Edited articles on the Chinese government

Falun Gong members speak out
Denver women recount persecution they endured while living in China\

by Tillie Fong ("Rocky Mountain News," March  26, 2001)

The two Chinese women, a 50-year-old retired accountant and a 32-year-old lab 
assistant, hardly seem the type of people to pose a threat to a powerful 
government.

But their habit of practicing slow-motion meditative exercises, their fervent 
beliefs and their membership in a forbidden sect have caused Chinese 
authorities to arrest and jail them repeatedly.

They're part of a growing number of Falun Gong practitioners seeking safety 
in the United States because of the Chinese government's ban on the movement. 
The U.S. is considering offering adherents asylum because of religious 
persecution, a proposal the Chinese government protests.

Both woman wanted to remain nameless in this story for fear their families 
would suffer if the government learned their identities.

"I see a lot of people who are really scared," said immigration attorney 
Margaret S. Choi, who started seeing Falun Gong cases after a government 
crackdown in July 1999.

Last year, Choi handled three or four Falun Gong political asylum cases, but 
by the end of January this year, she had 10 clients.

National figures weren't available because political asylum cases are not 
tracked by cause.

But according to Don Mueller, spokesman for the Immigration and 
Naturalization Service in Washington, D.C., 4,200 Chinese political asylum 
cases were carried over from 1999, and another 5,541 new cases were filed in 
fiscal 2000.

Out of those, 2,522 applications were granted and another 1,857 were referred 
to immigration judges.

"Anecdotally, there's been an increase of Falun Gong type cases," Mueller 
said. "But each case is looked at on a case-by-case basis."

"It's not right," the accountant said in Chinese, as a friend translated. "I 
am not against the government. I am not into politics. I just want to be able 
to practice something that gives me good health."

The history of Falun Gong (pronounced fah-loon goan), also known as Falun 
Dafa (fah-loon dah-fah), dates to 1992, when it was founded by Li Hongzhi, a 
former government grain clerk who now lives in exile in New York.

Based on traditional Chinese meditation practices and using Buddhist and 
Taoist concepts, Falun Gong means "Work of the Law Wheel." Falun Dafa 
translates to "The Great Way of the Law Wheel."

The study of Li's teachings are believed to promote health and morality, as 
well as endow the practitioner with supernatural abilities once a certain 
level of self-cultivation is attained.

Falun Gong has gained millions of followers in China and abroad.

On July 9, 1999, the Chinese government banned the practice, calling it an 
"evil cult," and accused the sect of cheating people and causing 1,559 
deaths, mostly practitioners who refused medical treatment.

More recently, the group was blamed for the deaths of two people, a 
36-year-old woman and a 12-year-old girl, who immolated themselves in 
Tiananmen Square.

Human rights groups estimate that 5,000 Falun Gong followers have been sent 
to labor camps.

The United States is in the process of issuing a resolution condemning China 
on its human rights record, citing China's treatment of Falun Gong 
practitioners.

It's the reason why the accountant is now considering applying for political 
asylum.

"I feel very contradictory," said the woman, a grandmother who is staying 
with her daughter's family in Denver. Her husband and two other daughters 
remain in China. "If the (Chinese) government continues to act like this, I 
don't want to go back. But I am also very worried about my family."

The 50-year-old woman, who comes from a rural village outside Beijing, 
learned about Falun Gong three years ago.

She had gone to a village healer because her teen-age daughter was having 
fainting spells.

"He said he couldn't cure the disease, but suggested that we should learn 
Falun Gong because it would help," the grandmother said.

She and her family sought practitioners in their village and learned the 
meditations and exercises.

"I was very happy," the woman said. "I wished I had done it earlier because I 
could have saved money on medicine."

But in the next two years, the woman would be arrested three times.

The first time was in December 1999, when she and a daughter went to the 
trial of four Falun Gong leaders in Beijing.

"There was no reason for them to take me into custody," she said.

She and her daughter were released 10 hours later, after the trial was over.

After the arrest, the woman said she and other practitioners became more 
circumspect about getting together, often limiting their numbers and changing 
venues frequently.

In March 2000, she and a small group of Falun Gong followers gathered at a 
secluded greenway in her village to practice.

"As soon as I raised my hands to begin, three policemen arrested me," she 
said. "They yelled at me, `What are you doing? Go, go, go! The government 
prohibits you from practicing, so why don't you listen to the government?' "

They were taken to a police station, where they were forced to stand in 
freezing weather for three hours.

"We were charged with blocking traffic," she said. "We were given 15 days 
detention."

