Students hope to gain support for Falun Gong

  EDWARD LIN Graduate student Seongjoon
Koo relaxes and meditates with Falun Gong, in the grass
area in front of the Medical Center.

By Todd Belie
Daily Bruin Contributor

Violence erupted in China this month as members of the Falun
Gong sect continue to challenge the government for the right to
meditate openly.

Already, two large protests against the government have resulted
in more than 100 members arrested in October. The group, which the
Chinese government declared an “evil cult,” has been
banned in China since July 1999.

With several members at UCLA coming from mainland China and
Taiwan, the conflict has become personal.

“I believe the Chinese members are being treated
unfairly” said Hsin-Ling Hsieh, a third-year doctoral student
in economics. “They don’t have any right of speech or
to express how they feel.”

Falun Gong was founded in 1992 by Li Hongzhi as a
meditation-exercise group to promote “truthfulness,
benevolence and forbearance.”

Though a non-religious organization, members say Falun Gong has
brought spirituality to their lives.

“I think I found real truth in my heart, and I’m
shocked by it,” Hsieh said. “I’ve been seeking
the truth of my life for a long time; I felt lost before and this
is the first time I’ve found that truth.”

According to Yingnian Wu, assistant professor of statistics and
a Falun Gong member, Chinese president Jiang Zemin has ordered the
group be suppressed because of its enormous size and influence over
the Chinese population.

Other members said the government is worried about any group
becoming larger than the Communist Party.

But Chinese officials say the group is not properly registered
and therefore cannot conduct the same public activities as groups
that are officially registered with the government.

According to Randall Peerenboom, an acting professor of law, the
situation may not necessarily be a violation of human rights, but a
difference in the way the U.S. and Chinese governments deal with
social groups and forms of public expression.

“The United States may not like the Chinese law, but that
is the law,” Peerenboom said. “Under Chinese law, the
government had the legal right to crack down and prohibit the Falun
Gong.”

But methods the Chinese government uses to enforce these laws
have included torture and denying adequate legal representation, as
reported by Falun Gong members.

“The crackdown is irrational and unconstitutional, and is
a severe violation of the basic human rights of the Chinese
practitioners,” Wu said.

Falun Gong practitioners estimate at least 67 of its 100 million
members worldwide have been killed while in the custody of the
Chinese government.

Although the group at UCLA is relatively small, members are
still attempting to voice their concern over the situation in
China.

“We are trying to raise the public’s awareness of
the on-going atrocity, hoping that more American people, including
UCLA students, could support the human rights of Chinese Falun Gong
practitioners,” Wu said.

The Falun Gong group may be relatively new, Peerenboom said, but
conflict between the Chinese government and social groups
aren’t.

“At this point the movement doesn’t seem to have any
overt political aspirations or political ideology. but the
communist party is worried that it may develop that way at some
point in the future,” Peerenboom said.

With reports from Daily Bruin wire services.