unbalanced and wrong.
``He forgot one thing,'' Xiao said. ``There's persecution in China. We can't just blind our eyes.''

"Falun Gong members hold vigil in New York"

(Reuters, April 25, 2001)

NEW YORK - Followers of the Falun Gong spiritual movement on Wednesday meditated and exercised outside China's consulate in New York in a vigil to mark the second anniversary of mass protests by the group in Beijing.
More than 100 followers gathered at the consulate in midtown Manhattan, wearing bright yellow pullovers emblazoned with their Web site address and drawing curious onlookers.
"We are here to raise awareness for our group and we also hope that the staff of the Chinese consulate can see us," said member Kaishin Yen Montanaro.
The demonstration in New York was part of global actions to mark the second anniversary of a mass Falun Gong protest in Beijing, which led to it being banned in July that year.
The consulate was not immediately available for comment but did release statements in English and Chinese on its Web site in which it described "the evil nature of the cult."
The group members held banners that read "China end injustice" and "Stop unreasonable persecution," and also held an overnight candle light vigil starting on Tuesday.
Falun Gong alarmed China's Communist Party two years ago when about 10,000 followers surrounded the Zhongnanhai leadership compound in Beijing to protest against attacks by some Chinese state-controlled newspapers.
Also known as Falun Dafa, the movement combines meditation and exercise with Buddhist and Taoist teachings. It was banned in China in July 1999, although it remains legal in Hong Kong.
Beijing has accused Falun Gong of trying to overthrow the government. Since the crackdown, human rights groups believe about 190 practitioners have been tortured to death in China, hundreds given lengthy prison terms and 50,000 detained in jails, labor camps and mental hospitals.

"China detains Falun Gongers on protest anniversary"

by Jeremy Page (Reuters, April 25, 2001)

BEIJING - Members of Falun Gong staged scattered protests on Beijing's Tiananmen Square on Wednesday, two years to the day after the spiritual group stunned Chinese leaders by demonstrating on their front doorstep.
But there was no sign of the large disturbances which have typically marked sensitive anniversaries relating to the group since it was outlawed in October 1999 as an "evil cult."
After thousands of detentions, an intense state media campaign and five self-immolations by alleged Falun Gong members, Beijing appears to have bludgeoned the group into submission -- or deep underground -- within China.
Police detained about two dozen suspected Falun Gong members on the square and bundled them into waiting police vans, witnesses said.
Plainclothes officers grabbed one young man as he tried to unfurl a yellow banner, they said.
Security around Tiananmen was especially tight, with police checking identification cards and questioning visitors to the plaza and at least 20 police vans on hand to whisk away the handful of protesters.
A top official in Beijing's "anti-cult" body said 98 percent of Falun Gong followers in China had abandoned their faith, many disillusioned by self-immolations on the eve of January's Chinese Lunar New Year in which a 12-year-old girl and her mother died.
"After the self immolations, everyone realised Falun Gong was a dangerous cult because they saw its members take such an extreme and destructive path," Wang Yusheng, Secretary General of the China Anti-Cult Association, told Reuters.
OVERSEAS BATTLE JUST BEGINNING
Once common Falun Gong protests on Tiananmen Square appear to have diminished markedly since then.
But overseas, the battle with Falun Gong has only just begun.
When 10,000 followers surrounded the Chinese leadership compound on April 25, 1999, to protest against attacks on the group in state media, few outside China had ever heard of the eclectic mix of meditation and breathing exercises.
Now, Falun Gong is seen by many around the world as a symbol of the struggle against religious persecution in China.
Overseas followers have put Falun Gong -- also known as Falun Dafa -- at the top of the human rights agenda and now threaten to de-rail Beijing's bid to host the 2008 Olympic Games.
A rag-tag group of U.S., Hong Kong and European practitioners run a slick public relations machine, issuing regular updates on the government crackdown, arranging protests and lobbying politicians around the world.
"None of us really had any idea about how to do grass-roots human rights work like this until the crackdown made it necessary for us," said Scott Chinn, a volunteer at the Falun Dafa Information Centre in New York.
To mark Wednesday's anniversary, the centre arranged a series of protests, published a report on police abuse of women practitioners and issued a statement saying Beijing banned the group because it feared social unrest.
In Hong Kong, where Falun Gong is legal, about 20 members demonstrated in the city centre to demand an end to what they called "unreasonable persecution" by Beijing.
"When we started in 1999, people used to avoid us and some even scolded us for causing trouble," said Hui Yee-han, a Falun Gong representative in Hong Kong.
"Now people ask for more information and some offer their support," she said.
"It's changing for the better."
Falun Gong says more than 190 followers have died in police custody since the government ban. The government has acknowledged a handful of deaths it ascribes to suicide or natural causes.
CHINA LOBBIES IN GENEVA
As the International Olympic Committee's July vote on the host city for the 2008 Games approaches, Chinese officials are struggling to match Falun Gong's efforts.
Beijing sent a delegation to the United Nations Commission on Human Rights annual meeting in Geneva in April to lobby government officials and members of the public.
"A lot of foreigners we spoke to said they agreed Falun Gong was a cult but they did not support the way we handled it," said Wang, the anti-cult official.
"I think their opinions are very valuable and I will pass them on to the government," he said.
Wang also said he was concerned by images of police kicking and beating Falun Gong members on Tiananmen Square.
"I regret this very much," he said. "These people do not have sufficient understanding of the rule of law."
But he maintained that many foreign sympathisers mistook Falun Gong for traditional Chinese kung-fu while others used it as an excuse to attack China.
"We must have more communication and dialogue about Falun Gong between Chinese and foreign governments, civil organisations, media and ordinary people."

