Falun Gong Digest

Who's Afraid of Falun Gong?By Jacques deLisleCNS News Analysis from the Foreign Policy Research Institute06 August, 1999

Why have China's rulers launched a crackdown on Falun Gong? Why did partychiefs declare the group a serious threat to the Communist Party and themost grave danger to the regime since the Tiananmen movement of 1989? Whyhas the leadership ordered a massive effort to denounce the group, destroymillions of its publications, detain thousands of its members, and seek thearrest and extradition of its leader from the United States? What was sotroubling about a movement whose millions of devotees practice traditionalqigong exercises at home and in public parks, whose leader preaches aneclectic blend of Buddhist-inspired and Taoist-influenced quasi-religiousbeliefs mixed with folk millenarianism, and whose proclaimed goal isimproving followers' physical and moral health by channeling cosmic energyand leading ethical lives? Although hardly presenting an immediate orsubstantial challenge to the regime's ability to rule, Falun Gong conjuresnearly all of the demons that haunt the PRC's leaders. The dangers that thegroup evokes strike at each major aspect of the contemporary ChineseCommunist Party's identity and the bases for its authority. Indeed, a reviewof possible reasons for the current campaign provides an archaeological tourof the several-layered character of the reform-era party-state and thevulnerabilities its leaders perceive.

First, the PRC's rulers have enough of a sense of history to recognize thatthey are -- or at least that many of their people see them as -- the latestin a succession of dynasties to rule China. From that perspective, FalunGong has looked uncomfortably like the sects that were major forces in pastrebellions that shook the empire or ended imperial lines. For the keepers ofthe House of Mao, Falun Gong's qigong routines surely called up images ofthe turn-of-the-century Fists of Righteousness and Harmony, whose membersbelieved that their pugilist-like calisthenics made them immune to bulletsand whose failed Boxer Uprising marked the death throes of the Qing dynasty.The Falun Gong leader Li Hongzhi's reported claims to share a birthday withthe Buddha Sakyamuni and to possess supernatural powers suggested parallelsto the mid-nineteenth century Taiping Heavenly Kingdom, whose adherentsfollowed the self-proclaimed younger brother of Jesus Christ in a vastrevolt that severely damaged China's last imperial dynasty. Its blend ofpopular Chinese religious doctrines and declinist rhetoric likely seemed alltoo reminiscent of the Yellow Turbans, White Lotus and other colorfullynamed sects that had rallied awesome forces of discontent around religiousbeliefs during earlier dynasties. When Falun Gong's adherents massed outsidethe senior Chinese leaders' compound in April in silent protest over their

treatment by a regime that denied them the protection and status generallyaccorded to law-abiding organizations, the denizens of Zhongnanhai doubtlessheard echoes of the popular movements that challenged the emperors who oncelived in the Imperial Palace next door (as well as the reverberations of theTiananmen demonstrations of 1989).

For party leaders with an especially strong penchant for history andhyperbole, the repeated Falun Gong demonstrations in Beijing and many othercities this spring and summer, along with other signs of the group'swidespread following, could set tongues wagging about signs of the loss ofthe mandate of heaven - the traditional Chinese moral right to rule, theforfeiture of which often presaged an imperial line-ending popularrebellion. Such fears would seem especially vivid for those in the elite whosee their Communist "dynasty" plagued by corruption at lower levels andheaded by a fourth emperor who appears not to be the equal of hispredecessor or of the founding emperor.

Second, China's leaders also realize that they are, and that they need toremain, the heirs to the party of Yan'an and Civil War days - the populistand popular organization that rode to power on a wave of support from themasses, especially the peasantry. In this respect, Falun Gong and groupslike it may be more disconcerting than pro-democracy dissidents and overtlypolitical movements. The democracy and human rights activists of the 1970sand 1980s and the student-led demonstrations of the late 1980s may have beendangerous signals of discontent among China's rising generation of educatedelites. But such movements appear to become most worrisome to party andgovernment leaders when they link up with ordinary city-dwellers andunauthorized workers' organizations, as they did during the Tiananmendemonstrations and related pro-democracy drives in 1989. Falun Gong hasshown that it holds considerable appeal for an urban mass base, with evenofficial PRC sources' low-end estimates reporting millions of followers.While many of its adherents are relatively privileged white-collar andeducated types, Falun Gong seems to be most attractive to those who have notfared especially well during the reform era, including the elderly, theunemployed and many people socialized under high socialism who have notmanaged a comfortable transition to a market-based order.

Although the evidence is far more sketchy, Falun Gong does have manyadherents in China's villages as well. The kinds of ideas and practicesassociated with the group could be expected to resonate with the inhabitantsof the vast countryside no less than with the urbanites who have been FalunGong's core constituency. If they do catch on more widely, such teachingsand activities could become ideological and organizational focal points forthe widespread but still-diffuse resentment that rural residents feel aboutcorruption, favoritism, taxes, fees, and a host of other issues of economicsand fairness. Party leaders appear to have taken Falun Gong's demonstratedand prospective mass appeal seriously, and have sought to undermine it. Inreports that often quote ordinary people who have renounced the group orclaim to have been harmed by it, the official media have repeatedly attackedLi Hongzhi and Falun Gong's agents as liars and frauds who have duped commonfolk and ruined their health or even cost them their lives.

Third, the Chinese Communist Party remains a self-consciously Leninistinstitution. On this score, Falun Gong touched a pair of sensitive nerves.Its ability to enlist a significant number of party members indicatedweaknesses in the party's internal discipline, which could put at risk theparty-state's capacity to govern. One striking event early in the driveagainst Falun Gong was the publication of an almost CulturalRevolution-style confession by prominent Beijing adherent Li Qihua, aretired People's Liberation Army lieutenant general who had impeccablerevolutionary credentials (having participated in the Long March of the1930s, the epic journey that the CCP regards as its defining moment) and whohad held extremely sensitive posts (including director of the medical centerthat treats China's top leaders). And there have been other revelations ofsenior cadres' and ordinary party members' and government officials'involvement in Falun Gong's activities, including the April demonstrationoutside Zhongnanhai. To deal with such problems, the party's centralleadership issued the most heavily emphasized measure of the currentcampaign. It directed Communist Party members who had joined the "cult" tosever their ties and required participation in re-education sessions -exercises reminiscent of the pre-reform era that included criticism sessionsand study of approved documents to reinstill the ideological rectitudeexpected of those who staff the party, state and army apparatuses.

Falun Gong represents a challenge to the party-state's Leninist monopoly oforganization, especially political organization. The group's internalworkings remain shadowy, perhaps even to those trying to crush it. Althoughofficial PRC sources have asserted that it is highly organized, mostaccounts indicate that Falun Gong does not have an elaborate commandstructure. But that fact, if true, may give little comfort to partyofficials who are worried about the political impact of Falun Gong andsimilar groups. The CCP itself, after all, spent many of its early years inscattered cells and fragmented revolutionary base areas, held togetherlargely by a common set of values and goals and (at times) an acknowledgedset of leaders. And the CCP did it without modern technology, such as theinternet and cell phones, which Falun Gong and contemporary politicaldissidents have employed, or even faxes, which the pro-democracy activistsof 1989 used effectively. The eerily spontaneous-seeming appearance ofthousands of Falun Gong followers in central Beijing in April and in severalcities on more recent occasions show, at the very least, an effectivesubstitute for a strong, conventional organizational apparatus.

Whatever Falun Gong's institutional characteristics, party leaders have beendetermined to dismantle the organization, resorting to techniquesreminiscent of the Mao era as well as the post-Tiananmen period. In additionto the traditional vehicle of a party-led, propaganda-laden campaigntargeting the masses and study sessions for errant cadres, the regime hasdeployed the relatively new legal tools that are a much-touted hallmark ofthe reform era. Like many political dissident groups in recent years, FalunGong and its umbrella entity, the Falun Dafa Research Institute, have beenbranded "illegal organizations." The authorities have condemned them forconducting public activities without having the proper permits and

registration - approvals that were, at best, unlikely to have been grantedonce Falun Gong had begun to be identified as an unsavory association a fewyears ago. As has happened to participants in other unauthorized andsemi-organized mass movements, many of the group's members have beenarrested - or, more commonly, detained without arrest - and Li Hongzhi hasbeen cited for offenses relating to the establishment and operation of anillegal organization. Chief among these is the innocuous-sounding butlegally and politically significant crime of disturbing the public order.Claims in the press that Falun Gong's plans included challenging the partyand government, and that participation in the sect had driven some membersto murder or suicide, suggested that more serious criminal charges couldfollow.