The woman said she was put in a room with more than a dozen other women, many 
elderly. They had no beds, and a hole in the floor served as a toilet.

"They would not let us practice (Falun Gong), and they would not let us read 
(the teachings of Li)," she said.

Still, she said female practitioners fared better than the men.

She said men often are beaten by other inmates. She recounted the condition 
of one injured Falun Gong member.

"His face was broken, and his body was covered with bruises," she said, 
adding that the man later was taken away to serve one and a half years of 
hard labor.

After that arrest, the woman said she stopped doing the exercises outside and 
instead practiced at home.

The third time she was arrested was in June 2000, when she joined thousands 
of other Falun Gong practitioners at a protest in Tiananmen Square in 
Beijing.

"When you feel you have been treated wrongly, you can go to an appeal office 
in Beijing," she said. "But the appeal office was closed, so we had to go to 
Tiananmen."

But as soon as she approached the area, she and her daughter were arrested.

"They let us all go," she said, smiling at the memory. "There were too many 
of us, so they let everyone go."

After that, Chinese plainclothes police officers started following her as she 
went grocery shopping, she said. She has been forced into house arrest on 
holidays.

The lab assistant, who is in Denver with her husband (a visiting scholar at 
the University of Denver) and 3-year-old daughter, took up Falun Gong after 
her husband became interested in 1996.

"I decided to read the book and found it was very good," she said in Chinese. 
"It comforted me and guided me in my life. I felt the book would help me 
become a better person, the person I wanted to be."

She was first arrested in Tiananmen Square in mid-January while trying to 
contact other followers. She said she was interrogated for several hours.

She eventually went on a hunger strike, saying she wouldn't eat unless she 
could practice Falun Gong.

At that point, she was taken to another room, where she said she was beaten 
and that three other inmates tried to force-feed her a type of salty soy 
mixture.

"I (spat) it all out," she recounted with a grin. "Everyone had the mixture 
all over them. I had it all over my clothes."

The inmates then took her to another cell, where there were three other 
practitioners. One cellmate helped her clean up and told her that the 
prisoners in that cell could talk about Falun Gong and practice meditation.

The prisoners also had a copy of the Falun Zuan, a text of Li's teachings, 
which they were allowed to study and discuss.

The lab assistant said she ended her hunger strike but was imprisoned for 21 
more days.

She said she is planning to apply for political asylum in the United States.

"I think the Chinese government is afraid of Falun Gong," she said.

In the meantime, both women continue to practice and study Falun Gong in the 
United States.

"We don't harm anyone, we don't kill anyone," the grandmother said. "It is 
not wrong for people to practice Falun Gong."

Free press and Falun Gong blasted as Murdoch woos Chinese deal


by Damien McElroy ("The Scotsman," March 26, 2001)

RUPERT Murdoch's second son, James, has voiced strong backing for Beijing's 
crackdown on the Falun Gong movement. In a speech in which he also criticised 
western press coverage of China, Mr Murdoch called the Falun Gong as a 
dangerous and apocalyptic cult.

Addressing a conference in Los Angeles, the 28-year-old head of News Corp's 
Asian interests reversed his father's famous aside that the spread of 
satellite television represented an unambiguous threat to totalitarian 
regimes everywhere.

Instead, Mr Murdoch repeatedly praised the "absolutist" regime in Beijing.

He sought to stoke Chinese Communist Party suspicions of a free media. In a 
broadside at publications ranging from Hong Kong newspapers to western news 
magazines, he said a falsely negative view of China was being portrayed - one 
that threatened Chinese communism by concentrating unfairly on controversial 
issues such as human rights. "I think these destabilising forces today are 
very dangerous for the Chinese government," he said. Hong Kong journalists 
were a particularly irritating bunch, he added, saying, in effect, that they 
should accept Beijing's iron-fisted rule and get on with it.

With his father in the audience, Mr Murdoch went on to lambast the Falun 
Gong, which the Chinese government is harshly crushing. The spiritual group, 
he said, "clearly does not have the success of China at heart". So strident 
were his remarks that members of the audience uncomfortably pointed out that 
western businesses should not be seen as wholehearted supporters of the 
Chinese government.

Robert Kapp, president of the US China Business Council, distanced himself 
from Mr Murdoch's blanket endorsement of the Beijing regime's record. "I 
personally get nailed as being China's best lobbyist," said Mr Kapp, who 
represents the most prominent US-China business group. "We go to great 
lengths to explain we are not working for China. We are working for the 
interests of the US business community."

