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Falun Gong group raises controversy, student concern

The Falun Gong Club holds an introductory seminar about the religion on Wednesday night. PHOTO BY BRITTANY CHANG/ DAILY FREE PRESS STAFF
The Falun Gong Club holds an introductory seminar about the religion on Wednesday night. PHOTO BY BRITTANY CHANG/ DAILY FREE PRESS STAFF

Boston University’s Falun Dafa Club originated from College of Engineering post-graduate student Taiyao Wang’s desire to bring light to the number of Falun Gong followers that were “tortured to death in jail and in labor camps” by the Chinese government.

The practice of Falun Gong, a Chinese spiritual practice, gained more than 70 million followers in the late 1990s until it was prosecuted by the Chinese government and banned in China, Wang wrote in an email.

“The persecution is a severe human rights violation in which practitioners of this peaceful, righteous cultivation practice are subjugated to torture and even worse consequences in China,” Wang wrote. “By raising awareness, many more people will understand this horrible crime and slowly work to bring change to the situation on a larger scale.”

The newly formed Falun Dafa Club at BU hosted its introduction seminar Wednesday with approximately 10 attendees. Currently the club is not officially recognized by BU’s Student Activities Office because they do not have enough members, Wang wrote. But he said he hopes future seminars will help the club pick up popularity.

“Falun Dafa Club will enrich the spiritual and cultural life on campus,” Wang wrote. “Our club will introduce the five meditative exercises of Falun Dafa … [that] will be a great stress relief from all the daily work a college student undergoes.”

This is not the first time a Falun Gong group has appeared at BU — a groups of students and alumni started Falun Going Practice and Information Club in 2001, when they used to meditate near the Charles River, The Daily Free Press reported on Nov. 14, 2001.

That group eventually faded away, Wang said.

Several Chinese students, however, said they are not happy with Falun Gong’s new formation at BU, and urged the administration to put a stop to the controversial organization.

Xueqing Li, a senior in the College of Arts and Sciences, said she was appalled when she first saw Falun Gong flyers in the College of Arts and Sciences building. She said this practice is dangerous and has no place on BU’s campus.

“This is a little bit more than a religion issue,” Li said. “Ten years ago, when I was a child [in China], there were a lot of people [who] would go to burn [themselves] in crowds after practicing Falun Gong. It’s actually harmful to society.

Li said she does not understand why Wang would want to start a Falun Gong club, but she said students who have no previous knowledge on Falun Gong should not try it.

“It’s not really a good idea to let someone who doesn’t know about Falun Gong to learn it,” she said. “What [BU Falun Dafa Club] will do is try[ing] to get people to believe that it’s good for them — people believe in it after listening to that propagation. I’m definitely against [Falun Gong].”

Shelly Hu, a CAS graduate student and member of BU Falun Dafa Club, said she was introduced to the practice years ago, and she was shocked and saddened when she learned about the history behind it.

“I had the chance to meet fellow members of the club recently,” Hu said. “It would be great to help introduce such [a] great practice to others who might be interested in participating.”

Hu said the history of Falun Gong in China should not deter people in the BU community from getting involved in the club.

“It’s a great meditative practice for really anyone to take up to relax from daily stress,” Hu said. “And its history should be uncovered to those who don’t know so that they’re not being misled [by Chinese government].”

Sophia Lipp, a sophomore in the College of Communication, said BU shouldn’t take away students’ rights to practice a certain religion, but the university is still liable for the safety of students should the practice become dangerous.

“It would be BU’s job to monitor and ensure that [Falun Gong] wouldn’t be affecting other religious groups or students negatively,” Lipp said. “It’s also important to recognize that [BU Falun Dafa Club] are not necessarily going to be associated with the radical side of Falun Gong.”

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9 Comments

  1. Im sorry to hear that so many Chinese students at that university are still misled from the informstion they learned in Mainland China.
    Despite the number of years Falun Gong has been practiced outside of China, there hasn’t been a single instance of violent crime, self-immolation, or any of the other outlandish accusations levelled against it. To be frank, the “radical side” of Falun Gong exists only in the materials produced by the Chinese government.

  2. What “radical” side?? The self-immolation is widely understood to be a propaganda stunt. The Daily Free Press is quoting poor Chinese students who have been indoctrinated with propaganda in a closed society on a make believe ‘controversy’ about a meditation practice. Strange indeed.

  3. There is not a radical side to Falun Gong and neither is it dangerous. The idea that Falun Gong practitioners “burn themselves in crowds”, is also false. That characterization was propagated by The Chinese Communist Party in state media as part of its defamation campaign to vilify Falun Gong practitioners in order to incite and justify the persecution of Falun Gong. Please search “False Fire”.

