FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE - 3/9/2001

Several wire services reported yesterday that a retired Chinese scientist, described as "a leading figure in Beijing's fight against Falun Gong" is charging that the United States Congress is giving "tens of millions of dollars" to support activities of Falun Gong." No evidence for this blatant fabrication was offered, because none exists.

Falun Dafa has not and is not receiving funds from the US government, as every member of Congress and journalist knows and can independently confirm. The truth is that the man who makes these charges, He Zuoxiu, whom analysts describe as an opportunist within the Communist Party, is the brother-in-law of Luo Gan, the Politburo member in charge of the Central Party Committee's subcommittee for politics and judicial affairs which oversees the police. Both Luo Gan and Mr. He were instrumental in convincing President Jiang Zemin to outlaw and persecute Falun Gong against the advice of others in the leadership.

This latest charge against Falun Gong is in line with previous inflammatory rhetoric that the Chinese government has employed in its attacks against Falun Gong over the past 20 months. It is a calculated effort to whip up nationalist sentiment inside China at the expense of foreign relations, paving the way for more forceful measures to be used against Falun Gong practitioners in China.

Falun Gong practitioners call upon the Chinese people, the PRC government, as well as the international community to examine the actions of those instigating the crackdown and take action to expose and put an end to the brutal persecution that is harming all of China.

CHINA SCIENTIST ALLEGES FALUN GONG GOT U.S. FUNDING Wednesday March 7, 7:35 PM

BEIJING (Reuters) - An elderly Chinese physicist and leading figure in Beijing's fight against Falun Gong has alleged that the U.S. Congress gave millions of dollars to the outlawed spiritual movement, state media said on Wednesday. The Beijing Evening News quoted He Zuoxiu as telling a meeting of scientists on the sidelines of China's parliament session that Congress had given "tens of millions of dollars" to support activities of Falun Gong. "Hard-core members are professional Falun Gong," the newspaper quoted He as telling the science panel of the Chinese People's Political Consultative Conference (CPPCC), an advisory body to the Chinese parliament, on Tuesday. "Why do I call them professionals? Because someone gives them a salary. According to my understanding, the U.S. Congress donated several tens of millions of dollars to Falun Gong for activity funds out of ulterior motives," He was quoted as saying. Beijing has long branded the spiritual group it banned as an "evil cult" in 1999 a weapon of Western countries hostile to China's Communist government. Premier Zhu Rongji told the National People's Congress, or parliament, on Monday that Falun Gong was a "cult which has become a tool for domestic and overseas forces hostile to our socialist government". But U.S. officials in Beijing said they had never heard any allegations of American funding for Falun Gong, whose leader Li Hongzhi lives in exile in the United States. He, a member of the China Academy of Sciences and a science delegate to the CPPCC, is famous in China as a crusader against supernatural and pseudo-scientific beliefs that have sprouted as the country shed its traditional communist ideology. The professor played a pivotal role in China's decision to ban Falun Gong. It was partly He's criticisms of Falun Gong in an obscure journal that prompted 10,000 protesting members of the group to ring the Communist Party's compound in Zhongnanhai in central Beijing on April 25, 1999. Since Falun Gong was banned, tens of thousands of followers have been detained for protesting in Tiananmen Square. Human rights groups say thousands of members are in labour camps and more than 100 have died of abuse in police custody. China says it has arrested more than 150 protest organisers but authorities deny allegations of abuse, saying they treat ordinary followers with lenience.

(http://sg.news.yahoo.com/010307/3/jj4e.html)