Falun Gong members rally against cruelties
By Karen Blakeman
Advertiser Staff Writer
Practitioners of Falun Gong, the spiritual movement banned in Beijing two years ago, demonstrated in Honolulu during the weekend, holding signs and distributing literature that chronicled the imprisonment, torture and death of Falun Gong followers in China.
Jeff Widener • The Honolulu Advertiser
"We are calling on the world to stop the brutal persecution," said Wu Guorui, a Chinese citizen and practitioner of the Falun Gong spiritual movement.
Falun Gong members demonstrated in front of the State Capitol against China's attacks on group members.
The Hawai'i demonstration and other larger gatherings across the Mainland foreshadow a national demonstration in Washington, D.C., on Thursday, Wu said.
Started nine years ago in China and incorporating ancient Chinese philosophies, Falun Gong combines slow, meditative movements with with a belief system based on the pursuit of truth, compassion and tolerance.
Wu, who demonstrated and meditated Friday with a handful of other practitioners outside the State Capitol, said hundreds of Falun Gong practitioners and their supporters are walking and biking from distant cities to Washington, trying to raise awareness of the plight of Falun Gong practitioners in China.
He had little to say about the announcement last week that China had been chosen to stage the 2008 Olympics. "I only hope that China can improve its human rights record," he said.
Wu said the young Falun Gong spiritual movement, although hailed by government officials at its inception as a method of improving the health of the population, quickly fell out of favor with the Communist party. Two years ago, in July 1999, Chinese President Jiang Zemin banned Falun Gong and ordered the arrest and punishment of its practitioners and supporters.
Wu said he believed the Communist Party felt threatened by Falun Gong, which by that point had more than 100 million practitioners. Falun Gong followers, he said, outnumbered Communist Party members.
After the ban, Chinese authorities lodged a campaign of violent suppression that has been condemned by the international community, including the U.S. Department of State.
Falun Gong claims more than 50,000 people have been arrested, 254 have been tortured to death, 150 sentenced to prison, 20,000 sent to labor camps and 600 sent to mental institutions. Falun Gong sympathizers, Western news agencies, and human rights organizations have documented the torture and deaths of dozens of Falun Gong practitioners.
Chinese government officials denied responsibilities for the deaths, claiming those who died had done so in mass suicides.
Among information distributed by Wu and the other demonstrators was a tape documenting injuries to men and women who appeared to have been tortured — many of them dying from their injuries.
Among the other demonstrators at the capital building Friday was 3-year old Kendra Leung, one of Hawai'i's youngest Falun Gong practitioners, and three men recently deported from Singapore for holding a rally without a permit.
The three deported men were residents of China. Because they feared reprisals if they were to return home, the Singapore court allowed them to choose the country to which they would move. Wu said the men had chosen the United States, where they felt safe.
"The Singapore government showed us compassion," one of them said. "The world knows what is happening in China."