Critics have accused Mr Murdoch, a Harvard drop-out, of engaging in a blatant 
attempt to curry favour with Beijing to further the company's interests in 
China. Spokesmen for the Falun Gong accused Mr Murdoch of unthinking 
regurgitation of the Chinese government line. "We understand he has strong 
family ties with mainland China," a spokeswoman, Sophie Xiao, said. "But what 
he hears are just one-sided fabrications. If his accusation is right, how can 
100 million people be fooled and how could professionals across the world all 
report wrongly?

"He is not saying things based on the facts," she said.

In its crackdown on the Falun Gong, the Chinese Communist Party has revived 
some of the darkest tactics from the Mao era. It holds that Falun Gong is an 
"evil cult". Dozens of Falun Gong followers have been killed and thousands 
incarcerated, many in labour camps and mental institutions, since the Chinese 
government declared it an enemy of the state in 1999.

Members of the group, which number at least two million in China, claim its 
Buddhist belief system and qigong exercises promote well-being and a sense of 
purpose. Followers have flocked into the group as a refuge in a state that 
has maintained Marxism as a veneer for dictatorship and allowed the state 
industrial system, healthcare and pension provision to atrophy.

A spokeswoman for the Hong Kong Journalists Association, Mak Yin-ting, said 
she was perplexed that the offspring of one of the world's biggest media 
moguls did not understand that journalists were "rightly performing their 
duty" by comprehensively reporting events. The last public figure to make 
headlines by criticising Hong Kong newspapers was the Chinese president, 
Jiang Zemin.

Doing whatever it takes to break into China is a Murdoch family obsession. 
News Corp has invested more than $1 billion in Asia, with negligible returns, 
over the past decade. Hong Kong-based Star TV, which James Murdoch has run 
since last year, is the company's main Asian interest. For all the wooing the 
Murdochs have conducted in China, Star's channels have tiny penetration on 
the mainland, but are popular in democratic India.

Other News Corp interests in China include a minority share of Phoenix 
Television, a Mandarin Hong Kong channel. Also, during a temporary easing of 
Rupert Murdoch's scepticism of the "new" economy, News Corp invested about 
$40 million in Chinese internet businesses that are now struggling.

James Murdoch and his Chinese wife, Wendi, are regular visitors to the 
Chinese capital and are said by company sources to believe massive 
opportunities are emerging in China. Analysts estimate that revenue in 
China's cable and satellite advertising market is worth more than £550 
million a year. Even more enticing, they say, the sector is expanding by 30 
per cent a year.

The family attitude, according to James Murdoch, is that foreign operators 
with a strong stomach should push the regulatory envelope to establish a 
presence before the Beijing regime starts removing its protectionist barriers 
as a result of gaining membership of the World Trade Organisation. "People 
are going to start piling in quickly," he said. "The time is very ripe right 
now."

In potentially its biggest move so far, News Corp has established a strategic 
beachhead with the help of Jiang Mianheng, the son of President Jiang. In 
February, News Corp joined with three other companies to take a $325 million 
placement of 12 per cent of China Netcom, the country's fourth largest 
telecommunications provider. The deal, which is of dubious legality given 
that Chinese regulations bar foreigners from direct equity participation in 
the sector, was a triumph for Wendi Murdoch, who has courted the younger Mr 
Jiang as a key ally for her husband's China ambitions.

Taiwan Politician Slammed for Using Cult for Separatism

("People's Daily," March 25, 2001)

Xinhua News Agency published Sunday a commentary to criticize certain people 
of Taiwan Authorities for their attempts to use Falun Gong for the purpose of 
trying to split away from the motherland.

While Falun Gong's cruelty is being exposed and condemned by the public, 
Annette Lu and other pro-independence forces in Taiwan have showed their open 
support to the notorious cult, commented Xinhua, adding "birds of a feather 
flock together."

The commentary, titled "Those Who Are Using Cult for Separatist Purpose Would 
Reap as They Have Sown," pointed out that in Taiwan, Falun Gong and 
pro-independence activists are joining hands to support one another and with 
the support of the separatists, the cult is engaged in rampant preaching of 
its evil teachings against human beings, science and society.

According to the commentary, Falun Gong has been officially registered in the 
island province.

Last July, Taiwan's overseas organizations summoned a number of groups at a 
meeting to show their support for the cult.

On December 23, 1999, the Taiwan branch of the cult held a "candle-lit 
evening party," at which Annette Lu made a speech to express her open support 
for the cult and its followers' advocacy for the so-called "human rights for 
exercising Falun Gong," and "wishing them success in accomplishing the 
exercise."