    The persecution of Falun Gong has been extremely brutal and continues today. There is overwhelming evidence that Falun Gong practitioners are being killed for organ harvesting as well. The U.S. House of Representatives recently passed H. Res. 343 regarding this issue, which is a resolution “Expressing concern regarding persistent and credible reports of systematic, state-sanctioned organ harvesting from non-consenting prisoners of conscience in the People’s Republic of China, including from large numbers of Falun Gong practitioners and members of other religious and ethnic minority groups.”

  4. Falun Gong is a very peaceful practice that benefited millions of people in China and in more than 100 countries. Why is it that Falun Gong is liked in overseas countries and persecuted in China? It is due to Jiang Zemin in 1999 becoming very jealous because Falun Gong had more followers in 7 years then the CCP could muster members in 50 years. That’s why he outlawed it. That’s why he then followed up with a smear campaign of lies, torture, killing, organ harvesting, disrupting families etc.. That’s why for 17 years the CCP continues to poison the Chinese people with their lies to prevent them from knowing the truth. Chinese students should find out for themselves while they are overseas what’s true and what’s false.

  5. Thank you for bringing up this issue. I have been practicing Falun Gong in the US since the year 2000. I too was shocked when first I saw news articles saying that Falun Gong practitioners had burned themselves in Tiananmen Square. It sounded horrible, and so unlike what I had just started to learn. Upon further investigation, it was discovered that those people were not Falun Gong practitioners at all. Only the Chinese Communist Party, whose official stance toward Falun Gong is “Ruin their reputation, Bankrupt them financially, Eliminate them physically” says that those were Falun Gong practitioners. No third party, independent investigation has ever claimed that those were Falun Gong practitioners.
    The teachings in Falun Gong prohibit practitioners from killing, including committing suicide.
    So, this leads to the question, What really happened on Tiananmen Square?
    I invite all readers to view detailed analysis of the video footage shown on Chinese Central Television news stories, and see for yourselves: http://falsefire.com/

  6. Well, it looks like our student reporter here needs her first briefing on Chinese counter intelligence operations… It is well known that the “Chinese Student and Scholar Associations” at our major universities are a front for the Chinese Communist regime’s propaganda efforts to influence foreign opinion. It appears as though the bad guys may have gotten to you first… Have a look at what happened to the Chinese Student Association at Columbia University (see link below)

    Xueqing Li, your source who defames Falun Dafa is an active member of the Boston University “Chinese Student and Scholar Association (CSSA)”

    http://www.theepochtimes.com/n3/1296843-columbia-university-closes-chinese-students-group/

  7. To check out what Falun Gong is all about – what people have experienced in the practice, and not the stuff dished out by the Chinese government, read the article in The Atlantic that was published Sept/18/2016:

    http://www.theatlantic.com/notes/2016/09/a-scientist-finds-salvation/500516/

  8. First of all, the photo skill of BU free daily press’s student reporter is, eh, very impressive. I haven’t seen another photo on your website taken as such.

    Yet the report itself is more impressive. Neither did the reporter herself, nor did Xueqing Li, Sophia Lipp bother to attend the seminar and meet the “radical side” of Falun Gong – if they were really concerned, why didn’t they attend and find out?

    The article wrote, Falun Gong “gained more than 70 million followers in the late 1990s”, that is 1/20 to 1/10 of Chinese population being persecuted, or ¼ of American’s current population. If Falun Gong were really meant to be hurtful or harmful, or as Chinese Communist Party described, reaching for political gain, why don’t we hear armed uprisings or civil wars from Falun Gong? If they truly have the guts to burn themselves up and look for political gains, why don’t they simply burn the Chinese government? Besides, a lot of Chinese people have encouraged Falun Gong practitioners to overthrow the government over the years.

    The third student who did attend the seminar, Shelly Hu, was misquoted deliberately, according to Shelly herself.

    Coming from China, we all witnessed how much China and its people have suffered: 15 million death toll from the three years of big famine 1959 to 1961, numerous elite Chinese committed suicide during culture revolution in addition to national culture devastation, tens of thousands Chinese college students killed in Tian’anmen square in 1989, forced organ harvesting from prisoners of conscience especially Falun Gong practitioners till this day… In total, the CCP has killed 80 millions of Chinese, more than the total deaths of two world wars, plus 400 millions of “abortions” from one-child policy, a lot of them full-term…

    I don’t know, whether those people who still speak for the Chinese government are simply ignorant, or just miss a human heart.

  9. I do not write many comments on articles, but I feel I have to response to this one. I am very sad to see that today’s Chinese people are still being misled by the government and have the misconception regarding Falun Gong. I grew up in China and had met many Falun Gong practitioners before I came to the United States. I have not witnessed a single violence among these people.