October 18, 2003
The reasons for the persecution of the Falun Gong in China are unclear.
At first, the government welcomed Falun Gong as a way of easing an overburdened health care system, Winter Haven resident Chris Jasurek says. Li Hongzhi, who publicized and propagated Falun Gong beginning about 1992, spoke at officially sanctioned health fairs and conferences.
A report on the Web site of Human Rights Watch (www.hrw.org) states that economic unrest in the late 1990s caused alarm among government leaders. In that atmosphere, a mass demonstration by Falun Gong practitioners in April 1999 was taken by then-President Jiang Zemin as a political threat, and he moved unilaterally against the Falun Gong, partly as a means of reasserting his authority within the Communist Party, the report states.
"He thought if he eliminated Falun Gong, he'd be remembered as having saved China. A lot of government officials said, 'You're crazy to get involved in this,' " says Jasurek, who practices Falun Gong.
The Chinese government denounced Falun Gong [...] and engaged in propaganda campaigns to spread disinformation about the practice, Jasurek says.
Since the first arrests on July 20, 1999, Falun Gong sources report that tens of thousands of people have been arrested and 791 people have died in police custody -- 58 from June to August 2003. Reports from the Falun Gong Human Rights Working Group have documented cases of torture.
Although Jiang is no longer president, he remains a powerful figure in China, and the government has continued to insist that Falun Gong is harmful to society.
[...]
"Our analysis is we are still witnessing an intensified crackdown," says Alistair Hodgett, a spokesman for Amnesty International in Washington, D.C. "What limited hope there is comes from the willingness of other governments to pressure Beijing on this issue."
Both the U.S. Congress and President George W. Bush have issued statements condemning the government's policies, and in September, Secretary of State Colin Powell expressed disappointment that China had not done enough to improve its human rights record.
American citizens have been arrested also. Li Meizi of Palm Coast, who is married to an American, was arrested in November 2002 at the home of fellow Falun Gong practitioners after she traveled to Beijing to care for her mother. Another practitioner, California doctor Charles Li, was arrested in January upon his arrival in Guangzhou.
"Ireland and Australia have made a big deal and gotten some of their citizens released. We're trying to draw attention to get them out of jail," Jasurek says.
http://www.theledger.com/apps/pbcs.dll/artikkel?SearchID=73151141445348&Avis=LL&Dato=20031018&Kategori=NEWS&Lopenr=310180313&Ref=ARCategory: Falun Dafa in the Media
