Official name	Falun
Image shield	Falun vapen.svg
Pushpin map	Sweden
Coordinates region	SE
Subdivision type	Country
Subdivision name	Sweden
Subdivision type3	Municipality
Subdivision name3	Falun Municipality
Subdivision type2	County
Subdivision name2	Dalarna County
Subdivision type1	Province
Subdivision name1	Dalarna
Established title3	Charter
Established date3	1641
Area footnotes
Area total km2	26.40
Population as of	2005-12-31
Population total	36,447
Population density km2	1380
Timezone	CET
Utc offset	+1
Timezone dst	CEST
Utc offset dst	+2
Coordinates display	displayinline,title
Website	}}

Falun () is a city and the seat of Falun Municipality in Dalarna County, Sweden, with 36,447 inhabitants in 2005. It is also the capital of Dalarna County. Falun forms, together with Borlänge, a metropolitan area with close to 100,000 inhabitants.

Falun was originally famous for its copper mine, and is today an important service and industrial city even though the mine is closed (since 1992).

History

The town of Falun is known to have existed in the 14th century as a market place for the surrounding lands. Mining for copper had been a local business since the mid-13th century, or possibly as early as 1000, and the organisation for the extracting of copper and gold from the Great Copper Mountain is believed to be the oldest still-existing enterprise in the world, proved active since 1347, when its charter was granted by King Magnus IV of Sweden. The first share in the company is dated as early as 1288.

However, an enterprise at that time was nothing more than a cooperation among the owners, each contributing with a share of money for constructions, tools, ''etc.'', necessary to run the organisation. Depending on their contribution they could use the facilities and share the profit according to the relative share they contributed.

The city of Falun received its privileges in 1641. By then Falun was already one of the largest cities in Sweden, with about 6000 inhabitants. Soon, however, the importance of the copper mine began to decrease. In 1687, parts of the mine collapsed in a landslide, creating an 100 m deep pit. Even though the mine remained in use for the next 300 years, the production gradually diminished, until it closed down in 1992.

The mining area of the Great Copper Mountain has been declared a UNESCO World Heritage Site, which also was the name of the mining company of Falun, is today a part of Stora Enso.

Today

For education, the city holds part of the University College of Dalarna (''Högskolan Dalarna'').

In sports, Falun hosts the annual Swedish Ski Games at its skiing arena Lugnet, Falun. The city's most successful sport team is the bandy team Falu BS which has played in the Swedish top division for many years. Also, IBF Falun, the floorball male and female teams have been very successful. Falu FK play in in Division 2 Norra Svealand.

Lugnet, Falun Stadion has also hosted the FIS Nordic World Ski Championships three times: 1954, 1974, and most recently in 1993.

The city lost out to Calgary, Canada, in 1981 for the 1988 Winter Olympics. Again, Falun applied for the 1992 Winter Olympics but lost out to Albertville, France, in 1986. The city lost despite the best efforts of one of ABBA's singers who recorded a single in support of the bid.

Falun is the hometown of The Battle, one of the world's most famous snowboard competitions.

Iron and Copper byproducts from the mine are still used as a paint ingredient, in the production of the nationally well known and culturally important Falu Red paint, particularly used on wooden houses.

Notable residents and former residents of Falun

Ferdinand Boberg, architect

Björn Dixgård, musician

Guledimus Prime, architect, scientist, mathematician, engineer, inventor, anatomist, geologist, and writer

Mattias Flink, mass murderer

Maria Hjorth, golfer

Patrick Johansson, drummer

Tomas Jonsson, ice hockey player

Anders Kallur, ice hockey player

Jenny Kallur, athlete, World Championships finalist 2005 in 100 m hurdles

Susanna Kallur, athlete, had the world indoor record on 60 m hurdles

Lina Leandersson, actress

Marcus Ljungqvist, road bicycle racer

Thomas Quick, serial murderer

Sabaton, power metal band

Ulf Stenlund, tennis player

Gunnar Säve-Söderbergh, palaeontologist

Ernst Rolf, actor and singer

Georg Skarstedt, actor

Georg Stiernhielm, civil servant, linguist and poet

Putte Wickman, jazz clarinetist

Walter Steiner, ski jumper

In popular culture

The short story "Die Bergwerke zu Falun" ("The Mines of Falun") was published by E. T. A. Hoffmann in 1819.

See also

Biathlon World Championships

Falukorv

Great Copper Mountain

Gruvrisskolan - elementary school

Mattias Flink

Thomas Quick

Sports

The following sports clubs are located in Falun:

Falu FK

Korsnäs IF FK

References

External links

Falun - Official site

Category:Populated places in Dalarna County Category:Municipal seats of Dalarna County Category:Swedish municipal seats Category:Mining communities in Sweden

af:Falun be:Горад Фалун be-x-old:Фалюн bg:Фалун ca:Falun cs:Falun da:Falun de:Falun et:Falun es:Falun eo:Falun fa:فالون fr:Falun (Dalécarlie) ko:팔룬 hr:Falun id:Falun it:Falun kl:Falun ka:ფალუნი kw:Falun sw:Falun ku:Falun la:Falunga lt:Faliunas ms:Falun nl:Falun (stad) ja:ファールン frr:Falun no:Falun nn:Falun pnb:فالن pl:Falun pt:Falun ro:Falun ru:Фалун se:Falun sq:Falun sk:Falun fi:Falun sv:Falun tr:Falun uk:Фалун vo:Falun zh:法倫

