The Associated Press
12/13/00 5:08 PM
NEW YORK (AP) -- The mother of a jailed member of the Falun Gong meditation [group] pleaded for her daughter's release from a Chinese prison during a protest Wednesday in front of the Chinese Consulate.
Teng Chunyan, sentenced on Tuesday to three years in jail for spying, was described by her mother as a compassionate woman whose faith in Falun Gong apparently blinded her to the risks she exposed herself to by publicizing the Chinese government's crackdown on the movement.
"She's a very good person, very warm and compassionate, and always concerned with helping other people whenever she can," Teng's mother, Qui, said through an interpreter.
Qui, who asked that her Chinese surname not be used, was joined by about 75 Falun Gong members in a demonstration across the street from the Chinese Consulate on Manhattan's West Side.
Sect members seemed impervious to the brutal Hudson River winds and bitter cold temperatures Wednesday morning. Eyes closed and faces expressionless, they stretched and flexed through a series of slow-motion, meditative exercises, a ritual in the Falun Gong movement.
Qui said her daughter was raised in Communist China and found it hard to believe that the Chinese government would consider it a crime to practice Falun Gong, whose philosophy espouses three primary tenets -- truthfulness, compassion and forbearance.
Family members have had no contact with the 37-year-old Teng since she was taken into custody in May.
A State Department spokesman last week called Teng's case "deeply disturbing," and officials at the U.S. Embassy in Beijing have raised her case with the Chinese government several times to no avail, according to diplomatic sources.
The practice of Falun Gong was outlawed in July 1999 by Communist Party leaders worried with its size and organization; the movement attracted tens of millions of adherents in the 1990s. Since the crackdown, thousands of members have been jailed and sent to labor camps, according to human rights groups.
China's state media accuses [...]
A Chinese citizen who holds a U.S. green card, Teng practiced Falun Gong because it improved her health and helped her achieve a higher degree of mental peace, according to her mother. Teng's participation had nothing to do with politics, she said.
Followers believe Falun Gong's meditation and exercise routines promote health and they find moral guidance in the Buddhist- and Taoist-influenced teachings of founder Li Hongzhi, who now lives in the United States.
Teng returned to China in March and used the pseudonym Hannah Li to help foreign reporters there obtain information about [group] members' protests against the ban on the group. Teng also helped arrange interviews between [group] members and journalists.
Teng was indicted in July on charges of disclosing national security information to foreigners. She was tried at a Nov. 23 hearing, which only her lawyers were allowed to attend. Such secrecy is typical in Chinese cases involving sensitive political issues.
Organizers of Wednesday's Falun Gong demonstration in New York said they believe Teng's jail sentence was intended to send a message to other [group] members outside China that the Chinese government would no longer tolerate foreign interference in its handling of the movement.
No one from the Chinese Consulate spoke to the demonstrators, protest leaders said Wednesday.
Falun Gong member Yaira Yasmin, an Israeli journalist, and her husband, Cheng Zuo, said they joined the demonstration to show solidarity with Teng. Yasmin said the Israeli journalism community is especially concerned with Teng's case given the history of oppression and persecution against the Jews.
"Even though Teng wasn't a journalist, the fact that she would return to China to help journalists says something about her dedication to the truth, something that is suppressed in China," said Zuo.
http://www.syracuse.com/newsflash/
Category: Falun Dafa in the Media
