DATE=1/19/2000
TYPE=CORRESPONDENT REPORT
TITLE=CHINA-EXERCISE GROUP (L ONLY)
NUMBER=2-258201
BYLINE=ROGER WILKISON
DATELINE=BEIJING
CONTENT=
VOICED AT:
INTRO: A Hong Kong-based human rights monitor says
China is planning to extend its crackdown on the Falun
Gong exercise and meditation movement to a similar
group. VOA correspondent Roger Wilkison quotes the
Information Center for Human Rights and Democratic
Movement in China as saying a leader of the Zhong Gong
group has been sentenced to two years in jail for
illegally practicing medicine.
TEXT: First there was Falun Gong, which Beijing last
July branded an evil cult. The Chinese government has
tried several of the group's leaders and sentenced
them to long prison terms. It has also reportedly
sent five thousand Falun Gong members to labor camps
so that they can undergo re-education.
The next target, according to the Information Center,
is Zhong Gong. The Center, which keeps a close watch
on dissent in China, says Beijing is planning to label
Zhong Gong a cult, too. It says the government has
become convinced that Zhong Gong -which claims 20
million adherents- could undermine the authority of
the Communist Party. That was the same reason for
Beijing's ban on the much larger Falun Gong movement.
Whereas Falun Gong combines Buddhist and Daoist
principles with traditional Chinese exercises called
qigong, Zhong Gong is closer to the mainstream of
qigong, which involves breathing exercises, meditation
and slow, graceful movements of the body.
The center says the latest sign of the crackdown on
Zhong Gong came last week with the sentencing of Chen
Jinlong to two years in prison. Mr. Chen was the main
Zhong Gong organizer in eastern Zhejiang province.
The court said Mr. Chen -a qigong master- touted
himself as a healer and treated the sick even though
he was not qualified as a doctor.
The center says the first sign that Zhong Gong was in
the government's sights came last month when police
raided the group's biggest training center and
expelled two thousand people who were studying there.
It says Zhong Gong was so popular in the first part of
the 1990s that one of its healers treated none other
than President Jiang Zemin for arthritis and neck
pains.
But the Center says that security officials eventually
became worried that the movement was growing too fast
and began investigating it more than two years ago.
Now, it appears, Zhong Gong is on its way to becoming
a new object of Beijing's wrath. (signed)
NEB/RW/FC
19-Jan-2000 07:04 AM EDT (19-Jan-2000 1204 UTC)
NNNN
Source: Voice of America
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