At the end of last year, Falun Gong followers from a dozen nations gathered 
in Taipei for a four-day "Falun Dafa conference on exchange of views in the 
Asia-Pacific Region." Some of the separatists even proposed to invite Li 
Hongzhi, the cult leader, to visit Taiwan.

Taiwan's law clearly bans any kind of evil cult, the commentary said, 
questioning why some people of the Taiwan Authorities have supported Falun 
Gong.

Xinhua came to the conclusion that those people of the Taiwan Authorities are 
doing nothing but trying to use Falun Gong for their own separatist purposes 
as the cult has been collaborating with anti-China forces in the west over 
the past year.

The western anti-China forces have been engaged in spreading rumors on the 
Chinese government's ban on the cult and providing Falun Gong activists 
opportunities to attack China at international gatherings, including the 
annual human rights conference in Geneva.

The use of the cult by Taiwan-based separatists has exposed their true nature 
of splitting the motherland, and on the other hand, it also indicates that 
these miserable separatists are at a dead end, Xinhua noted.

The growth of Falun Gong organizations in Taiwan poses a hidden danger for 
local compatriots and Chinese people are worried about it, the commentary 
said.

It reported that recently some people in Taiwan have begun to criticize Falun 
Gong as a evil cult, citing tragic incidents that have happened in the 
mainland and that thousands of mainlanders went mad and many mainland 
families were broken up by the cult.

The separatists' collaboration with Falun Gong and western anti-China forces 
under the name of "human rights" can never find a good end and will bring 
about severe consequences to the cross-straits relations, the commentary 
said.

Those who continue supporting the evil cult could find themselves at a dead 
end, Xinhua concluded.

Sect ban pressure is denied by Tung


by Carmen Cheung and Bryan Lee ("Hong Kong Mail," March 24, 2001)

CHIEF Executive Tung Chee-hwa denied yesterday he was under pressure from 
Beijing to legislate against the Falun Gong - but refused to say whether he 
would enact any law against ``evil cults''.
Instead, he reiterated the government would observe the sect's activities 
closely, and would not allow anyone to abuse Hong Kong's ``freedom and 
tolerance'' to affect public peace and order in either the SAR or on the 
mainland.
Mr Tung was speaking in Tokyo after arriving there for a three-day visit.
Journalists quizzed him about a newspaper report that Beijing officials had 
been pressing the SAR to enact a law curbing the Falun Gong before President 
Jiang Zemin arrives for an official visit in May.
``The Central Government did not give me any pressure,'' Mr Tung said.
But he added the public was aware the Falun Gong had created social 
instability, that belief in the cult had destroyed families and that some had 
set fire to themselves.
Mr Tung is believed to have ruled out enacting a law because time is too 
short before May, and because he is unwilling to make any such a move as it 
might damage his image ahead of next year's Chief Executive election.
The government is expected, instead, to stop granting the sect any venues to 
hold activities in May, keep a close watch on whether it violates the 
Societies Ordinance or the Public Order Ordinance, and ban ``troublemakers'' 
from entering Hong Kong during the president's visit.
The Security Bureau, headed by Regina Ip Lau Suk-yee, is also believed to be 
ready to ban the sect as soon as there is evidence it has breached the terms 
of its registration under the Societies Ordinance.
Secretary for Justice Elsie Leung Oi-sie last night refused to comment when 
asked whether the government would enact a law against the Falun Gong. And 
Secretary for Home Affairs Lam Woon-kwong refused to comment, saying the 
report in Apple Daily was speculative.
But National People's Congress (NPC) local deputy Allen Lee Peng-fei said 
yesterday he had been asked several times by senior mainland officials early 
this month whether there was enough time to enact an anti-cult law before May.
``I told them it was impossible according to my experience in the Legco,'' 
said the ex-legislator, who said he was asked the question during the recent 
NPC plenary session in Beijing.  
22 March 2001 / 01:30 AM

Falun Gong members ask S'pore court for leniency

(Reuters, March 22)

SINGAPORE March 22 (Reuters) - Fifteen followers of the Falun Gong spiritual 
movement asked a Singapore court to be lenient with them on Thursday, after 
pleading guilty to obstructing police and or illegal assembly.

The 15, two Singaporeans and 13 Chinese nationals, were arrested and charged 
after holding a New Year's Eve vigil commemorating Falun Gong members the 
movement says has died in jails in China and in incidents there following a 
crackdown.

