The Record (Troy, New York): Tale
of Oppression, Persecution
Mother of RPI student held in
labor camp for practicing Falun Dafa
The
Record
Monday,
December 23, 2002
A 34-year-old
Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute student from China is at the height of
academic success doing post-doctoral work in branches of science that most
people have never heard of, but behind all of her success, there is a
disturbing story.
Xueyuan Wu, a
petite Chinese woman whose childlike features and sanguine way conceal the
wealth of information and insights, some of them grave, that lie within her,
will tell you matter-of-factly about persecution in her homeland.
She'll tell you
that between 1992 and 1999 close to 100 million people in China began
practicing a cultivation exercise called Falun Dafa or falun gong, which its
followers claim has the power to heal everything from heart trouble to
insomnia.
Practitioners
of Falun Dafa do five exercises or motions, which look similar to yoga or tai
chi, but they also live by three principles: truth, compassion and forbearance,
which add a more spiritual element,
Wu will also
say that in 1999, just months after the government praised the practice for
bettering the country's public health, China's president, Jiang Zemin grew wary
of the practice, fearing that it would touch the souls of the Chinese deeper
than the communist party, so he ordered all practitioners to cease. If they
resisted, they would be sent to prison, mental hospitals or rehabilitation
centers where they would be beaten, occasionally to death.
Then she'll
tell you that her mother, Lingwen Zeng, a 67-year-old physics professor, is at
a forced labor camp that is notorious for beating and torturing its prisoners.
Her family is allowed to visit once a month, but when they do, discussion of
the camp conditions is prohibited. The only indication of life inside the camp
is Zeng's rapid weight loss which her family has begun to notice. Zeng was
never given a trial.
"That
followed no law, but that is China," Wu said. "It's the only way I
can explain it."
Zeng was
sentenced to the camp for two years in February, but at her age, even that
short amount of time could prove perilous. Even if she can sustain her health
for the length of the sentence, Zeng's freedom is uncertain. Before this
sentence, Zeng served two shorter ones with no trials.
During one
sentence Wu said she was held in a detention center in a cell originally made
to hold 30, with 100 people, including children, elderly and pregnant women.
Wu said, in
China, detention centers like that have been known to use electric prods and
other instruments, including inmates incarcerated for violent crimes, to
torture the Falun Dafa captives.
Amnesty
International makes many of the same assertions and verifies some cases of
torture as well.
Wu said each
time her mother was arrested or transferred to a harsher detention center or
camp, it was because she simply refused to stop practicing.
So why not
forsake the practice in favor of freedom?
Wu, who also
practices, said that the three principles of Falun Dafa run contrary to
submitting to the government's desires.
However, Wu
said the benefits of Falun Dafa are so great, true practitioners would never
give it up.
Wu said soon
after the ancient practice was made public in 1992, she went home to visit her
parents and noticed something amazing about her mother. Zeng, who suffered with
arthritis, was moving around the house briskly with no problems.
"I
couldn't believe it, she always used to use hot water bottles for the pain, but
this time, she climbed the stairs faster than I did," Wu said.
Her mother's
blood pressure, which was also problematic, also lowered to a safe level after
she began practicing Falun Dafa. Stories and experiences like these are what
lead to the rapid spread of Falun Dafa not only through China, but around the
world, where people in dozens of countries practice.
Yu Chen, a
32-year-old from China who has lived in Albany for six years, is the [contact
person] for those wishing to practice Falun Dafa in the area, and she too began
practicing after hearing about the changes it reportedly brought about for others.
Chen, who was
working toward her master's degree in computer science when she first began
Falun Dafa, said she saw some physical benefits from the practice, such as
cured insomnia and athlete foot, but what she found more impressive were the
mental and emotional changes that took place.
"The
school work I was doing was very stressful, and after practicing, I found I
could do the work well and the stress went away. I was very peaceful," she
said. "My relationships with friends and relatives also became very
harmonious, I became a much nicer person."
Testimony like
this bounds forth from Falun Dafa practitioners, and if one questions its
authenticity, perhaps the answer lies in the Zeng's and thousands of others'
willingness to suffer.
People in free
countries, including the United States, and groups like Amnesty International
have condemned the oppression of Falun Dafa practitioners.
Compassion, an
international journal of Falun Dafa, reported this year that more than 100,000
practitioners in China have been detained, 20,000 have been sentenced to forced
labor camps without trial and 420 deaths have been verified.
The majority of
those detained, sent to labor camps or killed are Chinese, but citizens from
other countries including the United States have also met those fates while
protesting or practicing in China.
Neither Chen
nor Wu will travel to China to visit family, claiming that they would be
detained as soon as they arrived.
While the U.S.
government has condemned the persecution, Chen feels that there needs to be a
more proactive campaign by other countries in order to stop the persecution.
She said if the United States requested the release of the captives, China
would at least release some of them.
"The
Chinese government denies the persecution," Chen said. "They claim
this is the best human rights period in Chinese history, which is a lie, if it
is exposed, they will do something in response."
Chen said the
best way to act out against the persecution is to write letters to congressmen
urging them to pass legislation to request the release of captives or to
contact representatives at the Chinese embassy in Washington D.C.
Locally, Chen
and other Falun Dafa practitioners have written enough letters to earn the
support of several politicians, including Senators Bob Prentis, Neil Breslin
and U.S. Rep. Michael McNulty. The legislators have spoken at press conferences
and co-signed letters to the president with the hope that their support will
aid the end of the oppression.
Breslin agreed
with Chen about contacting local and national political leaders to voice their
concern on the issue but also said that publicizing the problem is another key
step to making progress.
Breslin said
that when Americans are aware of persecution, they act out and pressure the
government not to do business with countries that are violating human rights.
However, he also called on the American people to become more watchful of
America's foreign dealings.
"People
have to become more interested in countries that we do business with, China
being the largest in the world," he said. "The persecution in China
is crying out for a response and we have made some progress, but we have a long
way to go."