DATE=10/27/1999
TYPE=BACKGROUND REPORT
TITLE=CHINA-FALUNGONG
NUMBER=5-44621
BYLINE=STEPHANIE HO
DATELINE=BEIJING
CONTENT=
VOICED AT:
INTRO: For a third day (today/Wednesday), Chinese
police in Beijing have been detaining members of the
outlawed spiritual sect Falungong. The country's
state-run media also continued their own war of words
against the group. But as V-O-A's Stephanie Ho
reports from the Chinese capital, followers of
Falungong are showing they are not deterred by the
official pronouncements.
TEXT: Although the government's sweeping crackdown on
Falungong was aimed at quashing the spiritual group,
it seems to have had the opposite effect.
Instead of being cowed into submission, emboldened
members from all around China have descended on
Beijing to try to persuade the government to change
its mind.
Mr. Si, a 35-year-old policeman from northeastern
Liaoning province who has studied Falungong for
several years, says he saw authorities rounding up
followers Wednesday on Tiananmen Square. He says he
would have answered truthfully that he is also a
Falungong member, but police never asked him.
Mr. Si says Falungong followers feel strongly that
they have done nothing to threaten the government.
/// SI CHINESE ACT -- IN FULL, FADE UNDER ///
He says he has even heard of desperate adherents who
recently rode their bicycles all the way from the far
northeastern province of Heilongjiang, about one-
thousand kilometers away, to Beijing.
The timing is significant. China's legislature, the
National People's Congress, began a week-long meeting
Monday to review a law that would tighten the screws
on groups the government considers to be cults. This
includes Falungong, which Beijing officially labeled
an illegal organization in July.
Chinese spokeswoman Zhang Qiyue, speaking through an
interpreter, repeated the government's uncompromising
criticism of the group and its founder.
/// ZHANG INTERPRETER ACT ///
Li Hongzhi and the Falungong are anti-science,
anti-
society, anti-humanity, and it is an illegal
organization with the making of a cult.
/// END ACT ///
The Chinese government has accused Falungong of
spreading superstition and causing the deaths of more
than 14-hundred people. In recent months, China's
state-run media have launched an all-out attack on the
group, reporting that followers have been arrested and
millions of books and video tapes have been
confiscated.
Chinese media say Falungong leaders have organized
more than 300 protests around the country since April
25th, when 10-thousand sect members surrounded the
central leadership compound in Beijing.
In one of the latest wrinkles, the state-run Xinhua
news agency says an unspecified number of Falungong
members have been accused of possessing and leaking
state secrets.
The Legal Daily newspaper Wednesday ran a report
focusing on two Falungong members from the central
industrial city of Wuhan, who have renounced their
belief in the group since the crackdown.
Despite these official reports, other practitioners
still feel so deeply about Falungong, they are
apparently even willing to die for it.
For the first time, police in Heilongjiang province
Wednesday confirmed that a Falungong adherent died in
custody. Authorities told the Reuters news agency
that 18-year-old Chen Ying died from injuries
sustained after jumping from a train bound for
Heilongjiang in August.
A U-S-based Falungong representative said Chen Ying
had jumped because of severe abuse -- a charge Reuters
[news agency] says police denied. The policeman is
quoted as saying Chen Ying was stubborn, and jumped
voluntarily to give her life for Falungong.
However, the policeman refused to comment on
allegations that another Falungong follower also died
from injuries sustained when he jumped from a moving
train to escape police torture. (Signed)
NEB/HO/FC/WTW
27-Oct-1999 06:51 AM EDT (27-Oct-1999 1051 UTC)
NNNN
Source: Voice of America
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