"Can the Falun Gong outlast crackdown?"

by Lisa Rose Weaver ("CNN News," April 25, 2001)

BEIJING, China -- Two years into China’s crackdown on the spiritual Falun Gong sect, the effect on the group’s membership is difficult to assess.
Numbers appear to have been reduced and crackdown survivors have become more ragged, at least in Beijing.
The sect's multi-million following may have been reduced by the turn-off publicity surrounding grisly self-immolations. The sect loomed large before the Chinese leadership when more than 10,000 people protested in silence outside China’s Communist Party headquarters two years ago.
They were asking for formal recognition of the Falun Gong, a sect that blends Bhuddism and Qigong into a system of reverence for a leader in exile.
In July,1999, China banned the sect, which set the stage for repressive police tactics against demonstrators and a nationwide crackdown against adherents who continued to practice in public, disseminated Falungong books and videos, or refuse to recant their belief.
Before the Falun Gong was banned in July of 1999, it claimed 70 to 100 million members nationwide – a figure derived from an official sporting association, overlooking the sect's adherence to spiritual Qi Gong.
Practising in secret
Two years after the ban, a spokesman for the Falun Gong’s exiled movement based in New York says that so many adherents are practising in secret, an accurate count is hard.
Indeed the intensified search for Falun Gong practitioners slipping into the capital appears to have reduced the ranks of the most hard-core members committed to unfurling banners and shouting slogans on Tiananmen Square.
The increasingly ragged appearance of some members attests to the marginalization from society of those who continue to practice in public.
Beijing is now home to an unknown number of practitioners unwilling to return home, having lost their jobs and ties with society.
Two years on the movement, publicly at least, appears to be loosing steam.
But judging from the officially confirmed numbers of people in detention or labor reform camp as well as the Falun Gong and human rights organizations’ far higher claims, it appears the government has got much further to go before it can hope to put the sect firmly under its control.
Despite detentions and some deaths of Falon Gong followers at the hands of police, the more hardcore members continue a cycle of confrontation with Chinese police in Tiananmen Square.
Changing the minds
Police win the obvious battle, rounding up practitioners to take them away in vans.
But it’s much less clear if the campaign against the Falun Gong is changing the minds of its more extreme members.
Chinese observers sympathetic to the government’s way of handling the sect say public opinion has swung against the sect and against its leader in exile, Li Hongzhi, largely due to horrifying images of sect members immolating themselves on Tiananmen Square in January of this year.
“Following the self-immolations, many ardent Falun Gong followers’ viewpoints changed a great deal. It’s as if Li Hong Zhi went up a mountain, and then fell down,” says Professor He Zuoxiu, a physicist and expert on the Falun Gong sect.
There were no hard figures of how many practitioners had decided to leave the Falun Gong, but he added that he spoke to several members who had decided to drop the sect.
Since the immolations, China’s state-run media has broadened its focus to include accounts of Falun Gong followers who, after labor reform, say they changed their views.
