Source: The Guardian
Wire Service: AP
http://www.guardian.co.uk/world/feedarticle/8471548
Now entering its second decade, China's relentless drive to obliterate the Falun Gong spiritual sect has left a human toll ranging from the deaths of followers in custody to the self-exile of others and the beatings of their lawyers.
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.
Two months later, the group was labeled an "evil cult" and banned, its leadership arrested, and a campaign launched to forcibly reconvert millions of believers. Anyone practicing Falun Gong or even possessing materials about it could be arrested.
Falun Gong attracted millions of followers in the 1990s with its program of traditional Chinese calisthenics and philosophy drawn from Buddhism, Taoism and the often-unorthodox teachings of founder Li Hongzhi, a former government grain clerk now living in hiding overseas. Organized by volunteers, the group claims to have no political agenda.
Followers say the crackdown has cost the lives of 3,200 practitioners, including 104 last year.
The government says some Falun Gong followers have died in detention because of hunger strikes or refusing medical help. It denies any have been intentionally killed.
U.S.-based spokesman Levi Browde said since 1999 the group has recorded more than 87,000 cases of torture and estimates that anywhere from 200,000 to 1 million practitioners have been detained for various lengths of time.
Though less visible now that Falun Gong has been driven underground in China, the crackdown remains as vicious as ever, he said.
"The brutality continues and the systematic nature is the same and may have escalated a bit," Browde said.