Feature
Nothing left to lose
by Graham Reid
A new New Zealander is one of thousands of members of Falun Gong persecuted by the Chinese Government.
The walls of the modest unit in suburban Auckland, where Huang Juo-Hua and his four-year-old daughter Kaixin live, are almost bare. In the lounge there is only a meagre calendar, and a large photograph of Huang’s wife Luo Zhi Xiang, its frame decorated with flowers. There is a whisper of a smile on her lips, yet the eyes of the pale, attractive young woman possess an unusual sadness.
There is another photograph, which Huang keeps in a drawer. It is of the same woman in a coffin. She looks like a piece of battered porcelain: her hair is gone, the eyes are sunken and the cheeks hollow. The face is frozen and looks mummified.
Huang – who has just received New Zealand citizenship and wears a polo shirt with an All Blacks logo – wants to tell the painful story of his wife’s death. Her “crime” – and his, which caused him to flee China – was to be a member of Falun Gong, the quasi-spiritual group that the Chinese Government has been ruthlessly repressing for seven years.
Huang and Kaixin arrived in New Zealand – a country he knows little about – in January, after being granted United Nations refugee status. He knows that by using his real name he may be courting unwanted attention from Chinese authorities, even this far from his homeland, But, speaking through a translator, he says he now has little left to lose. His wife is dead and his parents in China – also practising Falun Gong members – are harassed regularly anyway.
Tragically, his is not an unfamiliar story.
Sometimes referred to Falun Dafa, Falun Gong is a way of living that blends aspects of Buddhism, Taoism, meditation techniques and traditional physical exercises with the teachings of the movement’s leader, Li Hongzhi. Li introduced his ideas in 1992 and insisted they be offered free to those who wished to learn. Because of its traditional aspects, Falun Gong had wide appeal for many Chinese. Estimates on membership in China today range from many tens of millions to an unlikely 100 million.
Whatever the true number – a figure of 70 million is commonly accepted but the political climate makes it impossible to ascertain precisely – the movement has grown rapidly. Practitioners testify to its positive effects for their health and general well-being. Though it has a spiritual component, Falun Gong does not consider itself a religion; it has neither places of worship nor clergy. But in a country where only five belief systems are lawful – Buddhism, Taoism, Islam, Catholicism and Protestantism – Falun Gong was never likely to have an easy ride.
Ironically, Falun Gong was originally encouraged by the Chinese Government, which viewed it as a wholesome and moral movement, and approved of its tenets: tolerance, compassion and truthfulness. Li Hongzhi, who is on record as condemning homosexuality and sexual permissiveness, lectured widely.
But seven years ago the ground shifted suddenly. In early April 1999, a provocative newspaper article criticised the movement. When Falun Gong members rallied in protest, many were arrested and beaten. And on April 25, around 10,000 practitioners gathered outside the government’s headquarters in Beijing.
The size of the movement – around 100,000 members in Beijing alone – alarmed authorities, who viewed it as further evidence that the Communist Party was losing its grip on the people as it tinkered with democratisation and capitalism. On June 10, the party established an extra-constitutional body – the now notorious 610 office – specifically to facilitate a crackdown on Falun Gong. It now has branches in all cities, villages, government agencies and schools. The next month, concerned at the numbers of government officials, military and police personnel who were Falun Gong practitioners, the party declared the practice of Falun Gong illegal and police began arresting and detaining practitioners.
The Washington Post reported sources saying that “the standing committee of the Politburo did not unanimously endorse the crackdown and that President Jiang Zemin alone decided that Falun Gong must be eliminated”. Since then, the government has been hiking up the rhetoric: Falun Gong was first labelled unlawful, then characterised as an evil cult and, more recently, defined as counter-revolutionary. Lawyers in China have been ordered not to represent Falun Gong members.
Beijing human-rights lawyer Gao Zhisheng – recognised by China’s Ministry of Justice in 2001 as one of the country’s “10 best lawyers” – has been under pressure since winning a 2004 case for a Falun Gong practitioner who was illegally persecuted. In January, he barely survived what has been described as a staged traffic accident set up by plainclothes policemen. Repression of Falun Gong in China has been widespread and well documented, often with graphic photographs of tortured victims.
Most of the information about repression and torture of Falun Gong comes – by necessity – from Falun Gong itself or from anti-government sympathisers. The Epoch Times, for example, founded in China in 2000 and with editions worldwide, focuses on human rights abuses in China and gives significant coverage to the movement. Its reports are increasingly being verified by independent researchers.