Scores of its members have been sentenced to long terms in recent weeks. Amongst the victims is Zhang Xingwu. A retired physics professor from Shandong Province, he was sentenced to seven year jail term.  Police booked him after they found Falun Gong literature in his apartment, according to family members.

Repression of Falun Gong started about a decade back, according to human rights groups. The Chinese government sees the spiritual group as an evil cult. Last year alone the authorities had detained about 8000 members of the cult. At least 100 persons died in custody.

From available reports, it is clear that the group is not after political power. It only wants legal recognition. But what set the alarm bells ringing in Beijing and let lose a reign of suppression is Falun Gong’s ability to attract people from a wide cross section of the society from retired government employees to college students. Official ban has not dampened the adherents of Falun Gong which is an amalgam of Buddhism, mysticism and a traditional exercise regimen.

Jiang Yu, a spokesman for the Foreign Ministry, reiterated that Falun Gong warranted suppression because it emphasized meditation and the paranormal over modern medicine. ‘The Falun Gong cult violates human rights by controlling people’s minds’, he argued.
 
Official repression appears to have radicalized a significant section of Falun Gong followers. ‘While the group’s initial goals were official legitimacy and an end to persecution, the ceaseless campaign against them has radicalized many adherents, especially those living outside China’, Andrew Jacobs said in a dispatch to The New York Times from Beijing on Tuesday (April 28, 2009)

According to human rights activists, Falun Gong detainees are frequently subjected to harrowing abuse, particularly those who refuse to swear off their faith. Bu Dongwei, 41, a longtime adherent who spent three years in a labor camp, said he was forced to share a room with about 30 people, most of them petty thieves and drug addicts who were encouraged to abuse the Falun Gong detainees.  

Bu, a trained geneticist, left China in December and now lives in Los Angeles.