RIGHTS-CHINA: Watchdog Decries Crackdown on Falungong

By Jim Lobe Reprint | | Print |

Jim Lobe

WASHINGTON, Feb 6 2002 (IPS) - The Chinese government’s harsh crackdown against Falungong, a highly organised spiritual group that uses ancient practices of exercise and meditation, has violated fundamental rights to freedom of belief and association, according to new report by Human Rights Watch (HRW).

The report, which notes that Falungong’s following within China appears to have diminished in the past year, criticises the violence with which Beijing has repressed the group and its recent suggestions that the group, which now claims millions of members worldwide, is a terrorist organisation.

“China’s efforts to equate the Falungong with terrorists are ludicrous,” said Sidney Jones, director of HRW’s Asia division. “Most Falungong members are peaceful, law-abiding citisens, and there is no excuse for the human rights violations they have endured.”

Abuses have included everything from restrictions on assembly and expression and arbitrary arrest to torture and even deaths in custody, according to the 117-page report, ‘Dangerous Meditation: China’s Campaign Against Falungong.’

In recent weeks, there have been some signs that China’s leadership may itself be reassessing its harsh crackdown against the group, as well as a number of Christian groups that have also been subject to repression, according to published reports.

“Simple methods cannot be used to handle complicated religious problems,” wrote Ye Xiaowen, director of the State Religious Affairs Bureau, in a Chinese newspaper last month. “That just creates misery for us,” he added, referring to unfavourable reactions abroad.

Founded by Li Hongzhi, Falungong first emerged in 1992 as part of a nationwide resurgence of membership in qigong groups that began during the period of liberalisation launched by Deng Xiaoping in 1979.

Tension between government and Falungong, which became the leading qigong group by the mid-1990s, led Li to move into exile in the United States by 1998.

While the authorities still generally tolerated the movement, which flourished in the emerging middle class, including in the ranks of the ruling of the Communist Party, they launched a campaign of suppression after a mass demonstration April 25, 1999, by some 10,000 Falungong adherents outside Zhongnanhai, the compound in Beijing where the Party’s top leaders live.

The protest, preparations for which had gone undetected by China’s police, apparently persuaded the authorities, and particularly President Jiang Zemin, that the movement represented a serious threat to both the government and China’s stability which, at the time, was already a source of concern given rising unemployment and worker unrest resulting from economic reforms that the ongoing dismantling of state enterprises, according to the report.

In that respect, Falungong was nothing new in China’s long history. “For hundreds of years, China’s rulers have viewed as politically most threatening those (quasi-religious mass organisations) that combine elements of charismatic leadership, a high degree of organisation and mass appeal.”

One of the more famous and recent of these was the 1900 Boxer Rebellion which, like Falungong, included salvationist and apocalyptic teachings, in its basic beliefs and was denounced by the imperial authorities of the time as a “heretical cult” or “sect.” Unlike the Boxers, however, Falungong adherents have relied exclusively on peaceful protest.

Three months after the Zhongnanhai demonstration, the government officially banned the movement. From there, the government moved to ban practicing the group’s exercises in public, and confiscate and destroy hundreds of thousands of copies of its publications.

Since the ban in July, 1999, tens of thousands of practitioners have been detained for brief periods, and thousands have been sentenced to administration “reeducation through labour” terms as long as three years, a punishment that recalls Communist efforts to crush all religious expression after the 1949 Revolution.

While HRW notes a “marked discrepancy” between Falungong and Chinese explanations for deaths in custody and accounts of treatment of inmates in prisoiners, reeducation camps, and other detention facilities, “there is substantial evidence that torture and other abuses are common during ‘transformation’ sessions in at least some of the facilities,” according to the report.

The report cites one particular case, that of Zhang Kunlun, now living in Canada, who was detained four times in the latter half of 2000. Each time, he was subjected to threats and other forms of psychological coercion, according to the report, until he renounced the movement only to be rearrested when he recanted after being freed.

On one occasion he was so severely beaten and tortured with electric batons that, in his words, he “lost his mind.”

Of the thousands who have been imprisoned, only about 300 have been prosecuted in the courts. As of mid-2001, prison sentences, ranging from three to 18 years, appear to have been reserved almost exclusively for key Falungong leaders responsible for those involved in large-scale distribution of Falungong materials within China and in publicising government abuses to the outside world.

As the government successfully shut down such activities, sentences of up to 13 years have been meted out to individuals charged with organising the printing of leaflets and banners, using the Internet to circulate Falungong materials, or organising meetings of practitioners.

Falungong – or Falun Dafa as its practitioners prefer – has a number of cult elements which have been used by the government to discredit the movement to the public and the international community. Li, who is called “Master Li” by his followers, is depicted as the saviour of all mankind, while some of his statements have suggested that practitioners should use exercise- meditation in place of modern medical treatment.

But it was the Jan 23, 2001 self-immolation attempts by seven alleged Falungong members in Tienanmen Square which has been decisive in aiding the government’s efforts to discredit the movement.

The campaign against Falungong has extended to Hong Kong and countries in Asia and the West, according to the report, in part because the movement has many overseas adherents who tenaciously publicise abuses in China.

While some governments have defended Falungong members’ right to practice their faith, in some cases, they have bowed to Beijing’s pressure by ignoring the government’s abuses, denouncing Falungong themselves, or, in some cases, limiting members’ freedom of association and expression in their own countries.

The Tokyo metropolitan government in Japan, for example, refused to grant the 400-member Japan Falun Dafa Society non-profit status, while Singaporean officials discouraged Falungong practice almost immediately after China banned the group. China helped organise a major press and diplomatic campaign against Falungong in Thailand after the movement announced plans to hold an international meeting in Bangkok in 2001.

The report noted that Beijing uses “anti-cult” laws developed to eliminate Falungong against at least 16 other independent religious groups in China.