China spiritual group endures despite 10-year ban

[Coventina]

Source: Associated Press

BEIJING (AP) — A musician dies in police custody, a lawyer is beaten, an aid worker abandons China after 10 years of persecution — the stories are the human toll behind China's decade-long campaign to wipe out Falun Gong, a spiritual movement that the government calls an evil cult.

Saturday marks the 10th anniversary of a protest by an estimated 10,000 practitioners who stood silently around the Communist Party leadership compound in Beijing, alerting the government to the group's strength and wide appeal.

The April 25, 1999, demonstration was intended to show how Falun Gong believers had learned compassion, forbearance and tolerance, said practitioner Bu Dongwei in a telephone interview from the United States, where he fled six months ago.

But the size and discipline of those who gathered unsettled the communist leadership, ever wary of independent groups that could threaten its authority.



Read more: http://www.google.com/hostednews/ap/article/ALeqM5jTUqLgRtXiBvatvLoBdXl7naQrkQD97ONJS00

[David__77]

1. If this group were based in the US, the tone of this article would be very different.

There would be a lot of quotes from "experts" about how it is a cult, and from family members of those who killed themselves while in the organization.

[maxsolomon]

2. there's plenty of Falun Gong in the US

in Seattle, the yoga place a block from my office is associated with it (and avoided like the plague), & i had a former roommate get involved with them, and then he was kicked out of china for protesting for Falun Gong there.

it VERGES on a cult in my mind.