Eight face a S$500 (US$280) fine or three months in jail or both on charges 
of illegal assembly and obstructing police. Seven have been charged with 
illegal assembly and face a maximum fine of S$1,000 (US$560).

In a 90-minute mitigation plea, five lawyers representing the nine men and 
six women presented an image of law-abiding engineers, students on 
scholarships and pregnant homemakers who were unaware that they had broken 
the law, and were fearful of losing their livelihoods and being expelled from 
Singapore.

Falun Gong is legally registered in Singapore but all organisations require a 
permit to assemble in a public place.

About 60 followers of the group gathered in a local park before midnight on 
New Year's Eve with two large placards bearing the names and photographs of 
dead adherents.

Police said they refused an order to disperse and blocked officers trying to 
seize the placards as evidence.

The prosecution said in court that police had warned the group for three and 
a half hours and allowed 45 other adherants to go free before making their 
arrest.

"They had ample time to think of the implication of their act," the public 
prosecutor said. "They chose to remain."

Falun Gong, also known as Falun Dafa, combines meditation and exercise with a 
doctrine loosely rooted in Buddhist and Taoist teachings. It first shocked 
Beijing with a 10,000-strong protest in April 1999 and was banned in China 
later that year.

The case was adjourned until next Thursday.

Let Your Yes be Yes and No, No": Christian Discloses Falun Gong Cult


("People's Daily," March 22, 2001)

In the Bible, Jesus Christ tells people "simply let your 'yes' be 'yes' and 
'no', 'no'; anything beyond this comes from the evil one."

"Following his instruction, when we Christians make an argument on the Falun 
Gong issue, we should first make clear what on earth Falun Gong is and what 
it is not," said Deng Fucun, vice chairman of the Three-Self Patriotic 
Movement Committee of the Protestant Churches of China (TSPMCPCC).

Deng happened to live in the same hotel in Los Angeles with a group of Falun 
Gong followers during his religious visit to United States in late February 
this year, which helped him recognize the true nature of Falun Gong cult, 
Deng said.

These Falun Gong activists were all overseas Chinese in Australia, New 
Zealand, Hong Kong and Taiwan. At the daily gatherings during the breakfast 
time, "I always heard the ringleader of the gang instruct his followers to 
pay close attention to American people," Deng recalled.

"If they show any interest in us, you should dress them up quickly with our 
yellow jackets (printed with Falun Gong logos) and take photos of them. This 
will definitely satisfy the US media."

The ringleader kept reminding his members to "always follow the step of the 
Falun Gong troop, for it is an excellent opportunity to get the US green 
card", Deng added.

During their three-day trip in Los Angeles, these Falun Gong activists spent 
most of their time sitting in front of China's consulate general in Los 
Angeles and being interviewed by US media. They only spared a half-day 
gathering to exchange experience in practicing the Falun Gong, though Li 
Hongzhi never appeared, according to Deng.

So far, the Falun Gong cult has been completely under the control of overseas 
political forces to work against China, and to my understanding, Falun Gong 
is an evil cult with an anti-human, anti-society and anti-science nature, 
Deng said.

The cult instigated its followers to attack everyone that opposes or 
questions their "belief" and actions. Numerous innocent victims were deceived 
by the fallacy to commit suicide or even slaughtered their family members. Li 
Hongzhi, the prime malefactor, oversold his mysterious power by saying that 
he was able to postpone the earth's explosion by 30 years and escape from the 
limits of time and space.

"I will never forget the tragic suicidal 'event that seven Falun Gong 
practitioners set themselves on fire at the Tiananmen Square," said Deng in 
deep sorrow, and" I'm also shocked to hear about the US human rights report 
smearing China's efforts in eradicating the destructive cult and saving those 
bewitched Falun Gong followers as 'religious persecution'".

"A professional US clergyman, who has bothered to make research on some books 
published by the Falun Gong cult, confirmed to me that Falun Gong is not a 
religion, because it does not has a real sutra, though it has managed to 
plagiarize a lot of religious languages from other religions," Deng said.

"The Falun Gong cult is just like a vulture who has decorated itself with 
colorful feathers. But any dithering will shake off all the feathers, and it 
is still an ugly bird indeed," the clergyman made a comparison.

The Bible says "...to godliness, brotherly kindness; and to brotherly 
kindness, love." Chinese Christians will hold such affection to save those 
people who have lost in the heresy, eradicate the evil and carry forward the 
justice, Deng declared.

