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The Falun Gong (literally: The Wheel of the Law Exercise, now called "Buddhist Law" movement), first surprised world media when ten to fifteen thousand followers surrounded the Zhongnanhai compound, the seat of the Chinese government, on Sunday, April 25, 1999. Many came to Beijing from faraway. They were mostly middle-aged; they first stood shoulder to shoulder and then sat down to meditate in lotus position with their legs crossed. It was in startling contrast to the noisy student demonstrators of spring 1989. The Chinese government appeared surprised. Premier Zhu Rongji met with a few of the movement's leaders-actual or retired senior officials themselves-who complained of official harassment, especially as several of their fellow followers had been arrested in Tianjin, after criticisms of their movement were voiced by a scientist, He Zouxiu, a theoretical physicist of the Chinese Academy of the Sciences. The group wanted rehabilitation or legal status to ensure protection, especially from regional authorities who sometimes refused to give them permission to assemble. They also wanted the ban lifted on their founder's books. (The group's leaders were later identified as Wang Zhiwen, a retired official with the railways ministry, and Wang Youqun, an official at the ministry of supervision, which oversees the Chinese Communist Party.)
Three months later, on July 22, it was the Chinese Communist government's turn to surprise the West by outlawing this spiritual movement that combines Buddhist meditation and Taoist qigong exercises for the sake of promoting physical and mental health. At that time, too, tens of thousands of persons protested the decree in ten cities, including Beijing. The police took away thousands in busloads to schools and sports stadiums. Most were later released, although about seventy to a hundred leaders were arrested.1
The author visited China precisely in late July, and watched with boredom the daily television news that orchestrated the criticism of Falun Gong and its founder, Li Hongzhi. The leaders of China's officially approved religions appeared on television to denounce Falun Gong. Followers who recanted were also there to register their contrition and add to the criticisms. Falun Gong was accused of all kinds of crimes, including leading the sick astray and forbidding them to see physicians, thereby causing deaths. Following such media outcries, local Chinese friends were...