Upon asking students if they knew what Falun Gong (or Falun Dafa) was, we received several interesting but incorrect responses: a religion, a political organization, a mixture of Buddhism and Taoism, something like yoga, etc. One person curtly replied, "I know about you. I read the newspaper." That was several months ago, when many of the major news agencies carried slanders against Falun Gong, born from the state-controlled Chinese media. During TILIP's 'Globalization and China' Symposium held in February, renowned media reporter Danny Schechter called for investigative reporting and urged everyone to learn the true story of Falun Gong.
Simply put, Falun Gong is a "cultivation practice." It guides people in cultivating the body and mind through the coupling of a meditation and gentle exercise practice with the strengthening of moral principles. These moral principles are based on Falun Gong's core principle: Truthfulness-Compassion-Tolerance.
Think about what Tufts would be like if we weren't allowed to believe in Truthfulness-Compassion-Tolerance. Without truthfulness, students would steal the answers to exams and deceive their friends. Actually, we wouldn't have friends without compassion, since we would only be interested in satisfying our own interests. Without tolerance, all kinds of prejudice and hatred would abound. With time, all goodness would disappear. Fortunately, Truthfulness-Compassion-Tolerance is highly valued and respected by the Tufts community. In China, however, it is considered evil. For 1.2 billion people, "goodness" has been outlawed. Imagine what the implications would be if all people of the world weren't allowed to believe in Truthfulness-Compassion-Tolerance. There would no longer be any goodness, and a situation like that in China would extend to other countries. Despite having signed the United Nations Covenant on Civil and Political Rights, and having sworn to uphold a constitution that protects human rights, the Chinese Government has denied its people the right even to know what Falun Gong is. There, Falun Gong literature is banned, access to the related websites is blocked, and anti-Falun Gong propaganda is circulated. According to worldwide media reports, thousands of people have incurred fines from the Chinese government and have lost their homes, jobs, pensions, Communist Party memberships, and the right to school and university education simply because they choose to believe in this principle.
In just over one and a half years, worldwide human rights organizations have stated that 50,000 practitioners have been detained, 10,000 have been sentenced to forced-labor camps without trial, and 1,000 healthy practitioners have been sent to mental hospitals. Police are employing all means of physical torture, including rape, burning of flesh, beatings with electric prods, forced salt intake, and forced drug injection, to punish and "reform" (in the mind of China's President Jiang Zemin) these completely peaceful people who practice Falun Gong. One hundred and ninety-three practitioners have died under police custody, with the majority of the deaths having occurred in only the past five months.
After intensifying the persecution and even spreading the anti-Falun Gong propaganda overseas, however, President Jiang has not been able to crush Falun Gong like he has to so many groups that didn't appeal to the Chinese government's rigid communist and atheist ideology. Actually, his attempt to eliminate Falun Gong has backfired because many people around the world realize that Truthfulness-Compassion-Tolerance can benefit people around the world. Falun Gong has recently been awarded more than 400 commendations from government officials across America, despite the interference directed towards them by various Chinese consulates in an attempt to squelch their support for Falun Gong. These Chinese officials' disregard for US laws has even upset many US government officials. As increasingly more people are showing their support for this basic and universal principle of Truthfulness-Compassion-Tolerance, they are making the Chinese government's ban on Falun Gong and its harsh treatment of practitioners completely baseless.
As educated students who understand the importance of Truthfulness-Compassion-Tolerance in our lives, it is unacceptable to look the other way when people are losing everything in their lives because they choose to uphold this universal principle. As students in America, who live in a country that prides itself as a champion of human rights and the freedom of belief, it is our responsibility to take a stand against repression of conscience anywhere in the world. We ask you to support our appeal to China's Government to end the persecution of Falun Gong and its founder, Mr. Li Hongzhi, to release all the practitioners from detention centers, labor camps, and mental hospitals, and to lift the ban on Falun Gong. We urge you to make your voices heard by the media and the US government, as well as to educate your friends and family about the real story of Falun Gong. Start by exploring the information available on the Internet at www.faluninfo.org and www.falundafa.org.
Christine Moon is a senior majoring in biology and environmental studies. Xiaomei Qi is a graduate student studying chemical engineering.