Overseas Chinese in Russia Denounce Falun Gong

("People's Daily," March 22, 2001)

Overseas Chinese residing in Russian held a meeting recently to condemn the 
Falun Gong cult in Moscow.

All participants condemned the evil nature of the cult and expressed their 
determination to fight it to the end.

Addressing the meeting, Han Cunli, president of the Overseas Chinese General 
Council in Moscow, said that the Chinese Government encourages efforts to 
invigorate China through science and education.

But Li Hongzhi, the ringleader of the cult, opposes science while indulging 
in feudal superstition, he noted.

Zhao Lin, chairwoman of the Overseas Chinese Women's Federation in Moscow, 
said that irrefutable facts have shown Falun Gong cult's reactionary nature 
of opposing society and killing innocent people.

"The International Olympic Committee will vote in Moscow in July to decide on 
the 2008 Olympic hosting city. We will never permit the diehard Falun Gong 
followers to prevent China from bidding the Olympic Game," said Wen Jinhua, 
chairman of the Great Wall Hotel in Moscow.

The declaration adopted by the meeting states that overseas Chinese residing 
in Moscow and Russians of Chinese origin resolutely support the Chinese 
Government stand to ban the Falun Gong cult. It also appeals to the Russian 
Government to take measure to prevent the Falun Gong from infiltrating into 
Russia.

Wu Tao, China's ambassador to Russia, said that the Falun Gong cult has 
thrown itself into the lap of the anti-China forces in the West and become 
the enemy of the Chinese people and the instrument of the anti-China forces.

He asked all overseas Chinese to heighten their vigilance and act to halt the 
cult from causing disturbances in Russia.

Jiang Shiyun, a leader of the Overseas Chinese Federation of Saint 
Petersburg, said that Falun Gong Cult has become the tool of the Li Hongzhi 
in his attempt to overthrow the Chinese Government.

Chen Yichu, China's consul-general in Saint Petersburg said, "Falun Gong Cult 
is a major scourge in the world and a big malignant tumor of the Chinese 
society. If the tumor were not removed, China would not enjoy social 
stability."

He also called on all Chinese residing in Saint Petersburg to wage 
tit-for-tat struggle against the Falun Gong cult.

China Girl Who Set Self Ablaze Dies


(AP, March 19, 2001)

BEIJING (AP) - A 12-year-old girl who set herself on fire in Tiananmen Square 
in a purported protest against China's crackdown on the Falun Gong meditation 
sect has died in a Beijing hospital, government-run television said Sunday.

Liu Siying died Saturday night of sudden heart troubles at Jishuitan 
Hospital, where she had been receiving treatment since she and four others 
set themselves ablaze on Jan. 23, Chinese Central Television said.

One of the four, Liu's mother, died that day on the square. The three others 
are still in the hospital's burn unit.

The Chinese government has said the five were members of the Falun Gong 
spiritual group, which it banned 19 months ago as a threat to social order 
and communist rule.

Falun Gong has denied that the five were members, saying its teachings do not 
condone suicide.

Beijing seized on the group suicide on the traditional Chinese New Year's Eve 
to drive home its message that Falun Gong is an evil cult that callously 
pushes its members to acts of self-destruction.

Gruesome images of the five ablaze or their blackened bodies lying on 
Tiananmen's gray flagstones were beamed on national television.

Government propagandists focused in particular on Liu, showing photos of a 
smiling, pretty girl in a school uniform and then footage of her writhing 
charred face crying out for her mother.

The campaign has apparently been effective, creating genuine revulsion for 
the sect among Chinese. After weeks in early January when state media said 
hundreds of Falun Gong followers were being rounded up daily on Tiananmen 
Square, demonstrations by the group have also seemed suddenly to decline.

Falun Gong attracted millions in the 1990s with its mix of traditional 
Chinese religion, health exercises and the teachings of founder Li Hongzhi, a 
former government grain clerk now in the United States.

It was outlawed in July 1999 after the group surprised Chinese officials when 
more than 10,000 members surrounded the leadership's living compound in 
Beijing in a demonstration to demand official recognition.

China says Falun Gong girl, 12, dies of burns

(Reuters, March 18, 2001)

BEIJING (Reuters) - A 12-year-old Chinese girl who set herself on fire on 
Tiananmen Square in a group suicide attempt by alleged members of the Falun 
Gong spiritual movement has died in hospital, state television said on 
Sunday.

Liu Siying, the youngest of five people who took part in the self-immolation 
in January, died on Saturday of a congenital heart condition aggravated by 
severe internal burns, television quoted doctors as saying.