Fourth, the reform-era Chinese leadership has defined itself largely asdirecting a developmental state, thereby claiming legitimacy on the basis ofthe rising levels of material prosperity that have been the definingachievement of the Deng and post-Deng era. Groups like Falun Gong pointunnervingly to two possible weaknesses in this strategy. Most simply, thegroup's popularity among those who have not done particularly well under thereforms underscores the perils of betting too heavily on economic growth.Falun Gong's rapid ascension suggests that mechanisms could emerge quicklyto channel and amplify discontent arising from general or sectoral economicpain -- hardly an idle worry for generally pro-reform leaders facingproblems that include the unresolved plight of the losers in previous roundsof reform, the current leveling off of growth rates in even the boomingcoastal cities, and the soon-unavoidable costs of restructuring state-ownedindustries and banks.

Falun Gong's appeal also suggests that, while "to get rich is glorious," itmay not be enough for everyone. The rise of such a group (like the revivalof more conventional religions) is a reminder of moral or spiritual needs,ones that the CCP's widely disdained Marxism-Leninism/Mao ZedongThought/Deng Xiaoping Theory or its watered-down campaigns for "socialistspiritual civilization" have not been able to fill. Some proponents of thecrackdown on Falun Gong may even have seen the movement's popularity as asign that some of the theories of Western social science could be right -that the turn to markets in the economic realm leads to the emergence of amarketplace of ideas and pressures for democracy. If so, and despite thegroup's lack of affinity for contemporary Western-style political norms, theapparent popular demand for Falun Gong could indicate dangerous stresses inthe structure of "market-Leninism." Whatever their particular analyses ofthe situation, conservative elements in the leadership appear to have seenin the Falun Gong controversy an opportunity to reinvigorate the party'sideological work through a mass campaign and intra-party rectification --pursuits that have strikingly, and almost surely by design, slighted thereform era's dominant rhetoric of market-oriented growth.

Fifth, and partly reflecting a sense of the risks of relying on economicperformance as the basis for the party's claim of a right to rule, China'spost-Mao administration has recast itself as a nationalist regime. In doingso, the party has partly returned to its roots, evoking its role as the

principal force fighting against the Japanese and for national unity in the1930s and 1940s. The strategy also has stressed more recent goals andaccomplishments, including the PRC's acknowledged rise as a world power andits related march toward redemption of the remaining humiliations ofnineteenth-century colonialism by means of the reintegration of Hong Kong,Macau and, it hopes, Taiwan. In recent years, the regime has played thenationalism card as its ideological trump in attempting to undercut supportfor dissent. Time and again, from the Democracy Wall in 1979 through thedemocracy movement in 1989 to the China Democracy Party in 1998-99, officialsources have vigorously denounced the regime's adversaries as the tools offoreign interests and, at least implicitly, as traitors to China. Bothdrawing upon and stirring up popular nativist sentiments, this approachseems to have had some success against those pro-democracy dissidents whohave drawn inspiration from Western thinkers and developed contacts withlike-minded foreigners and exiled dissidents.

This tactic has been largely unavailable, however, against so clearlyhome-grown a group as Falun Gong. Despite party spokesmen's best efforts, itappears that they cannot make much out of the fact that Falun Gong's leadernow lives in New York or that some of its internet communications originateabroad. The official press has called the group a tool of behind-the-scenesforeign forces and a product of alien cultural infiltration. But thoseaccusations seem to ring hollow when directed against a strikinglyindigenous enterprise espousing heavily non-Western doctrines. Some of theclaims are tortured indeed, blaming a hostile Western-dominatedinternational environment for the party's vulnerability to the kinds oferuptions of feudal superstition manifested in Falun Gong.

Groups like Falun Gong put the party's nationalist recipe under considerablestrain in a more general way as well. While the CCP's recent ideology hastouted many aspects of Chinese values and has embraced wholeheartedly thegoal of a rich and powerful China, it has been, at best, abidingly queasyabout many elements of traditional Chinese culture, especially the moreanarchistic and supernaturalist strains. Campaigns against Falun Gong orsimilar groups risk exposing a gap between such elite agendas andauthentically Chinese popular proclivities. The official press's oddtrotting out of eminent scientists to expose Li Hongzhi's superstitiousnonsense and pseudo-science strikes a tinny note, more in tune with a staleMarxist or post-Mao technocratic faith in a simplistic form of scientificrationalism than with the kinds of sentiments at the grassroots that haveprovided fertile soil for Falun Gong. The shrill tone and scattershotapproach of the broader campaign against the "cult" bespeak a high level ofelite agitation or an attempt to convey the intensity of the authorities'opposition more than they suggest confidence that the denunciations willresonate with, or persuade, a Chinese mass audience.

Finally, China's leaders during the last two decades have abandonedpretensions to totalitarianism in favor of a more accommodating form ofundemocratic rule. They have bound their party to an implicit socialcontract with their citizenry: Ordinary Chinese can enjoy spheres ofautonomy and room for private pursuits, free from political scrutiny and

ideological demands, so long as they do not use that "space" to engage inpolitical activities that might challenge the regime. The PRC's rulers thushave permitted and, in return, demanded a "depoliticization" or"civilianization" of a wide range of social and economic activity.

The flap over Falun Gong has exposed some ambiguities in this contract'sterms, and revealed a possible penchant among the leadership for narrowing,illiberal constructions. The issue has been how "political" an enterpriseFalun Gong is or could become. The group's principal visible activities andits avowed aims are apolitical enough. The official account, of course, haspainted a radically different picture of a megalomaniac and his followersplotting to overthrow the party and the law, and to take the place of thegovernment.

There is a more subtle question here as well. At some point in the emergenceof a civil society, initially non-political organizations typically begin toseek a voice in how they are governed, especially with respect to policiesthat directly affect the group and the issues it sees as important. Some ofFalun Gong's activities might be perceived as scattered signs of that sortof development in Chinese society. This is particularly true of the massgatherings at public buildings by members seeking official recognition forthe group and protesting the escalating government-imposed restrictions ontheir activities. Although some of those acts were precipitated by theregime's own moves against Falun Gong, such modest signs of potentialpressure from below for structural political change may be enough, in theeyes of some of China's top leaders, to have warranted a sharpening of thepost-Mao era's blunted authoritarian edge. An apparent dip in the politicalfortunes of Premier Zhu Rongji and the agenda ofbold reform presumably has meant stronger support for a hard line againstFalun Gong. At the same time, the care taken to assuage the worries ofpractitioners of approved religions and ordinary qigong suggests that muchof the leadership was ambivalent about, or at least aware of the delicacyof, undertakings that could appear to compromise some of the reform era'sdefining promises.

As has occurred regularly in the PRC's suppression of political dissentmovements, the fear of chaos, luan, has been the subtext (and sometimes thetext) of the call for repressive measures against Falun Gong. Ironically,such apprehension about the changes spawned by liberalization has soundedrelatively plausible precisely because political reform in China has been solimited. What otherwise might be unremarkable features in the emergence of arobust civil society can seem to portend disarray where there are notadequate public institutions to channel and incorporate such demands andparticipation from below.

