Evansville Courier & Press: Spiritual group's visit to area shadowed by persecution in homeland of China

By MAUREEN HAYDEN, Courier & Press staff writer [phone] or [e-mail]

What: Falun Dafa workshops, sponsored by the Falun Association at Washington University in St. Louis and the Vanderbilt University Falun Dafa Association. When: 7 to 9 p.m., Wednesday and Thursday. Where: Wednesday at Books-A-Million in Lawndale Shopping Center on Green River Road; Thursday at Barnes & Noble, 624 S. Green River Road. There is no cost for either workshop.

Larry Liu doesn't see himself as a political dissident, but in the last three years, his mail and phone calls home to China have been monitored by the Chinese government and his family has been harassed and threatened.

Liu, a graduate student at Washington University in St. Louis, fears he faces arrest when he returns to China in another year or two, but he'd rather risk prison than abandon his spiritual beliefs.

"I have hope," said Liu. "I always believe that the righteous thing will triumph over evil."

Liu is a follower of the Falun Gong spiritual movement, a [group] of Buddhism, that has been outlawed in China.

He will be in Evansville next week, along with other members of the Falun Association of Washington University, to lead two workshops on the basic principles of Falun Gong and to demonstrate the meditation exercises that are an integral part of it. They were invited here by Evansville native Laura Spahn, who met Liu and other association members through a Falun Gong Web site. Spahn, who now lives in Florida, had developed an interest in Falun Gong and admired the commitment its followers had in the face of danger.

If Liu were to do or say the same things in his homeland, he could be imprisoned.

Last year, the Chinese government banned the Falun Gong movement, calling it [] created to overthrow the Communist leadership of the country. According to the U.S. State Department's Office of International Religious Freedom, at least 35,000 Falun Gong practitioners have been arrested this year, 5,000 of whom have been sent to labor camps.

Amnesty International says at least 77 Falun Gong followers have died in custody or shortly after release since the crackdown began in July of 1999. Many of them appeared to have died as the result of torture or after force-feeding while they were on a hunger strike.

It's not just Falun Gong followers whose faith appears to be targeted by the Chinese government. The U.S. State Department says the government has torn down Christian churches in recent months and harassed, imprisoned and beaten Protestants and Catholics who have been meeting in "house churches," unsanctioned by the government.

For Liu, the crackdown is a signal of how threatened his government must feel by the concept of religious freedom.

"They've labeled it (Falun Gong) a dangerous superstition and said they needed to stop it because it was hurting the followers," said Liu. "But that's only an excuse. I think the real reason they fear it is that it is rooted in ancient Chinese culture, and not in the communist, atheist China."

Falun Gong may seem like an unlikely enemy. Also known as Falun Dafa, it is an offshoot of an ancient form of "qigong," traditional Chinese health and meditation exercises. It also incorporates some beliefs of Buddhism and Taoism in promoting health and morality.

Popularized in China in 1992 by founder Li Hongzhi, Falun Gong teaches that through meditation and learning, followers can achieve the three principles on which their faith is founded: truthfulness, compassion and tolerance.

For much of its short history, it's been most popular with retirees and middle-aged women who gathered in city parks to practice the slow, meditative exercises.

Among those early practitioners were Liu's mother, who first introduced him to Falun Gong after he arrived in the United States.

"She wrote me the most sincere letter telling me she had discovered Falun Gong," said Liu. "She said her health and outlook on life had improved dramatically because of it."

Liu's mother, now 60, has stopped taking part in public meditation and has so far, has been harassed only by officials in her community.

"Right now, she is no threat to them," said Liu, "but our [telephone] conversations are tapped, and letters I write to her or she sends to me have been opened and read by authorities."

The Chinese government may also be taking what seem like bizarre steps to discredit the Falun Gong movement around the world. In March, U.S. News & World Report reported that government security forces in China had stolen the computer identities of Falun Gong followers in the United States and used them to hack into the U.S. Department of Transportation computer system.

Around the same time, several international Falun Gong Web sites also came under electronic attack with e-mail bombs and other digital weapons designed to block access to the sites.

Falun Gong followers such as Liu assume the cybervandalism was meant to harass them and undermine their efforts to gain support from Americans.

"When I talk about this to Americans, they can't understand it," said Liu. "They ask, 'How can your government persecute peaceful meditation?' It is a stretch of the imagination for people in this country. Americans enjoy such freedom. They take it for granted."

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