By Kate Miller
Of the Suburban Journals
West County Journal
04/23/2003á06:00 AM

Huagui Li of Maryland Heights spent eight months in a Chinese jail. Her "crime": practicing Falun Gong.

Falun Gong, also referred to as Falun Dafa, is a Chinese spiritual practice based on the principles of truth, compassion and tolerance. It uses slow-motion exercises and meditation that are believed to improve physical and emotional health.

It is not considered a religion.

"Before I practiced Falun Gong, my health was not in good condition," said Li, 59, through her daughter-in-law, Yi Liu, who acted as a translator.

Li, a math teacher in China, suffered from insomnia for 20 years, which affected her health. She said nothing helped her until she began practicing Falun Gong, and then the ailments gradually disappeared.

When the Chinese government placed a ban on the practice, she didn't understand.

"We all strive to be good people in society. Falun Gong actually brings benefits to a society," she said. "I didn't understand why they wanted to persecute us. Most Chinese people don't know the facts. They only see the slanderous propaganda."

Trying to educate the public with fliers about Falun Gong was what got her into trouble on May 14, 2001.

"I said in the flier Falun Gong is good. I was caught by police when I was handing out the flier," she said. "I was arrested because I was a Falun Gong practitioner. There was no legal procedure; they put me in the detention center."

She lived in a small cell with 30 other women, some of them drug dealers and murderers. Those were the people the guards ordered to make sure she did not practice any movements that resembled Falun Gong while she was there.

She was forced to read books and watch films, which she called brainwashing sessions, because they were supposed to influence her to renounce Falun Gong.

When she still would not renounce Falun Gong, she was moved into a forced labor camp, where she saw others being beaten and tortured.

She said one of her neighbors was left blind in one eye, and another was tied to a tree outside in the summer heat and left outside in the winter with very little clothing.

Li, a thin woman less than 5 feet tall, was not tortured, but freedom was nonexistent, she said.

"I was under watch 24 hours a day, and I was not allowed to talk to anyone," she said.

But she still would not renounce Falun Gong.

"I have the belief that Falun Gong is good and it's very important," she said. "Coercion cannot change people's hearts."

Additionally, to have lied to save herself from persecution would have meant breaking the Falun Gong principle of truthfulness.

Li endured eight months of detainment before she was released, but to remain in China would have meant facing repeated arrests.

She sought refuge in America, with her son and daughter-in-law in Maryland Heights -- where she is not only free to practice Falun Gong in her own home, she can practice it in any public park. It's something she has been enjoying for more than a year.

"I haven't spent a cent on medicine in five years, because my health is so good," she said. "Also, I used to be a very quick-tempered person; so after I practice this, I have a new view toward life.

"I can be more compassionate and tolerant to others," she said.

Li said she would return to China, which she still considers home, if she could practice Falun Gong without fear of persecution.

"We just do exercises and try to be good people, and so many are being tortured," she said. "The persecution is wrong."

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