None of this, of course, means that Falun Gong really has imperiledCommunist Party rule or that party leaders think it has - unless Jiang Zeminand his subordinates have information about the power of the group, or theweakness of the party, that differs wildly from what outside observers haveseen or believed to be possible. While it is not inconceivable that FalunGong will survive and will someday grow into a major danger in its own

right, for now it has been more a Rorschach test for China's rulers. InFalun Gong, they can see traces of the traits that, if repeated on a muchlarger scale and sustained for a much longer period, could strike hard atthe party's principal weak points and undermine each of the major pillars ofits right and ability to rule. And the leadership in Beijing surely hasrecognized that there is little reason to believe that Falun Gong'sparticular organization and doctrines have had a unique and irreproducibleappeal. To the extent that the drive against Falun Gong exceeds the usualharsh response meted out to groups posing similarly modest threats, thereason may well be that Chinese leaders have sensed that the groupsymbolizes or foreshadows more serious hazards.

Jacques deLisle is a Senior Fellow of FPRI and Professor of Law at theUniversity of Pennsylvania Law School.

http://search.cnsnews.com/search/search.asp?PageType=GetDoc&CurrentQuery=vie Among the Believers

Time Magazine, JULY 2, 2001, VOL.157 NO.26BY BARRY HILLENBRAND WashingtonIn places like Washington, adherents aboundOn weekday mornings Kery Wilkie Nunez does her Falun Gong exercises with twoor three commuters next to a subway station outside Washington. The buzzfrom the nearby highway and the bustle of the rushing crowds don't phaseher. "You become peaceful and tranquil inside," says NuNez. Steven Reanidoes his exercises early morning near a deserted shopping mall in thecapital, except on weekends when he, along with dozens of otherpractitioners, heads to the vast green lawn of the city's Mall.With its slow-motion calisthenics and Buddhist philosophical bedrock, FalunGong seems incontrovertibly Chinese. But the world is a hungry place for newbeliefs. And while Falun Gong has been labeled a dissident movement withinChina-which is how many non-Chinese first heard about Falun Gong and becameinterested-there are practitioners around the globe with little or nopolitical agenda. Adherents say Falun Gong practice groups can now be foundin more than 40 countries and that Master Li Hongzhi's writings have beentranslated into 10 languages.The number of Americans who have traded yoga, or perhaps idle mornings, forFalun Gong can't be accurately guessed-there is no central office, nodues-but a sampling in the nation's capital suggests they are truly into it(most have read and reread Li's writings) and that Falun Gong's appeal hasspread far beyond the Chinatowns and university campuses where it first tookoff in the U.S. "It is very powerful," says Dr. Gary Feuerberg, a governmentstatistician in Washington, who has been practicing Falun Gong since 1998.It was so powerful, in fact, that Feuerberg found it scary, and stepped backfrom the practice for two months to make sure he was not being sucked into acult. He returned. "It change my body and my head," he says. "It makes you abetter person."What about politics? This is Washington after all. Each day, Falun Gongfollowers-mostly ethnic Chinese-can be found protesting across from theBeijing government's embassy. "Before the crackdown (in China)," says

Feuerberg, "no one spoke about politics. There was no agenda. Yet thosesuffering in China are like 1st century Christian martyrs. We must stand bythem." It's a lot easier to do so in America.http://www.time.com/time/asia/news/magazine/0,9754,165164,00.html

Banned Chinese Sect Is Spurred On by Exiled Leader

New York Times, January 5, 2001By CRAIG S. SMITHSHANGHAI, Jan. 4 - Civil disobedience by the Chinese spiritual movementFalun Gong shows no sign of slowing in the New Year and may be ratcheting upto a new level.In a New Year's Day message to followers, posted on the group's official Website (www.clearwisdom. net), the movement's exiled founder, Li Hongzhi,warned that Falun Gong followers facing persecution could rightfully "gobeyond the limits of forbearance." Forbearance is one of the principalvirtues promoted by his discipline."If the evil has already reached the point where it is unsavable andunkeepable, various measures at different levels can be used to stop it anderadicate it," he said, writing from the United States, where he now lives.That suggests that 2001 will be a year of increased activity among the coreof true believers in China who are not in detention or under strict policesupervision. The number of those followers is impossible to estimate.Chinese authorities say it is under two million - far fewer than the 20million estimated by one government agency to be practicing the disciplineat the height of its popularity in the late 1990's. Mr. Li, meanwhile,continues to claim 100 million adherents worldwide, most of them in China.China's efforts to crush the movement have reduced its numbers, but havealso hardened the resolve of those who remain loyal to Mr. Li.Hundreds of Falun Gong followers staged scattered protests in TiananmenSquare this week, their brief attempts to unfurl banners quickly overwhelmedby the huge plainclothes police force that China fields on the square duringholidays and significant anniversaries of the 18- month campaign to suppressthe group.Witnesses reported that one man was beaten on Monday until his head and thesurrounding ground were splattered with blood. And a Hong Kong-based humanrights group reported that in December four adherents had died inconfrontations with the police or while in custody.Mr. Li, a former government grain clerk from northeastern China, foundedFalun Gong in the early 1990's as one of many exercise regimes thatdeveloped at the time based on the traditional Chinese practice of qigong,exercises intended to channel the body's vital energy, or qi, to variousends. Mr. Li went further than other self-styled qigong masters by marryinghis exercises to an encompassing cosmology loosely based on Buddhist andTaoist tenets.His promise of salvation from a morally degenerating world struck a chordwith many Chinese, particularly those who felt spiritually bereft as Chinaeffectively abandoned Marxism and Maoism as moral guides amid the growingmaterialism of the 1990's.But Mr. Li's growing popularity, as well as the mystical mix of his beliefsystem - he teaches that Falun Gong is the original law of the universe and

that faithful followers attain supernatural powers - drew increasingcriticism from the Communist Party. He left China for the United States in1998 under pressure from the government.Whether Mr. Li's New Year message advocates more militant action than thegroup's remarkably passive behavior to date is not clear. While his calls to"defend the Fa," or Great Law of Falun Gong, have kept adherents streaminginto Tiananmen Square, his doctrine of forbearance has prevented most fromresisting the beatings and detention that they invariably receive there.But his followers' activism has risen over the past six months as Mr. Li'sappeals have grown increasingly urgent, even politicized. In September,Falun Gong's official Web site began attacking President Jiang Zemin as theman personally responsible for Falun Gong's persecution, calling him "thehighest representative of the evil force in the human world."In the past few weeks, students at Beijing University, traditionally thewellhead of political activism in China, have found Falun Gong fliers lefton their dormitory doors or bicycles.And Falun Gong followers outside China have grown increasingly sophisticatedin getting Mr. Li's messages to followers inside, frequently changing theaddress of its official Web site to circumvent China's Internet censors.Despite efforts to block Falun Gong Web sites in China, the English-languageversion of the group's official site - carrying Mr. Li's New Year'smessage - can currently be seen by Internet subscribers in China.And the Hong Kong government has granted permission to group members thereto hold a regional convention on Jan. 14 - something that is certain toprovoke Beijing.The group has even sponsored a letter-writing campaign to nominate Mr. Lifor the Nobel Peace Prize. John F. Kutolowski, an associate professor ofhistory at the State University College at Brockport, N.Y., and the fatherof a Falun Gong follower in the United States, has written to academics atmany American universities asking them to join him in nominating Mr. Li forthe prize.Mr. Kutolowski declined to comment on the letter-writing campaign, sayingonly that it was a private initiative and that he was not among those peopleasked by the Nobel Committee to nominate candidates for the prize.Mr. Li, meanwhile, has begun speaking in increasingly apocalyptic terms. Hehas said the current struggles in China are leading to an apparentlytranscendent event that he calls the Consummation, in which his discipleswill "leave" and "all bad people will be destroyed by gods." Those who areleft will pay for their past sins with "horrible suffering," he has said.China has responded to Mr. Li's shift in tone by declaring late last yearthat Falun Gong had become a reactionary political force bent on subvertingChina's socialist system. Known dissidents in Shanghai have been warned tosteer clear of any contact with Falun Gong followers or face immediatedetention.And last week the standing committee of China's Parliament approved newrules defining illegal uses of the Internet that singled out its use "toorganize evil religious cults" or "for communications between cult members"as among the most egregious offenses. The Chinese government has officiallydefined Falun Gong as an evil cult.The implication is that Beijing is worried that as Falun Gong metamorphosesinto a more political movement it could knit together an alliance of

dissident networks around the country.The government has tried to discredit Mr. Li by using his words against him.A New China News Agency report last week said that a dozen followers inChina had committed mass suicide to attain Consummation and that dozens morehad been prevented from doing so by the police.The report could not immediately be verified, but Mr. Li has in the pastspoken out against suicide as a means of reaching salvation.Mr. Li, though, does express growing impatience with the suppression of hismovement in China and has suggested that followers confronting China'spolice are among the closest to reaching the group's ultimate spiritualgoal."The present performance of the evil shows that they are already utterlyinhuman and completely without righteous thoughts," Mr. Li said in hismessage posted on the Internet on Monday. "So such evil's persecution of theFa can no longer be tolerated."http://www.nytimes.com/2001/01/05/world/05CHIN.html

Falun Gong: Cult or Culture?

