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CNN: Falun Gong founder in surprise appearance May 20, 2001 OTTAWA, Canada -- The exiled founder of the Falun Gong movement made a
surprise visit to a Canadian festival where he addressed North American
practitioners of the meditation movement. Li Hongzhi arrived unannounced Saturday afternoon for the festival in the
Canadian capital of Ottawa put on by Falun Dafa -- another name for the
group -- and delivered a 20-minute speech in Mandarin, organizers said. Li, who moved from China to the United States, has made only a few public
appearances since Beijing banned the movement in July 1999. [...] "I heard Master Li was coming one minute before he arrived," said Grace
Wollensak, an Ottawa practitioner of Falun Gong. "We didn't know he would be
here, not at all." Organizers said nearly 1,000 people attended the week-long festival, which
included a demonstration of meditative exercises on the lawn in front of
Canada's Parliament buildings. In the speech, Li focused on his spiritual teachings, Wollensak said, but
also said that Falun Gong members were facing "vicious persecution." Falun Gong attracted millions in the 1990s with its mix [...] of health exercises and the teachings of Li, a former government grain clerk. Hundreds of the group's followers have been thrown in jail. Others have been
tortured or sent to labor camps. The Associated Press contributed to this report. http://www.cnn.com/2001/WORLD/asiapcf/east/05/20/canada.falungong/index.html Posting date: 5/22/2001 |