“After the immolations, they realized and also saw on the Internet that Li Hongzhi was denying that these people who had set themselves on fire were Falun Gong practioners, and that instead it was the Communist Party which had done it. Everyone was very angry. They could not accept this denial,” He added.
Cameraman Fan Wen-Chun and I witnessed the self-immolations and were detained by police.
Grisly incident
Speaking to average citizens later that evening, some of whom had heard about the burnings, it was clear that some were genuinely disturbed by the grisly incident.
People differed then in their views on whether the sect threatens social stability, and to what extent the crackdown was justified.
Not all the public shares the government’s sense of urgency, a gap some observers think will grow as the Chinese propaganda machine continues to drone on.
“I think ordinary Chinese will tire of this. They will ask, what are you fighting for?,” asks Dai Qing, an outspoken journalist and commentator.
The real concerns of most Chinese lie closer to their own lives, says Dai.
“Ordinary Chinese feel unsafe living in society. I’ve had five bicycles stolen, I’ve been robbed, my house has been broken into, for example.
"There is so much real crime, while a lot of police resources are instead diverted toward cracking down on the Falun Gong. So people are really tired of this whole thing.”
The underlying causes of Falun Gong’s popularity include economic marginalization and a spiritual void – both byproducts of China’s hectic pace of modernization and the loosening of the state-run iron rice bowl of social security.
Rustbelt of factories
Falun Gong began gaining popularity in the mid-1990s in China’s north – a rustbelt of defunct factories and laid off workers.
One material appeal the group offered was self healing without medicine – significant at a time when the price of medical care was rising just as peoples’ salaries were falling.
The government claims that Falun Gong’s appeal for practitioners to rely on the curative powers of Qi Gong is deadly.
According to official tallies, more than 1,600 practitioners have died by self-mutilation, medical neglect or suicide.
More recently, Beijing added human rights to its arsenal of anti Falun Gong rhetoric. China’s Anti-Cult Association sent a delegation to Geneva last month take advantage of the international spotlight at the UN Conference there.
Activists showed a banner they said bore the names of more than a million Chinese who had signed onto the idea that the Falungong suppresses the human rights of practitioners.
“In China, the Falun Gong made its followers set themselves on fire.
Furthermore, they are against the government and have done many things against Chinese law.
"Then in order to gain sympathy from the international community, they made themselves look pitiful and they lied, telling people that their human rights are being suppressed in China,” say Si Manan, an anti-cult activist to travelled to Geneva.
But beyond it’s argument that the Falun Gong is dangerous to the rights of others, there’s another reason the authorities are trying so hard to control the sect.
“We all know that the government is afraid of any organized opposition. The government of course does not like protests in front of its compounds, or people self-immolating themselves on Tiananmen Square.
"But the government has many other ways of dealing with this, and still they choose to crack down and imprison people. It just doesn’t work,” says Dai Qin, an outspoken journalists and commentator.

"More than 33 detained, beaten on Falun Gong anniv."