National RadioProduced by Chris BullockSunday 22/04/01

http://abc.net.au/rn/talks/bbing/audio/bb_150401.ramChris Bullock: There arepeople who believe that it's possible to change world events throughmeditation, by directing specific thoughts en mass. To others, this is justwishful thinking, a New Age fantasy.Well there is a meditation group, Falun Gong, that threatens to alter thecourse of history in the world's most populous nation, China. The reactionof the Chinese government has been to ban the group.

Liu Binyan: I believe it's already become a huge force in the society, andrecently, just because of the crackdown of the government, it's become moreand more politicised. So I believe it can play a great role in the change ofChina for the future.Chris Bullock: The New York based Chinese writer and journalist, Liu Binyanis not alone in his assessment of the political potency of the Falun Gongmovement in China.Hello, I'm Chris Bullock, and this is Background Briefing on Radio National.In China, this spiritual movement has been the target of an enormous Statesecurity sweep over the past two years, a crackdown that has led to tens ofthousands of followers being imprisoned. Amnesty International says at leastten followers died in custody in the first year of the crackdown. Falun Gongsays that number is now closer to 200, but China won't allow any independentverification.The Communist Party in China has branded Falun Gong an evil cult with apolitical agenda to destabilise Chinese society. This is a campaign that hasbeen led from the very top by the Party boss and President, Jiang Zemin.Jiang Zemin: Falun Gong is by no means a religion. It is a cult. It has beenoutlawed by the Chinese Government.Chris Bullock: And the Chinese government has a powerful ally in the

propaganda war: the Murdoch family. James Murdoch, heir to the NewsCorporation empire, which beams STAR TV into China, had this to say aboutFalun Gong a few weeks ago.James Murdoch: You know I do think that we have a tendency to look at it inthe brightest possible light and say, 'Oh it's breathing exercises, it'sharmless.' I mean you have a - I'm going to get myself in trouble, it is anapocalyptic cult, and it's dangerous.Chris Bullock: China's crackdown on the Falun Gong has turned what was,outside China, a little-known group, into an international cause celebre.Its leader, Li Hongzhi, lives in secluded exile in New York. He is 'mostwanted' inside China, a Nobel Peace Prize nominee outside. The Falun Gongwas recently given a major award in the United States, for promotinginternational religious freedom, and the group's case has been taken up atthe United Nations Human Rights Commission, currently meeting in Geneva.Falun Gong's chief spokesman is in Geneva to press the group's case. Via amobile phone, Erping Zhang told Background Briefing that Falun Gong does notwant to engage in politics.Erping Zhang: We don't have a political agenda. We are not interested inoverthrowing the Chinese government. All we care about, we are concernedwith is the livelihood and the rights of tens of millions of Falung Gongpractitioners in China. We are concerned with many of them being detained inmental hospitals and labour camps. We are concerned that over 180 peoplewere killed by the police. All we want is get all those detained Falun Gongpractitioners released, and allow the people in China to exercise theirconstitutional rights to practice Falun Gong freely and that's all we want,and nothing more beyond that.Falun Gong at Darling Harbour sounds.Chris Bullock: Falun Gong, also known as Falun Dafa, comes out of theChinese tradition of qigong, a system of cultivating one's inner energy andthoughts through exercises and meditation. The Falun Gong version comes fromLi Hongzhi, known to his followers as Master Li. It is an exercise systembased around a wheel, or falun, placed by Master Li into his followers'abdomens, and there is a morality system based around the central componentsof truthfulness, compassion and forbearance.China religions specialist at the ANU in Canberra, Dr Benjamin Penny.Benjamin Penny: That means truthfulness they say, is behaving nicely,telling the truth, not stealing, abiding by the true spirit of the universeand so on. Compassion is self-evident, and forbearance means keeping a happyface in the face of tribulations. By cultivating, which is doing theexercises and obeying the morality and so on, you will increasingly go uplevel by level by level, increasing your energy potential, as they call it.Chris Bullock: Falun Gong practitioners belief that as their energypotential increases, their bodies change, and the changes will lead togreater health, a long life, even superhuman abilities and immortality.Practitioners often come to Falun Gong in search of the meaning of life, orbetter health.Leon Wong: My wife is sick for half a year; she cough, even the blood alwayscome from the mouth when cough, but she try Chinese medicine, Westernmedicine, no use for half year. I spend $1,000 for the medicine. Doesn'twork. But after she practising Falun Gong for two weeks, everything good, Ibelieve.

John Deller: I find in Falun Dafa the integration of the practice and theteachings allow that journey into yourself. It's like exploring thepotential of being a human being.Chris Bullock: The harnessing of inner energy is common to many othertraditional Chinese cultivation systems; it is central to qigong. But MasterLi's Falun Gong places greater emphasis on the morality aspects.During the 1990s Falun Gong's popularity grew into a following estimated attens of millions; Falun Gong claims up to 100-million, while the Chinesegovernment says 2-million. It's impossible to verify either way, but thesemillions of once law-abiding citizens are now outlaws.Before the ban, Li Hongzhi regularly drew thousands of people to hislectures in China, where he would give examples of his supernatural healingpowers.Li Hongzhi speakingChris Bullock: Master Li asks the audiences to relax, think of an illness,and then concentrate on him. 'Now, stamp your feet'.(Feet Stamping).Then he asks, 'Do you feel good?'(Applause)These days Li Hongzhi makes rare appearances at Falun Gong gatherings,usually in the United States.The point at which the Chinese government became hostile to Falun Gongoccurred two years ago this week. More than 10,000 followers held a vigiloutside the Communist Party compound in Beijing. Here's part of a report bythe ABC's Beijing correspondent, Jane Hutcheon.Jane Hutcheon: 10,000 to 20,000 practitioners quietly surrounded Beijing'smost sensitive government building, the Central Leaders' Compound. It was aneerie sight, a silent, almost motionless protest. But for the government, itwas an outrageous act of defiance.Chris Bullock: The Falun Gong practitioners were protesting about criticismsin a section of the Chinese press. There had already been a protest in asmaller city and then a much larger group converged unexpectedly on partyheadquarters in Beijing. They stood and sat several-deep on the footpath,many of them reciting Master Li's teachings. The crowd snaked right aroundthe compound, a distance of about two kilometres, and they stayed there allday. They had come to demand official recognition and respect for theirpractice. The crowd left in the evening, as quickly and as orderly as theyhad arrived, taking all their litter with them, leaving no outward sign ofthe protest. But their presence left an indelible stamp on China's leaders;it was the most significant protest since Tiananmen Square, ten yearsearlier.The protest took the government completely by surprise, both in size and interms of the organisational discipline. Within two months, the Falun Gongwas outlawed.Today, the Falun Gong is deeply enmeshed in a propaganda war with Beijing.Li Hongzhi puts out regular statements on Falun Gong internet sites aroundthe world, referring to the Chinese government as, 'the evil'. This is partof a statement released in March this year, under the heading 'CoercionCannot Change People's Hearts'.Reader: The steadfast, righteous thoughts of a cultivator transcend allhuman understandings, they cannot be changed by everyday people, because

humans are not able to change enlightened beings.Although Dafa disciples do not get involved in politics and do not valueordinary human power, the evil's persecution in China will lead people tocompletely distrust the ruling party and its regime, and to disobey thegovernment