"We did everything we could to revive her heart but we failed," said a nurse 
in the burns unit at Jishuitan hospital in Beijing.

Doctors said Liu's external burns had almost healed and skin transplants had 
been successful but her internal organs, especially her heart, had swollen 
due to flames she inhaled.

China has highlighted the case of Liu in a nationwide media campaign to 
discredit Falun Gong and its U.S.-based leader Li Hongzhi. Official reports 
say she was persuaded by her mother to join the self-immolation.

Television has shown closeups of the daughter's face, charred beyond 
recognition as she lay on the square calling for her mother, who died on the 
day of the burnings.

It has also broadcast interviews with Liu, bandaged head to toe, tearfully 
explaining she had wanted to reach paradise and believed the flames would not 
hurt her.

"This is the perfection of Li Hongzhi," state television said on Sunday. 
"This is the paradise imagined by Liu Siying."

"The road to paradise is the road to death," it said. "The Chinese people 
must thoroughly settle the blood debts with Li Hongzhi and the Falun Gong 
cult."

It did not mention the three other burn victims.

Falun Gong spokesmen say they doubt the self-immolators were true believers 
as Falun Gong does not condone suicide.

They say Li preaches salvation from a corrupt world through meditation and 
the study of texts based loosely on Buddhism and Daoism.

But China says Falun Gong is an "evil cult" which cheats its members and has 
been responsible for the deaths of 1,660 people by suicide or refusing 
medical treatment.

China's 19-month battle with the spiritual group it banned in 1999 has 
sparked international concern about abuse of religious freedom and civil 
liberties.

Washington will sponsor a motion condemning Beijing's human rights record at 
the annual six-week session of the U.N. Commission on Human Rights beginning 
on Monday in Geneva.

Since Falun Gong was banned, tens of thousands of followers have been 
detained for protesting in Tiananmen Square. Human rights groups say 
thousands of members are in labour camps and more than 100 have died of abuse 
in police custody.

China says it has arrested more than 150 Falun Gong protest organisers but 
authorities deny allegations of abuse, saying they treat ordinary followers 
with leniency.

Falun Gong Members Defy Anti-Cult Exhibition In Hong Kong


(AP, March 18, 2001)

HONG KONG (AP)--Protesting an anti-cult exhibition, members of the Falun Gong 
spiritual group Sunday handed out leaflets rejecting official criticism of 
their sect and showed photographs of members allegedly tortured by Chinese 
authorities. 
Around 10 sect members gathered near Hong Kong's City Hall to distribute 
materials that disputed the Chinese government's claim that five people who 
set themselves ablaze in Tiananmen Square in January in a widely reported 
suicide attempt belonged to Falun Gong

The demonstrators were protesting an unprecedented anti-cult exhibition 
organized by local pro-Beijing organizations. Consisting of more than 200 
pictures, it portrayed Falun Gong alongside the likes of the Branch Davidians 
and Japan's doomsday Aum Shinri Kyo cult.

One Falun Gong follower was thrown out and another two prevented from 
entering when the exhibition opened Saturday. Members vowed Sunday to 
continue to their demonstration until the event closed.

There was friction inside the exhibition venue as well. A foreign man in 
attendance was expelled after quarreling with security guards for holding up 
a piece of paper reading "Communist party = lying, murderers = evil cult."

The man, who spoke with an American accent but declined to identify himself, 
said he wasn't a follower of Falun Gong but acted "for the sake of what is 
true and right."

Organizers declined to comment on the incident.

In January, the Hong Kong government was attacked by pro-Beijing forces in 
the territory for renting out the city hall to an international Falun Gong 
conference that was attended by over 1,000 people.

Falun Gong has attracted millions of adherents, mostly Chinese, with its 
combination of slow-motion exercises and philosophy drawn from Taoism, 
Buddhism and the often-unorthodox ideas of exiled founder Li Hongzhi.

The group is outlawed in China but remains legal in Hong Kong under a 
separate legal system.

Exhibition targeting Falun Gong begins in HK


  (Reuters, March 17, 2001)


HONG KONG, March 17 (Reuters) - A three-day exhibition aimed at portraying 
the Falun Gong spiritual movement as an evil cult opened on Saturday in Hong 
Kong, where the movement is legal though outlawed in mainland China.

The display of more than 200 pictures and photographs organised by 
pro-Beijing groups in the former British colony classed Falun Gong alongside 
some of the world's deadliest cults, such as Japan's doomsday Aum Shinri Kyo.

