A crowd gathers on Capitol Hill Thursday to protest China’s ongoing ban of the Falun Gong movement and the persecution of its followers. (CNSNews.com)
Washington (CNSNews.com) - Flags and banners gleamed under the hot summer sun Thursday, but the crowd of people gathered here was not thinking about the Olympic Games, set to begin in Beijing in less than a month.
 
Instead, the rally marked the ninth anniversary of the Communist Chinese government’s crackdown on followers of Falun Gong, or Falun Dafa, a form of Buddhism that emphasizes moral teachings and meditation.
 
The New York-based Falun Dafa Information Center does not take an official stand on whether China’s human rights record should bar it from hosting the Olympics next month, according to Tao Wang, spokesman for the group, who attended the rally at Upper Senate Park on Capitol Hill.


A young girl joined the crowd, braving the summer heat to protest religious persecution in China. (CNSNews.com)
“Falun Gong practitioners are pretty much on a black list,” Wang said, adding that he couldn’t go to the Beijing Olympics even if he wanted to.
 
“We came here because we need to let people know that there’s persecution in China and we want people to know the truth and can help stop the persecution,” said Lilia Ye, who was with a group of practitioners from Michigan.
 
The Washington rally featured impassioned speeches by several politicians, including Rep. Ileana Ros-Lehtinen (R-Fla.) and Rep. Sheila Jackson Lee (D-Texas), human rights and religious groups, advocacy directors from Amnesty International and Freedom House, and the Rev. Dr. Keith Roderick of Christian Solidarity International.
 
Beijing has broken its pledge to the International Olympic Committee to improve the human rights situation in China, Ros-Lehtinen told the rally. She also warned that the Chinese intimidation campaign now extends to the United States.
 
"Earlier this year, Chinese thugs assaulted a group of Falun Gong practitioners peacefully distributing literature in front of a public library in Flushing, New York," the congresswoman mentioned in a recent news release.
 
Ros-Lehtinen says members of Falun Gong have evidence that a Chinese consulate official is encouraging and coordinating attacks on Falun Gong in the U.S. "Repression of the constitutional rights of American citizens within the borders of the United States is simply indefensible," said Ros-Lehtinen.
 
She urged the Chinese government to end the repression.
 
The Chinese government considers Falun Gong a dangerous cult. China outlawed it in 1999.
 
According to the Chinese Embassy Web site, Li Hongzhi, the founder of Falon Gong, used “lies and fallacies to manipulate the minds of the ‘Falun Gong’ practitioners and caused needless deaths of large numbers of practitioners.
 
“Over 1,000 practitioners died because they followed Li's teachings and refused to seek medical treatment for their illnesses. Several hundred practitioners committed self-mutilation or suicide. Over 30 innocent people were killed by mentally deranged practitioners of 'Falun Gong,'” the Chinese Embassy Web site said.
 
Although the Olympics has renewed the focus on China’s human rights record, the Communist government has a long history of persecuting religious groups that it sees as a political threat to the atheist state.
 
Christians, Catholics, and Jews also have been jailed, tortured and even killed, according to numerous news reports and from reports by human rights groups such as Amnesty International and Human Rights Watch.
 
The Cardinal Kung Foundation, an advocacy group that supports the underground Catholic Church in China, issued a press release on July 13 announcing the arrest of two priests there in May, the latest in numerous arrests and jailing of Catholic leaders.
 
The bishops’ are just one example of the many underground Roman Catholic bishops whose civil rights are being seriously violated in China, the release stated. “The persecution of religious believers is very much alive in China and ongoing regardless of the fact that the Olympic Games will be held in China less than a month away.”
 
The Cardinal Kung Foundation also quoted Pope Benedict XVI, who wrote in a June 30, 2007 letter to China: “[I]t must not be forgotten that many Bishops have undergone persecution and have been impeded in the exercise of their ministry, and some of them have made the Church fruitful with the shedding of their blood.”


The Falun Gong rally included mock scenes of imprisonment and mistreatment. (CNSNews.com)
At the Falun Gong rally, demonstrators held mock beatings and enacted scenes of torture and imprisonment, including the alleged harvesting of human organs from living Falun Gong followers in China.
 
Wendy Wright, president of Concerned Women for America, was tearful as she quoted a Bible passage to the crowd that included people of diverse races and creeds.
 
“Some were jeered at, and their backs were cut open with whips,” she read from Hebrews 11: 36-39. “Others were chained in prison. Some died by stoning, some were sawed in half, and others were killed with a sword. Some went about wearing skins of sheep and goats, destitute and oppressed and mistreated. They were too good for this world.”
 
In other news, China reportedly is seeking information about Falun Gong members living in Japan, but Japan has refused to provide it, citing privacy concerns.
 
According to Japan’s Kyodo News agency, Japan is the only major nation whose nationals do not need visas to go to the Olympics, and China is said to be worried about Japanese Falun Gong adherents coming in and causing trouble.
 
See Earlier Stories:
Defector Details Chinese Spying, Strategies Against Falun Gong (July 22, 2005)

Human Rights Groups Decry Bush’s Olympics Trip
Tuesday (July 08, 2008)

China Slams US Lawmakers for Olympics Criticism (July 2, 2008)

China's Pre-Olympics Crackdown on Dissidents Adds to Forced Labor Camps (June 5, 2008)