Chris Bullock: The impact of this propaganda war is spreading. The humanrights issues raised by the Falun Gong are impinging on internationalbusiness dealings in China, where a giant and emerging consumer economyoffers a myriad of lucrative contracts in everything from manufacturing toretail, communications and financial services. A hard-line position from theWest on the human rights of Falung Gong followers angers Beijing andthreatens to jeopardise Western business negotiations with the Chinesegovernment.It was during a recent business forum at the Milken Institute in LosAngeles, on business links with China, that James Murdoch gave his view ofthe Falun Gong.James Murdoch: If you woke up in the morning and there were 10,000 peoplesitting outside your front door silently, right, having organised withoutyour knowledge and all this sort of stuff, you would be worried if you werethe Chinese government. That is not benign, that's not exercise, I don'tknow what it is. But I do think that we have a tendency to look at it in thebrightest possible light and say, 'Oh it's breathing exercises, it'sharmless', and you have a - I'm going to get myself in trouble - it is anapocalyptic cult, and it's dangerous and I think that that's a real issue...Question from panel: Dangerous how?James Murdoch: I think it's dangerous for China, I think any time you havethat kind of foreign organisation - the guy's in the States, right - andhe's able to mobilise tens of thousands of people, he's clearly not got theState's interest at heart, and I do believe that the success of the Chinesesort of state-ist regime is critical to get them through this transitionperiod. I think destabilising political forces today are very, verydangerous for China's development, and very, very dangerous for the world.Chris Bullock: The next day, The Wall Street Journal editorial said JamesMurdoch's comments showed his father, Rupert, has -Reader: ...instructed his son perfectly in the craft of craven submission tothe Communist regime in China. The young Murdoch gave an impressive, almostballetic performance of the genuflectory arts...Chris Bullock: The Murdochs have major business interests in China, andthey're part of a corporate community that's become a valuable weapon inBeijing's attack on the Falun Gong. This is important in terms of theongoing political struggle in America and other Western nations, between thetrade and human rights lobbies.One of America's oldest human rights groups, Freedom House, has just givenone of its annual awards for 'promoting religious freedom' to the FalunGong. Deputy Director at Freedom House is Dr Paul Marshall.Paul Marshall: The religious freedom award we gave to Falun Gong was tohighlight the situation in China. There has been publicity about it, butpeople forget. For most of the last while, questions of trade have beencentral, and the US government has not wanted any other issue such as human

rights, to be brought up in such a way as to interfere with tradenegotiations, trade agreements and create friction for any other relation.Now exactly what the new administration will do isn't clear, so it's to callattention within the US, in US government circles.Chris Bullock: So a central purpose is to influence US foreign policy?Paul Marshall: Yes, very much so.Chris Bullock: James Murdoch, in his speech, gave a detailed description ofBeijing's sensitivities towards the Falun Gong, sensitivities that he saysdon't get mentioned in the Western media.The rise of the Falun Gong did take the Western press by surprise, and sincethe ban, objective reporting of the story has meant playing a high stakescat-and-mouse game with the Falun Gong and the authorities.Take for example, the lengths to which journalists went to cover a secretFalun Gong press conference, soon after the crackdown began. At the time,Beatrice Turpin was working in Beijing for the American television network,APTN.Beatrice Turpin: We had received a fax from New York, telling us about thesecret press conference. We didn't talk about it out loud in the building oranything, and we then got our things together. We went and took a taxi awayfrom the diplomatic compound a bit, because many of the drivers who wait atthe diplomatic compound are also reporting to the authorities. We got intoone taxi, we had a meeting point arranged in a restaurant somewhere in thecentre of Beijing. We met up with Falun Gong representatives there. We gotinto another taxi, we changed then into another taxi, and eventually into acar, and drove to a Beijing suburb, where we were met again by someone else,and changed cars once again. We were then taken to a restaurant resort typeplace in the suburbs of Beijing, where a banquet room had been retained forthe secret press conference. The feeling was one of deep secrecy of course,and nervousness. And there were many Falun Gong members to witness and torecount their experiences of harassment and torture.Chris Bullock: While the Chinese government has condemned Falun Gong as acult whose brainwashed followers are a threat to civil order, it remainssomething of an enigmatic group outside China. For one thing, Falun Gong hasno formal membership, nor organisational structures, and yet it is highlyorganised. In effect it is an amorphous, but very disciplined virtualorganisation.Benjamin Penny: There are vast numbers of Falun Gong websites around theworld. There are ones that concentrate on different aspects of Falun Gongfrom the human rights aspect to the teachings aspect and so on and so forth.Now consider the possibility that there is a circle of people around MasterLi. When he writes a new article, it is uploaded onto one of the Falun Gongwebsites. It then would appear to be uploaded across the world onto all theother Falun Gong websites, with a high degree of discipline. Followers thengo to the websites, see what the writings are, see what the teachings are,and in that way the message is passed to practitioners all round the world.It seems to me that what you have here is a kind of virtual organisation.It's not an organisation in the sense that we might think of it.Chris Bullock: As in not having office bearers?Benjamin Penny: Not having office bearers, and also not having membershiplists. This is the other very interesting thing about Falun Gong, and is oneof the reasons why the numbers can be so disputed; the Chinese government

and the Falun Gong Central claim that the numbers of adherents are wildlydifferent. We're talking tens of millions of people difference. Part of thereason for that, I suspect, is that no-one knows, because there's nomembership lists and if there's no membership lists, how do you countpeople?Chris Bullock: Falun Gong practitioners claim it is simply a belief systemthat relies on them to advocate the teachings of Li Hongzhi. They are freeto take part as little or as often as they wish. It is not, they say, areligion, although Benjamin Penny says it looks like a religion to him.Benjamin Penny: It has a set of writings by the leader that are taken astrue beyond the level of truth that you would regard a normal author ashaving. That is, they're gospel in some sense. That the teacher, the leader,is regarded as being greater and more powerful than normal human beings;that the things that that teacher says are taken as truer and more real andmore powerful than anything else, anybody else says, and that there is awell developed, I would call theology, but possibly doctrine, that includesmorality, practice and a whole complete world view. So it looks like areligion to me.Chris Bullock: Benjamin Penny says the Chinese government was acting withhistorical consistency when it banned the Falun Gong. The tradition ofrebellious spiritual groups goes back centuries in China.Benjamin Penny: In the last couple of hundred years, famously there has beenthe White Lotus uprising of the early 19th century, it almost brought downthe Ching dynasty; the Taiping rebellion which was led by a man who claimedto be the younger brother of Jesus, and which took over about half of China;there was the Boxer uprising at the beginning of the 20th century that was aquasi-religious movement of peasants who believed they were impregnable toWestern bullets and indeed at the beginning of the Peoples' Republic therewas a very large suppression of a group called the Yiguan dao (I-kuan tao)which still exists, but lots and lots and lots of people were killed, and itwas also banned for a while on Taiwan; it's since become legal in Taiwan andis very popular. And word has it that it's active again in China.Falun Gong in some respects, could be seen as something like those.Governments have always suppressed them, because they see them as a greatthreat.Chris Bullock: Dr Benjamin Penny, from the ANU.The popularity of Falun Gung came at a time of rapid social and economicchange in China. Millions of jobs have gone in former State-run factoriesand offices; the collapse of State-run health care has meant people can nolonger afford medication or hospital treatment, and with a greater sense ofinsecurity has come dissatisfaction and demoralisation. Falun Gong offeredto fill both a physical need, through its exercises, and a spiritual need,through its moral teachings.It was especially popular with retired men and women, as a way ofmaintaining their health, and the millions of followers included manycurrent and former government officials. Falun Gong reached deep into theruling Communist Party. And it still does, according to Falun Gongspokesman, Erping Zhang, who is speaking here by mobile phone from Geneva.Erping Zhang: There are Falun Gong practitioners in China at differentlevels of society, and many of them are reluctant and unwilling toco-operate with the Central Government. So they give a lot of information to