(Kyodo News Service, April 25, 2001)

BEIJING - Police in China beat and detained at least 33 people Wednesday as sporadic protests in Beijing's Tiananmen Square marked the second anniversary of banned spiritual sect Falun Gong's first major demonstration.
Uniformed and plainclothes police pounced immediately on a group of middle-aged men and women as they unfurled a yellow banner in the square Wednesday morning, Kyodo News correspondents witnessed.
Officers beat and kicked several of them before knocking them to the ground.
The protesters were then herded into waiting vans.
Police also detained a foreign television cameraman filming the scuffle and watching tourists were accosted and forced to hand over film from their cameras.
A struggling woman was dragged by the hair into a police van after she shouted slogans such as ''Falun Gong is legal!'' Other protesters put up less resistance as police pushed them into vans, which darted about the crowded square to intercept protesters.
Similar demonstrations, often larger, have marked nearly every public holiday and major anniversary of the sect's struggle for acceptance since Beijing launched a severe crackdown on Falun Gong in fall 1999.
The sect attracted worldwide attention when more than 10,000 practitioners staged a peaceful sit-in on April 25, 1999, in front of the national government compound at Zhongnanhai in central Beijing.
Participants said the massive demonstration was staged to compel Beijing to officially recognize the spiritual group. However, the move backfired, as the Communist leadership responded by branding Falun Gong an ''evil cult'' and banning it three months later.
In a statement Tuesday carried on the sect's official Web site, founder Li Hongzhi referred to those who suppress Falun Gong as ''thoroughly incurable evil lives.''
The somewhat cryptic message concluded: ''Eliminating the evil is in accordance with the law.''
Similar statements read in Beijing have been taken as an incitement to rebellion and the government has offered them as justifying its often brutal crackdown.
In Hong Kong, Falun Gong members urged the Chinese leadership to stop persecuting practitioners in mainland China as they too marked the incident that led to the suppression of their movement two years ago.
About 150 Hong Kong adherents, braving the rain, protested at a park next to the local legislature building and demanded the Chinese leadership clear their group's name.
They said the sit-in outside Zhongnanhai on April 25, 1999 was neither a political demonstration nor a besieging of the Chinese government as claimed by Chinese President Jiang Zemin.
The Chinese followers at the time said they were protesting the arrest of members in Tianjin, who demonstrated against a scientist's criticism of the sect, and appealing that their practitioners not to be harassed.
Hong Kong, a Chinese special administrative region, allows Falun Gong to be practiced as long as its members abide by the territory's laws under the ''one-country, two-systems'' principle.
The Hong Kong adherents claimed the persecution against the Falun Gong in mainland China has increased over the past two years and that their fellows are being subjected to much more brutal treatment than before.
''At the second anniversary of this event, we appeal urgently to those upright Chinese leaders and all kind-hearted people around the world: let your conscience speak and help stop the brutal persecution in mainland China,'' the group said in an open letter.
The members staged the protest peacefully by practicing their breathing exercise at the park.
Earlier Wednesday, about 20 of their representatives petitioned the Chinese central government's liaison office in Hong Kong and tried to hand in an appeal letter, but no staff from the office received the group.
A spokesman for the Hong Kong members, Kan Hung-cheung, said they are planning to hold more peaceful protests next month when Chinese President Jiang Zemin visits Hong Kong for a global business forum.

"HK Falun Gong stage sit-in, mark Beijing protest"

by Tan Ee Lyn (Reuters, April 25, 2001)

HONG KONG - More than 100 members of the Falun Gong spiritual group, outlawed in mainland China, staged a sit-in protest in central Hong Kong on Wednesday to call for an end to what they called "unreasonable persecution" by Beijing.
Seated in a lotus position, followers held up photographs of bruised limbs and other parts of the body which they said were injuries inflicted by police on Falun Gong members while in custody on the mainland.
Around them were banners reading: "Remember the April 25 peaceful petition," "Stop suppressing Falun Gong" and "Unreasonable persecution."
"We want China to stop suppressing our practitioners," said Kan Hung-cheong, a spokesman for the group in Hong Kong. "We also want the world to know that the protest in China two years ago was all because of Beijing's suppression."
Another 20 adherents held a peaceful, hour-long protest outside Beijing's Liaison Office after leaving a petition in front of it.
The demonstrations in Hong Kong, where the group is legal, marked the second anniversary of a mass Falun Gong protest in Beijing, which led to it being banned in July that year.
They were seen as preludes to a string of demonstrations planned to greet Chinese President Jiang Zemin when he visits Hong Kong between May 8 and 10 to address an economic conference.
Overseas followers are expected to converge on Hong Kong for Jiang's visit, which is scheduled just days ahead of the anniversary of the movement's May 13 foundation day.
Falun Gong shocked China's Communist Party two years ago when about 10,000 followers surrounded the Zhongnanhai leadership compound in Beijing to protest against attacks by some Chinese state-controlled newspapers.
Since banning the movement, Beijing has carried out a relentless crackdown, denouncing the group as an "evil cult" which brainwashes followers and aims to overthrow the government.
A small number of Falun Gong followers made brief protests individually or in pairs on Beijing's Tiananmen Square on Wednesday before being taken away by police.
On last year's anniversary, hundreds of followers were rounded up on the square in all-day protests.
Falun Gong says more than 190 members have died in police custody and thousands are in labour camps. The Chinese government acknowledges a handful of deaths in custody, but says they were suicides or from natural causes.
Hong Kong returned to Chinese sovereignty in 1997 after more than 150 years of British rule but Beijing has promised it a large degree of autonomy for 50 years.

