TYPE=BACKGROUND REPORT
BYLINE=STEPHANIE MANN
DATELINE=WASHINGTON
INTERNET=
CONTENT=
VOICED AT:
INTRO: Supporters of the banned Falun Gong spiritual movement are calling on the Chinese government to release the hundreds of practitioners detained last Sunday in Beijing's Tiananmen Square. The detentions occurred on China's National Day as thousands of tourists were in the square to enjoy the holiday celebrations. V-O-A's Stephanie Mann reports that Falun Gong members have turned to political civil disobedience to call attention to their treatment in China.
TEXT:Falun Gong literature and the group's spokesmen say the movement is a spiritual one that combines physical exercise with principles of healthy living. They advocate good behavior guided by truthfulness, compassion and tolerance. Falun Gong denies it has any political agenda.
However, over the last 14 months, Falun Gong members have repeatedly gone to public places in China and begun their exercises or unfurled their banners, knowing that authorities would arrest them. Falun Gong spokesmen say the movement's members have been forced into taking such political actions because of the way they are treated by the Chinese government.
Last year, the Chinese government banned Falun Gong, calling it a dangerous cult, and thousands of its members have been put in jail or sent to re-education camps.
Dr. Jingduan Yang is a psychiatrist in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, and a Falun Gong practitioner. He says many Falun Gong members arrested in China are subjected to torture, many have been involuntarily committed to mental hospitals and others have died in police custody. Dr. Yang says that is why they try to exercise their constitutional right to freedom of religion in public.
/// YANG ACT ///
These practitioners have not only lost their constitutional right, they have lost their jobs, they have lost their houses. They have lost support from any family, community who are afraid of being affected or persecuted by the policy and the government. So they have no support whatsoever, and these people are so helpless. Their voices cannot be heard. So they are using everything they have, they bring everything they have, everybody -- that's all their family, all they have -- to give the call to the international community asking for help.
/// END ACT ///
The United States says it is disturbed by the reports of increasingly harsh tactics by the Chinese government against Falun Gong practitioners. A State Department spokesman said Monday those detained over the weekend were engaged in their internationally recognized rights to freedom of expression and freedom of conscience.
Writer Danny Schechter, who has authored a new book called "The Falun Gong's Challenge to China," says the U-S government has not put enough pressure on Beijing and in particular Chinese President Jiang Zemin to allow Falun Gong members to practice their beliefs.
/// SCHECTER ACT ///
We are turning our backs on these people who are non-violently protesting in China, and I think it's a disgrace for the American people, for our government, for the United Nations and other agencies. And it's time to speak up, to ask Jiang Zemin, "What are you afraid of?"
/// END ACT ///
China scholar Carol Lee Hamrin says when the Chinese government feels confident about the country's economy, it tends to be more lenient toward religious and social activities. But she says now Chinese leaders are nervous about the economy -- rising unemployment, bankrupt state industries, and more international competition. And Professor Hamrin says that's causing the government to crack down on all religious groups in an effort to regain some control over society.
Nevertheless, Professor Hamrin says there are progressive individuals within the Chinese leadership pressing for political reforms and moves toward greater religious freedom. If the United States overreacts to the current crackdown in ways that hurt Chinese people, she says that could undermine the efforts of those progressive Chinese leaders.
/// OPT HAMRIN ACT ///
Our task on the outside is to try to figure out ways that we can make a difference. I think it's shown that the kind of blunt instrument of economic blockade or military containment leads basically to a Mao-era kind of reign of terror internally. So, that's a dead end. But what we need to find are more creative approaches that really force business, religious organizations, educational organizations, tourism to figure out how to reward and punish those groups and areas inside China that are doing better or worse in human rights.
/// END OPT ACT ///
Lawrence Goodrich is a member of the U-S Commission on International Religious Freedom, an independent group appointed by the President and Congress to monitor religious freedom and make policy recommendations. Mr. Goodrich says he would like to see the issue of religious freedom have more prominence in U-S policy toward China.
/// GOODRICH ACT ///
The distressing thing, I think, for anyone who's concerned about religious freedom in China right now is that here we have just completed in July, and since, probably the worst period for religious freedom in China since the end of the Cultural Revolution (1976). And yet we chose at that very time -- after everything that's happened with Falun Gong, with Zhong Gong, which is another spiritual movement that comes out of the Qigong tradition, with Catholics, Protestants, with Tibetan Buddists, with Muslim Uighurs out in Xinjiang autonomous region, with all the terrible things that have happened in the last 18 months --the U-S Congress, pushed by the U-S administration, passed a bill to grant China permanent normal trade relations status without asking for any improvements in religious freedom.
/// END ACT ///
Mr. Goodrich says the Commission had made recommendations to seek improvements in religious freedom and is disappointed the measure was approved without any such amendments.
Lawrence Goodrich, Carol Lee Hamrin, Danny Schechter and Jingduan Yang were guests on the V-O-A program Talk to America. The Chinese embassy in Washington declined an invitation to participate in program. (Signed)
NEB/SMN/KBK
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