us and also to the human rights groups and the media.Chris Bullock: How high up in the party or in the government are they?Erping Zhang: Well they range from all levels, because if you recall thefirst four people sentenced to long jail terms in the Fall of 1999, all ofthem were Communist Party members. The one that was sentenced to 18 years injail, he used to be a personal secretary of the Minister of Public SecurityMinistry, and the others also are high-ranking either businessmen, orgovernment officials.Chris Bullock: And what kind of documents have you received through yourinformants?Erping Zhang: Well we are able to get access to basically most of theCentral Committee documents relating to the crackdown on Falun Gong. It'svery interesting, recently, I think in February, the Central Committee did asurvey of the regional and bureau chief level Communist officials, and theygive them ten options, like political reform, economic concessions, Taiwanand the Falun Gong, and asked them to prioritise all these options. Guesswhat? All those regional bureau chiefs put Falun Gong at the bottom, theyput economic and political reform at the top. So that shows that the verytop leaders want Taiwan and the Falun Gong to be the top priorities, and yetthe bureau chiefs and the regional chiefs, they want political reform as thetop priority.Chris Bullock: So you're saying that Jiang Zemin is fairly isolated in hisbelief that the Falun Gong should be No.1 priority, cracking down on theFalun Gong?Erping Zhang: Yes.Chris Bullock: Falun Gong's chief spokesman, Erping Zhang.It is the participation of so many officials and party cadres in Falun Gong,and the group's ability to quickly and quietly mobilise large numbers offollowers that has shaken the Chinese leadership. The dissident writer andjournalist, Liu Binyan, who now lives in New Jersey, believes it has madeFalun Gong the most potent political force in China, a force he says willcontinue to grow.Liu Binyan: I believe they have already become the major force opposing theCommunity Party in China. In recent years, you know, there are severalpolitical parties, opposition parties created in China, they either callthemselves Democratic Party or another name. But not one of them becameinfluential. Maybe Falun Gong will never call themselves a political party,but in fact at least they will be one of the major forces in the next stageof the development of China.Chris Bullock: Liu Binyan.With the repression of Falun Gong practitioners in China, the group's publicactivities have moved offshore. There is a growing following in the UnitedStates, where Master Li lives, as well as in Europe, South East Asia, and inAustralia.Darling Harbour Falun Gong soundsChris Bullock: Each Sunday morning in the centre of Sydney, under the treesat Darling Harbour, a group of a hundred or so Falun Gong practitioners gothrough their exercise routine. Most followers in Australia are ChineseAustralians, with a small but growing number of Westerners. Public practicesessions are held in most cities each weekend, and you might seepractitioners handing out pamphlets on the street or at community events.

There are regular protests outside the Chinese Embassy in Canberra, andthere's a daily Falun Gong presence at the gates of the Chinese Consulate inSydney.In the two years since the crackdown in China, dozens of Australian FalunGong practitioners have gone to China to make their own protests. Severalwere arrested and jailed. One of these Australian practitioners is LeonWong, who went to China twice and was arrested both times while visitingChinese practitioners. Leon Wong spoke to Background Briefing after doinghis exercise routine at Darling Harbour.Leon Wong: When we meet, talk, the policemen come, actually to thepractitioner's home, and then somebody knocked on the door. And when Iopened around 20 or 30 policemen come in, and they just forced us toseparate rooms. And I show them my passport, I say, 'I want to see myEmbassy first.' They don't like you to make phone call to Embassy, they juststraightaway put you into the jail. They just handcuffed me on the wall fora whole night.Chris Bullock: Leon Wong says in the short time he was imprisoned, he sawFalun Gong practitioners who had been badly beaten by a method known as 'thespecial facial', where the entire face is made black and blue, including theeyelids, which are bruised with flicking fingers.Amnesty International has collected numerous reports of the torture of FalunGong followers and although Amnesty says it is difficult to verify thereports, the testimonies of people who have been held in the same placescorroborate each other. Now, Leon Wong is one of many Australianpractitioners who are known to the Chinese authorities and are no longerable to get a visa to visit China.The easiest way to get to China is electronically. In a small suburban flatin Sydney, one practitioner is about to spend the evening 'spamming' Chineseemail addresses. During the day, Wen is an IT consultant in the city; atnight he helps run the Falun Gong's Australian website. And tonight he issending out hundreds of copies of an article about the torture of apractitioner in China.Wen: So I just register a new email address from Yahoo.Chris Bullock: So you'll use this account to send out the emails rather thanyour own?Wen: Yes I need to change it all the time.Chris Bullock: Why do you need to keep changing it?Wen: Well the Chinese government they put a lot of effort on chasing people.It's too easy for them to trace back if you use the same email address allthe time.Chris Bullock: And you don't want to use your email address?Wen: No.Chris Bullock: OK, so you're going to send an article to a whole bunch ofemail addresses that you have there. How many email addresses do you havethere?Wen: Thirty, forty email addresses from one page, I've got about 20 pages.Chris Bullock: OK, so you've got about 500 email addresses.Wen: Yes, 500 or 600.Chris Bullock: And how long will it take you to send 500 or 600 emails?Wen: It takes a couple of weeks, because I only do it after hours.Chris Bullock: And what are these email addresses, do you know who they are,

or are they just random?Wen: They are from the Chinese websites.Chris Bullock: So they're personal email addresses.Wen: Some are personal, some are government officials.Chris Bullock: And you're going to send an article about the torture ofFalun Gong practitioners in China; and where does the article come from?Wen: I mainly get it from the Minghui net.Chris Bullock: Which is a Falun Gong website.Wen: Yes, and the information from that website mainly is for telling thereal stories from China.Chris Bullock: The article that Wen is sending to China is from one of theFalun Gong websites, which has hundreds of stories about the torture ofpractitioners in China, in both English and Chinese. This particular storyis about a woman who was force-fed and who subsequently died. While many ofthe testimonies are anonymous and very difficult to verify, Wen has no doubtabout their authenticity.Wen: Well put it this way, it's impossible to talk to the people in Chinanow, especially to the practitioners. As for us, we all know that anythingwe say, it's got to be true, otherwise we can't say it.Chris Bullock: It's true because it's been said by a Falun Gongpractitioner?Wen: That's how we look at it. A genuine practitioner of Falun Dafa willnever tell lies, that's the truth.Chris Bullock: In this intense propaganda battle, the Chinese governmentalso claims the truth.Background Briefing was invited to the Chinese Embassy in Canberra to hearChina's side of the story. China's embassy is a large ornate building thatsits in the shadow of Parliament Hill, between Parliament House and thelake.Embassy intercomWoman: Can I help you?Chris Bullock: Yes, good morning, my name's Chris Bullock from ABC Radio,and I have a ten o'clock interview with a Ms Ren Xiaoping.Gate opening soundsChris Bullock: Inside, marble floored hallways circle a Chinese garden. Iwas ushered into one of the meeting rooms and met by the embassy's presscounsellor, Ren Xiaoping. She was armed with videotapes and a bundle ofbrochures.In the brochures were gruesome pictures of people said to be Falun Gongpractitioners who had taken their own lives. One had tried to rip the falun,or wheel, out of his stomach. Another had bludgeoned his parents with ashovel. One pamphlet was titled, 'The 33 fallacies of cult leader LiHongzhi'. It contained a list of quotes taken from websites, books andlectures by Master Li.This is a reading from one.Reader: Once I checked carefully and found that mankind has been destroyed81 times. Only a few people survived. They lived a primitive life with alittle prehistoric civilisation remaining. After many generations ofmultiplication, the human race flourished again and modern civilisationappeared.Chris Bullock: Amongst other material given to Background Briefing by Ren

