On 8 May 2002, Italian newspaper LIBERO reported:
While leaders of various political parties and labor unions were busy putting up slogans to prepare for the celebration of liberation day, a young delicate and pure Chinese lady sat in lotus position on the ground, oriental style, in front of the Chinese Embassy in Rome from the afternoon of 25 April to the morning of the next day. Two years ago, Li Li was put in jail for 50 days. Her husband has been kept in China's most severe labor reform camp in the past two years simply because he unfolded a banner at Tiananmen Square. She behaved in accordance to her belief. [..] So she left her house for the Embassy by car and sat on the sidewalk. She did not bring a blanket, not even a piece of biscuit to allay her hunger!
Li Li is a Falun Gong practitioner. By western standards, Falun Gong is a harmless doctrine. One gets balance in the heart through meditation. It has delicate and slow movements [...]. Its key beliefs are lenience, peace and honesty [Truthfulness, Compassion, Forbearance - ed. note]. Falun Gong holds that whatever the reason is, no violence should ever be employed. [...] Falun Gong practitioners said that there have been more than 400 persons killed, yet no exact number can be provided. Information even indicates that over 2000 people have been persecuted to death and hundreds of thousands have been sent to reform camps. The large-scale arrests in the last month had sent 2500 persons to labor reform camps, including Li Li's relatives.