Falung Gong actually has nothing at all to do w/ my point... The group could have been old ladies playing chess for all I care... The point was that China is still doing today what they did in the past... Violating human rights.... And this is PBS doing this documentary on China's human rights violations and religious/spiritual controling nature. Falung Gong just by chance happened to be one of the many groups/practices that were listed that I clicked on. If they are a satanic cult do they deserve to get beaten, jailed, and torchured? You would think in this day and age that people can go outside and exercise as they see fit with out getting a billy club to the head, but apparently I'm wrong.
People can go out and exercise and practice religion in China, my mother-in-law is a devout and practicing Buddhist in Beijing, go to any park in the morning in Beijing you will see thousands of people doing all sorts of martial arts, the majority is taijiquan. You will also see swing dancing, waltzing, traditional music and a host of other things too. But not one case of government forces rolling in to suppress, oppress or kill anyone.
Baiyun Guan is the Taoist temple in the Middle of Beijing and every single Taoist holy day it is PACKED with people and no one is beaten or oppressed. I went to a very old (there before Columbus sailed off to bump into North America) Buddhist temple on a mountaintop outside of Beijing and it was beautiful, and it was full of monks and worshippers and on Buddhist holy days it is packed. There was a government official there that day but he to was there for worship, not oppression or give out public beatings
But if you decide to mount a protest because the government refused to recognize you religion as the one and only true religion in China as well as not take the little doll that was suppose to represent god seriously by going to Tiananmen square and protesting (after the Tiananmen square problem) you are going to get arrested. As a matter of fact one of the quickest ways to get arrested in Beijing these days it to protest, or hand out flyers of protest in Tiananmen. And then if you follow up this protest with making a human chain and blocking a major road into Tiananmen (if memory serves it is about 8 lanes wide) you will once again get arrested. But what was amazing is that when the police went to look for the head of Fulan Gong he was already on a plan to the US with all his followers’ cash and when he landed in the US screamed religious oppression and got political asylum. So the US bought the whole thing hook line and sinker and gave a cult leader asylum.
Things in China are far from perfect and they have and do commit human rights violations but in many cases of religion it comes down to if you don't get in their face with it they tend to ignore it. Not a good thing and certainly not what we have in the west but it is pretty well known throughout China that this is how it works. You want to be a Christian, Taoist, Buddhist, Catholic, Satanist in China great go for it, just don't go out and make a public spectacle that disrupt day to day operations.
There are a lot of bad things done in China; there are a lot of bad things done in the US too. But you also have to take into account that not all the news you see here is 100% true as it concerns China and the same can be said for the news in China as it concerns the US.
Rights in China are a strange thing, they are no where near as oppressive as we in the west think and they are nowhere as near free as many in China think, and most, in China, will never know or care. But on average day to day life in Beijing (the capital of China) is far from oppressed and I have not seen a single beating or mortar attack. It is pretty much capitalism gone wild these days. But if you are a member of Fulan Gong it is likely they know where you live and if you try and go to a park to pass out flyers or recruit others into it you will then see the police show up, but I have not seen it. And a great way to get many Chinese to avoid you completely becuase they think you are a bit nuts is to go around telling everyone you are a member of Fulan Gong.