Xiaoping were brochures and a tape of a Chinese television program aboutfive people said to be Falun Gong followers, who set themselves on fire inBeijing's Tiananmen Square earlier this year.Ren Xiaoping: This is a new one, this is about the Tiananmen immolation. Forexample, look, look at these people. And this 12-year-old girl eventuallydied, and her mother died on the spot. And I have also two tapes. This isthe immolation, the Falun Gong suicidal attempt at Tiananmen.Chris Bullock: In English, are they?Ren Xiaoping: Yes it's in English. And this is 'Falun Gong live a new life',and these are some of the former practitioners who have been educated andwho have realised that Falun Gong has actually done a lot of harm tothemselves.Chris Bullock: And this suicide attempt at Tianenmen, what sort of materialis on that video?Ren Xiaoping: Well it's basically what happened, what was happening at theSquare.Chinese television news item.Woman: Hello and welcome to the CCTV special. On January the 21st, the eveof the Chinese lunar New Year, several Falun Gong followers set themselveson fire in Tiananmen Square in Beijing. One died, and four were seriouslyinjured. So far Falun Gong has claimed the lives of 1700 followers whoeither went insane, committed suicide, or refused medical treatment.Chris Bullock: The videotape from Chinese television has graphic footage ofblackened, stumbling figures being extinguished by police in TiananmenSquare, and of a badly burnt girl, lying on the ground, calling for hermother.There is also footage of interviews being conducted with several heavilybandaged patients in a hospital, who confessed that their Falun Gong beliefsled them to attempt a group suicide.The Chinese government has used the self immolations in Tiananmen Square,which it says eventually claimed two lives, as the most graphic evidence yetof a dangerous, apocalyptic cult. Falun Gong disputes whether the people inTiananmen Square were genuine practitioners, saying the teachings of LiHongzhi forbid killing. Others argue there are so many desperatepractitioners in China, a few might be prepared to take such drastic action.But again, the Chinese authorities won't allow any of the survivors to speakto the foreign press.Conspiracy theories abound over Tiananmen Square. The Falun Gong says it wasstaged by the Chinese authorities, while Beijing initially said it wasarranged by the Falun Gong followers for the benefit of a CNN camera crew,which happened to be there at the time. The CNN crew was detained and theirfilm confiscated, but the allegations were subsequently dropped by Beijing.Back in Canberra, Ren Xiaoping says the Falun Gong claims of practitionersbeing tortured and dying in custody are overstated.Ren Xiaoping: Some of them died but the cause of their death varies. Severalpeople actually died after they went back home, and then Falun Gong claimedthat these people died in prison, and they were persecuted to death. It istrue that there are people who are in custody but these are not prisons,these are educational centres. China has a number of -Chris Bullock: But they're locked in these educational centres.Ren Xiaping: They are in educational centres, but they are there for like

between three months to five months.Chris Bullock: So it is a prison.Ren Xiaping: No, no, no, no, prison is -Chris Bullock: Well you're locked behind closed doors, and not allowed toleave the educational centre.Ren Xiaping: I'm not a legal officer, but I know there are differences. Infact in the re-education centre obviously they're not allowed to go out, youknow, like any other person walking in the street, but they have a very richlife. For example they have study sessions and then they have parties, theyhave entertainment, and also they live in dorms, very clean, very nicedorms, and the working staff of this re-educational centre, they are verynice people, they treat them very nicely.Chris Bullock: There is no doubt that the Chinese government has acredibility problem when it comes to human rights matters, and the same goesfor Beijing's message about Falun Gong being 'a dangerous cult'. But thereare concerns emerging in the West, about the Falun Gong, especially amongthe so-called cult-watchers.In the United States, the veteran psychologist, Emeritus Professor MargaretSinger, has been studying cults for more than 40 years. Margaret Singer saysshe's been contacted anonymously by about 60 families, virtually all of themare American-Chinese, who are very worried about a family member practicingFalun Gong.Margaret Singer: It's usually young adults, they have broken off connectionswith their family, and in Chinese culture that is just not expected. It's avery family oriented society. Then secondly, they tell me that no longer dothey have conversations when their relative drops by or calls in, therelative lectures at them, and then they've come to learn that these arejust phrases straight from Li Hongzhi's writing.Then the next thing is that the relatives are very concerned because they'vepointed out that the relative had diabetes, cancer, chronic liver, kidneydisease, but had been on medical treatment for a very serious disorder, andsince they've joined Falun Gong, they've stopped taking medicine and seeingphysicians.Chris Bullock: While Li Hongzhi doesn't actually preach complete abstinencefrom medicine, his critics argue that he sets up a climate of discouragingthe use of medicine. Again, this is a reading from Master Li's teachings.Reader: We must adjust your body to the state where there is no moreillness. Only then can you cultivate toward a higher level. Takingmedication during cultivation implies that you do not believe in thedisease-curing effect of cultivation.Chris Bullock: All the families who have contacted Margaret Singer havewanted to remain anonymous, for fear, she says, of repercussions from FalunGong. But despite the intense propaganda war around the group, MargaretSinger says she doesn't believe any of the people who have contacted her areseeking to discredit the Falun Gong.Margaret Singer: I have not had the feeling that it was either the Chinesegovernment or their agents, or someone that was wanting to make the grouplook wrong, because what the people were describing is the kinds of changesin behaviour that relatives of people who got into the Moonies, the HareKrishnas, the other large international cults that I've been following forso many years, you know if they really were a set-up kind of call, they

wouldn't be doing such a good job of sort of spontaneously describing theimpact of an indoctrination and thought reform program.Chris Bullock: Professor Margaret Singer of the University of California,Berkeley.In Australia, the Melbourne-based Cult Counselling Service is workingdirectly with about a dozen families with very similar concerns to thoseexpressed to Margaret Singer. The difference is that these families arehaving face-top-face counselling.The Director of Cult Counselling Australia is Raphael Aaron.Raphael Aaron: The basic concern amongst family members in relation to FalunGong is the question as to whether it is in fact what's it made out to be,as a group which promotes a series of various different forms of exercise,and other different forms of behaviour which are there to enhance people'shealth, or whether in fact there are aspects of it which are very akin tothe normal, or the practices that we would normally associate with what isloosely termed a cult or a sect. And my judgement of the organisation isbased on Li Hongzhi's own writings. I don't draw a lot from the publicitythat's surrounding this particular story. One needs to analyse what LiHongzhi's actually saying, and what the greater picture he's painting isreally all about.Chris Bullock: As an example of what Raphael Aaron is concerned about, thisis a reading from Li Hongzhi's comments about the supreme knowledge hepasses on to his followers:Reader: I only tell practitioners, but not the public because they cannotcomprehend it. I am trying to save those people who can return to a highlevel and to a high moral level. Modern science does not understand this, sogovernments can do nothing. The only person in the entire world who knowsthis is myself alone.Chris Bullock: Another reading comes from a message to Falun Dafapractitioners at a recent conference in Europe.Reader: Everything that Dafa disciples do at the present is resisting thepersecution of Dafa and its disciples. In the future, several billion peopleare to obtain the Fa, and if people's minds contain thoughts that resistDafa, once this evil drama is over a large-scale elimination of humankindwill commence. You cannot skip Fa study. This is what can best ensure yourreaching consummation.Chris Bullock: Li Hongzhi's writings worry Raphael Aaron for a number ofreasons.Raphael Aaron: I certainly have difficulty in the fact that he calls hisfollowers 'disciples'. I have a difficulty in the fact that he unites allhis followers into one sort of body, an elite form of existence. He talksabout the fact that even though some people are complaining or demonstratingin China, and some people are demonstrating in other parts of the world, itmakes no difference, because really we're all one body, we're one being, andthere's a strong elitist feeling which is spread through that belief.There's the view that this group is going to save the universe, and it'svery clear in his writings, and that in fact if the universe is going to besaved, the only people that are going to actually survive are going to bepeople who actually follow Falun Gong.There are theories about the cosmos, theories about degenerate beings, karmaand all sorts of other issues. It's just ridiculous to suggest that this is