"We hope Hong Kong citizens, through this exhibition, can increase their 
understanding of cults...This can help maintain Hong Kong's stability," Jiang 
Enzhu, head of China's Liaison Office in Hong Kong, told reporters at the 
exhibition.

Falun Gong claims to have millions of followers in China and has shocked the 
ruling Communist Party by its persistence and ability to organise mass 
protests despite a nationwide crackdown.

How to handle the controversial movement's activities in this former British 
colony has become the biggest test to date of the freedoms that Beijing 
granted Hong Kong when British rule ended in 1997.

A Falun Gong practitioner inside the exhibition hall on Saturday showed a 
booklet containing pictures of fellow adherents being tortured by Chinese 
authorities. Security guards swiftly asked her to leave.

"Look at these pictures, I mean these people are tortured to death, to such 
an extent that it is really horrible," practitioner Fiona Ching told 
reporters. "And so many people haven't seen these stories yet, so I am afraid 
they might be misled."

Human rights groups say more than 100 adherents have died in Chinese police 
custody of beatings, forced medication or other abuses.

China has acknowledged several Falun Gong deaths in custody, but said they 
were due to illness or suicide.

Earlier on Saturday, outside Hong Kong's City Hall where the exhibition is 
being held, Falun Gong members distributed leaflets about the movement, known 
as Falun Dafa, which blends Taoism and Buddhism and traditional Chinese 
physical exercises.

Hui Yee-han, spokeswoman for the Hong Kong Association of Falun Dafa, said on 
Friday it regretted that Beijing was vilifying the movement with such an 
exhibition in the territory.

Beijing has warned it will not allow the group to turn Hong Kong into an 
anti-China base.

Hong Kong security chief Regina Ip hit out at the group earlier this month, 
calling it a heretical organisation whose preaching encouraged superstition.

Beijing has stepped up its attacks on Hong Kong's Falun Gong movement since 
about 1,000 adherents from around the world held protests and a conference at 
the city hall in January.

At the two-day conference, adherents blasted Chinese President Jiang Zemin 
for ordering the crackdown, discomfiting Chinese officials and pro-Beijing 
figures in Hong Kong.

Pro-China groups target Falun Gong in HK exhibition


  (Reuters, March 16, 2001)


HONG KONG, March 16 (Reuters) - Pro-Beijing groups in Hong Kong have targeted 
the Falun Gong spiritual movement in a three-day anti-cult exhibition 
beginning on Saturday, lumping it together with some of the world's deadliest 
cults.

The controversial movement, legal in the territory but outlawed in mainland 
China, has become the biggest test to date of the freedoms that Beijing 
granted the territory when Britain's colonial rule ended in 1997.

Hong Kong-based members of the movement said they would monitor the 
exhibition but did not plan to organise a protest against it.

"We have always said that China's suppression of Falun Gong is very ruthless. 
Now they are organising an exhibition to vilify Falun Gong as a cult. I think 
that's regrettable," said Hui Yee-han, spokeswoman for the Hong Kong 
Association of Falun Dafa.

Falun Gong, also known as Falun Dafa, blends Taoism and Buddhism and 
traditional Chinese physical exercises.

Hong Kong's security chief Regina Ip earlier this month hit out at the group, 
saying it was a heretical organisation and that its preachings encouraged 
superstition.

Her remarks followed warnings from Beijing it would not allow the group to 
turn Hong kong into an anti-China base.

Beijing-backed newspaper Wen Wei Po, which is jointly organising the 
anti-cult exhibition, said on Thursday the display of more than 200 pictures 
and photographs would depict "the extreme dangers posed by the world's 
cults."

The first section of the exhibition, which comprises about 80 photographs, 
examines the growth of cults and the ways in which governments, including the 
United States and Japan, have dealt with them.

Japan's doomsday Aum Shinri Kyo cult, Uganda's movement for the Restoration 
of the 10 Commandments and the Branch Davidian cult in the United States are 
among those featured, the newspaper said.

In Section two, "Falun Gong: the evil actions of a cult organisation," there 
is an exhibit of more than 100 pictures including those of the 
self-immolation of alleged Falun Gong practitioners at Tiananmen Square 
earlier this year, it said.

The third section, "Falun Gong: Activities in Hong Kong," examines how Falun 
Gong has "gradually become internationalised and politicised, abandoning its 
previous stance of being non-political, non anti-government," said Wen Wei 
Po.

"They have distorted our aims and practices. It's a lie. The materials are 
fake," Hui said, adding that she would probably visit the exhibition.