11-20-01

Since July of 1999, hundreds of Chinese pacifists have been murdered For their beliefs and daily practices. Thousands more have been tortured, humiliated and ruthlessly interrogated.

Many of these pacifists, who practice a newly-publicized spiritual movement and ideology known as Falun Gong, have immigrated to the United States. The exodus is largely the result of Chinese President Jiang Zemin and the many hands of his oppressive regime, which began persecuting practitioners two years ago.

Transplanted and American-born Falun Gong practitioners, many of them residing in New Jersey, have waged a grass roots campaign to end the nightmare created by Zemin. Town by town, city by city, they are exposing the plight of fellow innocents severely punished. The hope is that collective American recognition of the atrocity will change a horrific, worsening reality in China.

"We want to tell people the truth because the truth is blocked out," said Anna Chang, a Falun Gong practitioner from Englewood. "Everyone has the responsibility to correct what is wrong."

Chang, along with growing numbers of practitioners like her, are making speeches at local council meetings, requesting resolutions from municipal representatives. The resolutions sought are not complex: In most cases, they simply acknowledge the systematic escalation of violent attacks carried out by the [party's name omitted] regime and state that the respective local governing body supports the termination of such abuses, which include varied forms of physical and psychological torture.

New Jersey municipalities that adopted resolutions this year include Clifton, Middlesex, Millburn, Newark, Parsippany, Jersey City and Woodbridge, home and mayoral seat of Governor-elect Jim McGreevey.

The goal in this and any other grass roots campaign is to create a groundswell. The roots of local endorsements will broaden into regional, congressional and then proactive federal intervention, it is hoped.

With 16 local resolutions signed and several municipalities including Englewood and Teaneck considering, New Jersey has passed the most resolutions supporting Falun Gong practitioners. In addition, the Essex County Freeholders have backed them. State senators and assembly members, as well as Congressman Steve Rothman, have penned a collection of letters.

Some 300 people have been murdered because of Zemin's rule, which is carried out through local enforcement officials who answer to no judge in their flouting of the Chinese constitution. As many as 140,000 practitioners are currently held captive in "re-education camps," the site of appalling physical abuses, rape and torture. Other previously healthy practitioners have been injected with mind-altering drugs and detained in mental hospitals against their will.

Several United States residents and citizens have been imprisoned, tortured and subjected to arbitrary detention.

The Falun Gong movement itself is in stark contrast to Zemin's oppressive regime. Slow-moving exercises are carried out by meditative, introspective individuals looking to restore inborn, ideal energy states buried by the alluring evils of contemporary society. Truthfulness, Compassion and Forbearance are the three principles guiding practitioners in their nonviolent quest inward to the true self.

Zemin's initiative to wipe them out is based on a conflicting set of standards. In China, the press is blocked out, preventing the dissemination of truths. The unrelenting torture of innocents is the opposite of compassion. And an unwillingness to allow people to explore ideologies is utterly intolerant.