simply an exercise routine.Chris Bullock: Raphael Aaron believes that the Chinese propaganda waragainst the Falun Gong can only benefit the movement's cause.Raphael Aaron: We know that one of the traditional signs of most cults orsects is the fact that they divide the world into good and bad. China has infact created this huge rallying point with I would imagine, millions ofdisaffected people. So he's got a captive audience out there, and he'sappealing to them. And the fact that he's able to divide the world the waythat he has, aided and abetted by the Chinese authority, can only continueto serve his cause.Chris Bullock: Raphael Aaron.Background Briefing has tried to talk with families who are worried aboutfamily members' involvement with Falun Gong, but they don't want to talk.One of the biggest criticisms of the Falun Gong comes from rationalistthinking, that Li Hongzhi's teachings are anti-scientific'. For example, hisviews that there were 81 civilisations before us, that there is atwo-billion year old nuclear reactor in Africa, and that aliens are usingtechnology to take over the bodies and souls of humans.Li Hongzhi was expansive on the latter, during an interview with TimeMagazine in 1999, just before the Falun Gong was banned in China. Here's areading from that interview.Reader: The ultimate purpose is to replace humans. If cloning human beingssucceeds, the aliens can officially replace humans. The aliens will takethat opportunity to replace the human soul and by doing so they will enterearth and become earthlings.When such people grow up, they will replace humans with aliens. They willproduce more and more clones. There will no longer be humans reproducinghumans. They will act like humans, but they will introduce legislation tostop human reproduction.Chris Bullock: The many practitioners Background Briefing has spoken toabout some of Master Li's controversial theories have either said theydidn't understand them, or they weren't concerned about them.This is what the chief spokesman, Erping Zhang said about Master Li's theoryon aliens.Erping Zhang: There are many scientists and scholars who have done studieson different dimensions, you know physical dimensions, and talk about adifferent life in different space, and different things.Chris Bullock: But for example, when he says that aliens will take theopportunity to replace the human soul, and when such people grow up they'llreplace humans with aliens and they'll produce more and more clones; Itsounds a bit like a Hollywood science fiction movie.Erping Zhang: I wouldn't say so, because indeed they are cloning not onlyanimals, but as some scientist has just recently reported, they're trying toclone a human life as well.Chris Bullock: But it's not aliens doing the cloning.Erping Zhang: Well he points out a phenomenon that many people probably havenot realised yet, and what we have not found may not be necessarily untrue.A hundred years ago if I'm talking with you on a mobile phone, that'sunthinkable; you'd probably call me superstitious.Chris Bullock: So you think that he may be a visionary?Erping Zhang: Well there are things that people might not quite understand

yet, and they might understand later, and that's quite possible.Chris Bullock: In his message to the people who attended the European FaConference, Master Li says that once this evil drama is over, a large-scaleelimination of humankind will commence. How should we interpret that?Erping Zhang: I would just read what he says you know, I wouldn't know atthis point myself.Chris Bullock: Falun Gong's chief spokesman, Erping Zhang.

It's true that most religions and spiritual belief systems are peppered withweird and wonderful prophesies, and there's a saying that goes, 'A cult isjust a religion you don't agree with'. As for Li Hongzhi's reference to 'alarge-scale elimination of humankind,' Benjamin Penny says last daysmessages are common across a wide range of religious doctrines.Benjamin Penny: It's a last days message though that doesn't derive from aChristian-style eschatology. This derives much more from a Buddhist notionof the cycle of the Dharma or the Buddhist law. In some doctrines there issome kind of cataclysm and the process starts again. I don't think we shouldstart to think of Falun Gong as being that kind of organisation thatbelieves that the world's going to end next Thursday because they're notputting dates on, they never have, and it seems to me that one of thecriteria for these genuinely apocalyptic groups is that there is aparticular time of reckoning.The other is that they live in a relatively self-contained community. I meanif you look at Heaven's Gate or Jonestown or similar, the people have tendedto live in a very tightly-knit community. And Falun Gong is much, much moreopen than that. I mean these people don't live communally, they live innormal society, they can practice individually or with groups, it's anentirely different thing kind of a thing. So I'm not expecting somethingapocalyptic to happen.Chris Bullock: For Dr Paul Marshall, at Freedom House in Washington, thecult argument is a smokescreen. This, he says, is about freedom ofexpression, and he worries about the anti-cult arguments.Paul Marshall: That people of beliefs, which to many others seem verystrange and unusual are then treated as dangerous, and in many cases they'renot. So we need to be careful of stigmatising them.Chris Bullock: For example, you might have seen Master Li's comments onaliens using technology to take over human bodies. What do you make of that?Paul Marshall: In my own view I think that's a whacko statement. I justthink that's crazy, I wouldn't go along with that. But most members we'retalking about are into the exercises. So I think he has beliefs that I findvery strange, and he has a legal right to have them, and they should havethe legal right to have them in China, too.ThemeChris Bullock: Co-ordinating Producer, Linda McGinnis; Technical Productionby David Bates; Research, Paul Bolger; Readings were by Robbie MacGregor;Background Briefing's Executive Producer is Kirsten Garrett; and I'm ChrisBullock.Further information:

US based Falun Gong websitehttp://www.clearwisdom.net

US based Falun Gong websitehttp://www.falundafa.org

US based Falun Gong websitehttp://www.faluninfo.net

Australian based Falun Gong websitehttp://www.falundafa.org.au

Amnesty Internationalhttp://www.amnesty.org

China Gives Falun Gong TV Hijackers Up to 20 Years September 20, 2002

BEIJING (Reuters) - China handed prison terms of between four and 20 years to 15 members of the banned Falun Gong spiritual movement Friday for commandeering state television broadcasts, the Xinhua news agency said.

The Falun Gong followers were convicted of damaging radio and television property, and of conspiring to use the group -- outlawed by China as an "evil cult'' -- to undermine law enforcement, Xinhua said.

The convictions come in the midst of a push to ensure stability ahead of a Communist Party congress in November at which President Jiang Zemin and other leaders are widely expected to hand power to a younger generation.

The trials started Wednesday in the city of Changchun in Jilin province, where some cable television broadcasts were disrupted by Falun Gong videos.

Police rounded up the suspects after a March 5 incident in which trunk television cables serving parts of the city were cut off for more than three hours and pro-Falun Gong footage broadcast to some 16,000 viewers, Xinhua said.

"HEROES OR CRIMINALS?''

The group's New York-based information center branded the trial a mockery of justice.

"Throughout history, those who peacefully defy injustice and the persecution of the human spirit have been called heroes. Today, in this show-trial in Changchun, such people are being labeled 'criminals','' the Falun Gong information center said.

Falun Gong followers believe in a mixture of Taoism, Buddhism, traditional Chinese exercises and the ideas of its U.S.-based leader, Li Hongzhi.

China banned the group in 1999 after thousands of followers staged a peaceful demonstration in Beijing to demand recognition of their faith.

When Xinhua reported on the trial, it quoted some members as saying their leader Li, who has been living in the United States but has stayed out of public view, was behind the television hijack plot.

China's tough crackdown on the group has curtailed its once-frequent demonstrations.

As protests have petered out, the group has switched tactics, overriding television signals several times this year to broadcast footage proclaiming the virtues of Falun Gong.

Most interruptions have been of local cable signals, but the group also hijacked of a state-run satellite broadcast during the World Cup soccer finals in June.

China has tightened media controls in the run-up to the party congress, including imposing a partial block on the internet search engine Google, apparently in a bid to cut off access to sensitive topics such as Falun Gong.

State television regulators issued a circular last month threatening to sack broadcasters if Falun Gong programs were shown over their airwaves.

http://www.nytimes.com/reuters/international/international-crime-china-falungong.html

Falun Gong - Evaluation and further referencesIndependent evaluation and review of literature on Falun Gong - siteproduced by Professor Barend ter Haar, China historian at Leiden Universityin The Netherlands. This site has links to a wide range of perspectives onthe Falun Gong, including Chinese media sites.http://www.let.leidenuniv.nl/bth/falun.htm

Chinese embassy, Canberrahttp://www.chinaembassy.org.au/

Human Rights in ChinaUS based organisationhttp://www.hrichina.org

The International Cultic Studies Association 'cult watching' organisation.

www.icsahome.com

http://www.abc.net.au/rn/talks/bbing/stories/s282240.htm