07/10/2001

During a December 1999 visit to China to see her parents, Coloradan Bin Zou was stopped on a Bejing street by a policeman. "Do you practice Falun Gong?" he asked.

The homemaker and mother didn't even think about lying. She said yes. Truthfulness, after all, is one of the main tenets of the spiritual movement.

She, her husband and her toddler son were shoved into a police van and taken to an open stadium where they joined 300 other people. During the next 12 hours, in frigid weather, the three were held without food or water. The police in the stadium were "rude" to the couple's inquisitive son, but she counts him lucky. She watched the cops "very fiercely" hit and kick others in the stadium.

They eventually were questioned and released, and they returned to Boulder, where her husband pursues a doctorate at the University of Colorado. They remain concerned about their future in their homeland.

After their detention, agents from China's national security bureau searched the home of her husband's parents.

Bin Zou's letters and packages to home are opened routinely and she worries about the jobs and pensions of her parents and in-laws, even though none of them is a Falun Gong practitioner.

"We didn't do anything wrong," she said.

Still, she doesn't regret saying "yes" to the cop's question. "From the bottom of my heart, I want to be truthful," she said.

Falun Gong, introduced to the public in 1992 but now banned in China, features five body movements, somewhat like tai chi, and a philosophy that urges truthfulness, compassion and forbearance. It espouses no political beliefs and has none of the rites, rituals or economic buy-in of more formal spiritual movements.

Falun Gong practitioners in the West claim Chinese believers have been subjected to mass arrests, imprisonment without trial, even torture and death. Human rights groups such as Amnesty International and leaders of democratic countries, including the United States, have denounced the Chinese government's treatment of Falun Gong practitioners.

Frank Zhong, a software engineer for MCI in Colorado Springs, said the Chinese government has called the movement a xx, even likening it to this country's Branch Davidians. Nonsense, he said. What really worries the Chinese government, he said, are the growing number of practitioners, an estimated 70 million in China alone, far more than those belonging to the Communist Party.

He said cynical Chinese leaders aren't worried that the movement threatens communism - even the leaders don't believe in that system of government anymore - but that it represents a threat to the power, money and perks that come with party membership.

"Because they have some bad things in their hearts," Zhong said of Chinese leaders, "they think others have these same bad things in their hearts. We must fight for our right to believe. If they tell lies, we must correct them."

Zhong and Zou said they love their country - both remain citizens - but they don't know how they can return if they have to face repression, unemployment and a bleak future just because of what they believe.

They hope that by speaking out - and offering demonstrations in a local park almost every Sunday - they can enlist the moral aid of Americans, a people they said appreciate religious freedom.

"We're really concerned for our country," said Zou. "You cannot speak the truth in China."

Added Zhong, "People here are very concerned about religious beliefs, about the right to believe what you want. The Chinese people accept this in their hearts, too, but they fear the government. We must fight for our right to believe."

TO LEARN MORE

Today, dozens of Falun Gong practitioners will gather near the state capitol in Denver to talk about their experiences and demonstrate the movement's tai chi-like exercises. The event is planned from 10 a.m. to 1 p.m. west of the capitol, between Lincoln Street and Broadway.

Practitioners are en route to Washington, D.C., where, from July 19 to 22, thousands of Falun Gong practitioners and supporters hope to raise Americans' awareness of what they call the Chinese government's brutal repression of the spiritual movement. If you'd like to learn more about Falun Gong, call 265-0442 or e-mail [email protected]. Speakers are available for community, library or school events. Frank Zhong, a local software engineer, sponsors a gettogether most Sundays in Monument Vally Park, where people can learn the body movements and spiritual tenets of Falun Gong.