Prague Post: Czech Falun issues warning

By James Pitkin

Wednesday, July 25, 2001

When Veronika Weberova considers the 2008 Olympic Games in Beijing, she does not see waving banners and gold medals.

"The people at the games will be celebrating and having fun," she says, "but others will be tortured at the same time."

Weberova practices Falun Gong, a Chinese spiritual discipline involving simple exercises and meditation.

The movement, which adherents insist is not a religion, spread quickly through China after its founding in 1992 by [...] Li Hongzhi.

Two years ago, the communist regime -- worried about the independence stressed by the practice -- branded Falun Gong an "[Jiang Zemin government's slanderous term omitted]" and has since imprisoned more than 50,000 of its members without trial.

The media reports that protesters who meditate in public are attacked by riot troops. Hundreds have died in custody, according to Amnesty International -- many tortured to death.

Weberova, who discovered Falun Gong last year while working as an au pair in Edison, New Jersey, is one of about a dozen local adherents.

Seeking to attract attention to the situation in China, they have organized an information campaign and staged silent protests in front of the Chinese Embassy and on Wenceslas Square in Prague.

"The people who are being persecuted there cannot solve the problems," she says, "but the world outside can do something."

She says that promises by Chinese President Jiang Zemin to curb human-rights abuses, made after Beijing's winning bid, are unconvincing.

"This is just a trick," she says. "They want to use [the Olympics] to hide what they're doing, but the results will be the exact opposite."

Her fears may have been confirmed July 17, when Chinese Deputy Premier Li Lanqing called on the Chinese people to "redouble their efforts" in combating Falun Gong.

Weberova says that the way of Falun Gong compels her to press on in protest.

"One of the basic principles is compassion," she says. "Everything we do is because of that."

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