Columbia Chronicle: Exhibit to address human rights

By Jeff Danna
City Beat Editor

Practitioners of an ancient Chinese spiritual discipline are hoping a new exhibition this month in Chicago will bring about social and political acceptance of their condemned lifestyle.(1)

"Persecution Meets Principle," an exhibit that combines paintings, photos and performance art to illustrate the teachings and persecution of the disciplinary practice Falun Gong (also known as Falun Dafa), is being organized by an association of Falun Gong practitioners in Chicago to raise awareness about struggles with the Chinese government.

William Wu, an assistant professor in the University of Chicago's Department of Statistics and Falun Gong practitioner, said that in 1999, China's then-leader Jiang Zemin began a campaign to eliminate the practice of Falun Gong in China, in part because Falun Gong practitioners were beginning to outnumber members of the Communist Party. In 1998, there were an estimated 70 million to 100 million in 1998 Falun Gong practitioners in China.

Wu also said that since the persecutions began more than 900 Falun Gong practitioners have been killed in China, and at least 100,000 have been sent to labor camps.

The "Persecution Meets Principle" exhibit will take place on May 24 and May 26. It was scheduled to coincide with a May 27 hearing in the lawsuit brought against Zemin by a group of Falun Gong practitioners in a U.S. District Court in Illinois on Oct. 18, 2002, said Tony Liu, a researcher at the University of Chicago and Falun Gong practitioner who is helping to prepare the materials for the exhibit.

"We truly hope [this is] the vivid way to show how severe the torture is," Liu said. "Seeing this kind of torture ... people can become supportive of us."

The exhibit will include live dramatizations as well as paintings and photos depicting the torture methods used in China on Falun Gong practitioners. For example, Liu said, one painting will show a mostly naked Chinese man strapped to a bed in the middle of winter while water is being poured onto his body.

But the exhibit will not specifically concern the torture and persecution of Falun Gong practitioners, said Stephen Gregory, the administrative coordinator of the John M. Olin Center for Inquiry Into the Theory and Practice of Democracy at the University of Chicago. It will also illustrate practitioners' responses to the persecutions and Falun Gong's central themes of truthfulness, compassion and tolerance.

Gregory, a Falun Gong practitioner who has been in contact with Liu and other organizers of "Persecution Meets Principle," said there have been several incidents in Chicago of people being beaten and harassed because they practice Falun Gong, and he hopes the issue will resonate with people in the city.

"I think the issue is larger than Falun Gong, larger than China," Gregory said. "We're hoping that [people] will be sobered by it and they will be concerned."

The larger issue Gregory wants people to be concerned about is human rights, and the persecution of Falun Gong practitioners he said is "one of the greatest human rights violations going on in the world today."

"Those people who see the exhibition will have a greater appreciation of what's going on in China with Falun Gong," Gregory said.

Wu said that since Falun Gong's introduction in China in 1992, it has spread around the world, and he estimates there are hundreds of practitioners in Chicago, making the persecutions not only a global concern, but also a local one.

Following its presentation in Chicago, "Persecution Meets Principle" will travel to Montreal on June 25 to coincide with the International Day Against Torture on June 26 and Washington, D.C., on July 20 to coincide with the fifth anniversary of the crackdown on Falun Gong in China on July 19.

The Chicago presentation of "Persecution Meets Principle" will take place at Federal Plaza, at Dearborn and Adams streets, on May 24 from 10 a.m. to 5 p.m. and May 26 from 10 a.m. to 4 p.m.

(1) This refers to the campaign of genocide being waged against Falun Gong by Jiang Zemin and his followers in China. Elsewhere, Falun Gong and its principles of Truthfulness, Compassion and Forbearance have been welcomed and honored in over 60 countries around the world.

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