Falun Gong

The meditation and exercise practice called Falun Gong can lead to arrest and prison in China. But it is said to have quite the opposite result in the United States, where a small but growing number of immigrant parents say it's helping kids stay out of trouble. Concerned about violence, casual sex and drugs in American culture, they see Falun Gong as a way to keep their sons and daughters on the straight and narrow. Children are receiving instruction in small, informal groups at a Howard County park, in a rented Silver Spring elementary school cafeteria and elsewhere.

BEIJING -- An intensifying crackdown against the banned Falun Gong movement has sent its practitioners under cover and led Chinese authorities to schedule a rare news conference in Beijing's Great Hall of the People today to explain why they consider the group so dangerous.The repression could become a serious irritant in U.S.-China relations, a Western diplomat warned. Already, he said, "Falun Gong has become a bigger deal than Taiwan" for China's government.Its leaders consider demonstrations by the popular movement's followers a brazen and at least symbolically serious challenge to the Communist Party's authority.

BEIJING - In an attempt to further discredit Falun Gong as crazy and dangerous, China's government-run news media aired stunning video images last evening of the five purported members of the banned group who immolated themselves in Tiananmen Square earlier this month. In one sequence, police armed with fire extinguishers surrounded a woman who resembled a human torch with fire pouring several feet from her body. The force of their fire extinguishers appeared to knock her to the ground, where she collapsed in a charred heap as white clouds of flame retardant hung in the air. Another video clip, apparently taken by police with a video camera, showed a man identified as Wang Jindong sitting on the square in Falun Gong's favored lotus position and appearing to talk to himself.

NEW YORK - Cendana Wirasari Adiwarga sat perfectly still, her eyes shut tight as Quincy Sun dragged a toothpick soaked with fake blood across her plump left cheek. "There, all done," Sun said, appraising her handiwork. Adiwarga's smooth skin had been transformed into a garish tableau of bloody cuts and bruises. Adiwarga then rose to take her place inside a metal cage, where she planned to sit for three hours on a blustery late October morning opposite a federal courthouse in Lower Manhattan.

BEIJING -- The Chinese government continued to press its ban on the influential spiritual group Falun Gong yesterday, detaining more members, assigning police to public parks where they exercise, and temporarily closing part of Tiananmen Square -- the nation's political heart.At least seven police arrived at Ritan Park in the capital's embassy district before 7 a.m. yesterday morning and posted signs warning people not to engage in Falun Gong. Some members came to practice, but left after spotting police, a witness said.

BEIJING -- A joke making the rounds in cyberspace last May was that President Jiang Zemin had found a way to deal with the charismatic leader of the Falun Gong spiritual movement: He made Li Hongzhi a Communist.Today, the brouhaha over Falun Gong is no longer a joke, and no one here even dares to mention Li's name in Internet chat rooms and bulletin boards.Communist Party elders have launched an old-fashioned political campaign against Li and his followers. "Work units" at state-run enterprises are forcing workers to sit through political sessions denouncing Falun Gong.

NEW YORK -- Meet Li Hongzhi, the quiet man whose followers have tripped China's most sensitive security alarms, mostly by showing strength in numbers and solidarity in their morning exercise routines.On this Sunday afternoon, Li is holding court on the 25th floor of a midtown Manhattan hotel. He is 48, about 6 feet tall and dressed smartly but blandly in a dark suit, white shirt and blue tie. As he rises to shake hands, one half expects him to begin discussing the advantages of term life insurance.

BEIJING -- Three men and a woman accused of being top leaders of the outlawed Falun Gong spiritual movement were given prison sentences yesterday ranging from seven to 18 years, including the two harshest terms for Chinese political dissidents in five years. The severe sentences, issued by a Beijing court after a one-day trial, and their prominent announcement on national television were clearly intended to show the authorities' determination to crush Falun Gong. The movement has gained millions of enthusiastic followers in recent years.

BEIJING -- After a week of secret deliberations, China's top legislative body issued a stringent new "anti-cult" law yesterday designed to aid the government's crackdown on the Falun Gong spiritual movement.Yesterday, for the sixth straight day, dozens of followers were detained in Tiananmen Square, next to the Great Hall of the People, where the legislators met. Many came from other cities in the hope of persuading officials that Falun Gong was not a social threat. Instead, they were picked up as soon as they were identified by the scores of plainclothes police roaming the vast square.

BEIJING -- One state's honorary citizen is another country's "evil mastermind."So it appeared last month after a polite gesture by the Baltimore mayor's office and the governor's office ignited rage in -- of all places -- the People's Republic of China.This year, Mayor Kurt L. Schmoke named an official day for Chinese citizen Li Hongzhi, the leader of the spiritual meditation group Falun Gong. The governor's office gave Li an honorary state citizenship certificate. Ordinarily, such gestures of goodwill go unnoticed by the executives who proclaim them and most of the rest of the world.