"Falun Gong marks anniversary of landmark protest"

("CNN News,"April 25, 2001)

HONG KONG, China -- At least 31 people have been detained by Chinese police after scattered protests in Tiananmen Square timed to coincide with the second anniversary of a mass sit-in by the banned Falun Gong spiritual movement.
The 1999 protest by some 10,000 Falun Gong followers outside Beijing's Zhong Nanhai compound, where China's top leaders live and work, sent shockwaves through Beijing's corridors of power.
As the largest demonstration since the 1989 pro-democracy movement in the Tiananmen Square, the rally prompted the government to ban the movement later in the year, declaring it an "evil cult" that "endangers Chinese society and people".
As well as small scale protests in Beijing, rallies are also taking place in New York City and Hong Kong, where the group remains legal despite the territory being part of China.
In New York Falun Gong leaders marked the anniversary of the protests by unveiling evidence they say shows that Chinese president Jiang Zemin used the crackdown on the group to solidify his power base.
Political struggle
There was a small police presence for the peaceful Hong Kong demonstration Speaking to reporters at a café in the city, Falun Gong leader accused the Chinese leader of using peaceful followers of the group as "pawns in a desperate political struggle against real or imagined enemies".
Since the group was banned, hundreds of Falun Gong members have been arrested and human rights groups say many of those have been killed whilst in detention.
In Hong Kong, Falun Gong members have obtained a police permit to hold a demonstration in the city's central business district.
Around 185 followers practiced in the garden next to Hong Kong's legislative council building. Organizers say more than 190 people have been killed by Chinese authorities since the sect was banned in China.
Although Falun Gong is a legally-registered organization in Hong Kong, the territory's government has followed Beijing's line labeling the movement as "a cult".
Earlier this year the territory's security chief warned Falun Gong practitioners that the government would not allow it to use religion as an excuse to exploit Hong Kong's freedoms, and undermine order and stability.

"Falun Gong claims China's president cracked down on sect to solidify power "

by Edith M. Lederer (AP, April 24, 2001)

NEW YORK -- Falun Gong claimed Tuesday that China's President Jiang Zemin cracked down on the spiritual movement to solidify his power base against "real or imagined enemies" in his own government and outside the country.
The group claimed it had new information, verified recently by a Communist Party source, about the government crackdown that followed an April 25, 1999, protest by 10,000 Falun Gong supporters. China's communist government banned Falun Gong three months after the Beijing demonstration.
Falun Gong said Jiang, in communications at that time, indicated that he believed neither the group nor its founder, Li Hongzhi, could have amassed such a large power base.
"He voiced suspicions that the practitioners assembled outside the State Council Appeals Office had been orchestrated by rival senior officials within the Chinese government itself or by foreign forces," Falun Gong said in a statement read by spokesman Scott Chinn in New York.
The statement claimed that Jiang, attempted to "solidify his power base" by cracking down on the Falun Gong.
"Consequently, what the world has been witnessing over the past 20 months is a wide section of the Chinese people being used as pawns in a desperate political struggle carried out by Chinese President Jiang Zemin against real or imagined enemies," it said.
A spokesperson at China's U.N. Mission called Falun Gong "a heretical cult" and said its founder, Li, has now "politicized" the movement and is spending most of his time seeking "confrontation with the Chinese government." The spokesperson, speaking on condition of anonymity, said China banned Falun Gong "to safeguard and promote human rights in China" and prevent the movement "from creating social disorder."
Shiyu Zhou, a University of Pennsylvania computer science professor and Falun Gong follower who put together a report on the April 25 incident, said Jiang's statements about the crackdown have circulated in China for months but that the movement only recently was able to verify them through a Communist Party source. He did not produce the documents or further identify the source.
According to the report, Jiang wrote a letter to members of the Standing Committee of the Politburo and other top leaders on the evening of April 25 accusing masterminds working "behind the scenes" at the Falun Gong protest of "planning and issuing commands." The report gave the letter's number and official title.
Zhou was asked whether there was evidence of a disagreement over Falun Gong in the current Chinese government.
He said Falun Gong had no direct information but China scholars have told the movement that their own sources indicated "certain disagreement regarding this issue inside the Communist Party."
The report quoted high-ranking Communist Party officials as saying the two classified documents from April and June 1999 "revealed Jiang's mentality of being overly protective of his personal power and interests, and how, without any concrete evidence, he made the erroneous policy decision to persecute Falun Gong."
China's government considers Falun Gong a cult that threatens public order and communist rule and has led more than 1,600 followers to their deaths, mostly by encouraging them to eschew modern medical treatment.
Practitioners say its exercises and philosophies promoting good health and moral living are drawn from Buddhism, Taoism and Li, the group's U.S.-based founder. It denies causing any deaths, and claims that 191 followers have been tortured to death in police custody.

"China tightens security on Tiananmen before Falungong anniversary"

(AFP, April 24, 2001)

BEIJING - Police tightened security on Tiananmen Square in Beijing Tuesday to prevent protests by the outlawed Falungong spiritual group on the eve of a key anniversary.
Plainclothes police and uniformed soldiers were out in force on the square in the city centre scanning for potential protests ahead of Wednesday's anniversary.
Police were seen ordering one woman into a police van after questioning her and two others were also seen being detained. Groups of peasant-like women -- who fit the typical image of Falungong protestors -- were stopped and asked to show their identification.
Soldiers also patrolled the streets near the square, which has been the scene of numerous large demonstrations by Falungong members since the group was banned as an "evil cult" in July 1999.
A fire engine was also stationed on the edge of the square after four people China says were Falungong practitioners set themselves on fire on the main esplanade in January.
Two years ago on April 25, 10,000 Falungong practitioners surrounded the Chinese leadership's Zhongnanhai compound in Beijing to protest against the arrests of some members.
The event stunned the government, which banned the group three months later.
The government now considers Falungong the biggest threat to social stability since the 1989 pro-democracy demonstrations and has carried out a relentless two-year crackdown to crush the group.
It is common for Falungong followers to turn up en masse in the square on key anniversaries, with police detaining more than 1,000 protestors on New Year's Day.
However, fewer Falungong members have protested on Tiananmen Square since the self-immolations, which left two people dead.
Frank Lu, director of the Hong Kong-based Information Center for Human Rights and Democracy, said the self-immolations, which were repeatedly shown on state television, had frightened some practitioners.
"In the past, an average of 100 people were arrested each day at the square or elsewhere in Beijing ... Now fewer people go out to the square," he said.
A harsher police crackdown has also contributed, he said.
Lu said the government has now ordered anyone who protests on the square to be sent to a labor camp.
Kan Hung-cheung, a Hong Kong-based spokesman for the group, said many Falungong members were now using different tactics to protest dissatisfaction with the ban.
Practitioners are stuffing leaflets into mailboxes at housing compounds and putting up posters at night to get their message across, he said.
"Our goal is to let as many people as possible know the truth about Falungong, not to have so many people arrested," Kan said.
Since the ban, 10,000 Falungong members have been sent to re-education through labor camps, 600 to prison terms of up to 18 years and many more remain in temporary detention, Lu said.