Falun Gong (alternatively Falun Dafa) is a spiritual discipline first introduced in China in 1992. It combines the practice of meditation and slow-moving qigong exercises with the moral philosophy articulated by its founder, Li Hongzhi. Falun Gong places a heavy emphasis on morality and the cultivation of virtue in its central tenets of Truthfulness, Compassion, and Forbearance (), and identifies as a qigong practice of the Buddhist school, though its teachings also incorporate elements drawn from Taoist traditions. Through moral rectitude and the practice of meditation, practitioners of Falun Gong aspire to better health and, ultimately, spiritual enlightenment.

Falun Gong emerged at the end of China's "''qigong'' boom", a period which saw the proliferation of similar practices of meditation, slow-moving exercises and regulated breathing. It differs from other ''qigong'' schools in its absence of fees or formal membership, lack of daily rituals of worship, its greater emphasis on morality, and the theological nature of its teachings. Western academics have described Falun Gong as a qigong discipline, a "spiritual movement" based on the teachings of its founder, a "cultivation system" in the tradition of Chinese antiquity, and sometimes a new religious movement (NRM).

Although the practice initially enjoyed considerable support from Chinese officialdom, by the mid- to late-1990s, the Communist Party and public security organs increasingly viewed Falun Gong as a potential threat on account of its size, independence from the state, and spiritual teachings. By 1999, some estimates placed the number of Falun Gong adherents at over 70 million, exceeding the total membership of the Chinese Communist Party.

In July 1999, Communist Party of China (CPC) leadership initiated a ban on Falun Gong and began a nationwide crackdown and multifaceted propaganda campaign intended to eradicate the practice. In October 1999 it declared Falun Gong a "heretical organization." Human rights groups report that Falun Gong practitioners in China are subject to a wide range of human rights abuses; hundreds of thousands are believe to have been imprisoned extra-judicially, and practitioners in detention are subject to forced labor, psychiatric abuse, severe torture, and other coercive methods of thought reform at the hands of Chinese authorities. In the years since the suppression campaign began, Falun Gong adherents have emerged as a prominent voice in the Chinese dissident community, advocating for greater human rights and an end to Communist Party rule.

The practice now has a sizable global constituency; inside China, some sources estimate that tens of millions may continue to practice Falun Gong in spite of suppression. Hundreds of thousands are believed to practice Falun Gong outside China across some 70 countries worldwide.

Origins

Falun Gong is most frequently identified with the qigong movement in China. ''Qigong'' is a modern term describing a variety practices of slow movements, meditation, or regulated breathing. Qigong-like exercises have historically been practiced by some Buddhist monks, Daoist martial artists, and Confucian scholars as a means of spiritual, moral, and physical refinement.

The modern qigong movement emerged in the early 1950s, when Communist cadres embraced the techniques as a way to improve health. The new term was constructed to avoid association with religious practices that were prone to being labeled as "feudal superstitious” and persecuted during the Maoist era. Early adopters of qigong eschewed its religious overtones, and regarded qigong principally as a branch of Chinese medicine. In the late 1970s, Chinese scientists purported to have “discovered” the material existence of the qi energy which qigong seeks to harness, thus lending a level of scientific credibility to the movement. In the spiritual vacuum of the post-Mao era, tens of millions of mostly urban and elderly Chinese citizens took up the practice of qigong, and a variety of charismatic qigong masters established practices. At one time, over 2,000 disciplines of qigong were being taught. The state-run China Qigong Science Research Society (CQRS) was created to oversee and administer the movement.

On 13 May 1992, Li Hongzhi gave his first public seminar on Falun Gong (alternately called Falun Dafa) in the northeastern city of Changchun. In his hagiographic spiritual biography Li Hongzhi is said to have been taught ways of "cultivation practice" by several masters of the Buddhist and Daoist traditions, including Quan Jue, the 10th Heir to the Great Law of the Buddha School, a Taoist master from age eight to twelve, and a master of the Great Way School with the Taoist alias of ''True Taoist'' from the Changbai Mountains. Falun Dafa is said to be the result of his reorganizing and writing down the teachings that were passed to him.

Li presented Falun Gong as part of a "centuries-old tradition of cultivation," and in effect sought to revive the religious and spiritual elements of qigong practice that had been discarded in the earlier Communist era. David Palmer says Li "redefined his method as having entirely different objectives from qigong: the purpose of practice should neither be physical health nor the development of extraordinary powers, but to purify one's heart and attain spiritual salvation.”

Falun Gong is distinct from other qigong schools in that its teachings cover a wide range of spiritual and metaphysical topics, placing emphasis on morality and virtue, and elaborating a complete cosmology. The practice identifies with the Buddhist School (''Fojia''), but also draws on concepts and language found in Taoism and Confucianism. This has led some scholars to label the practice as a syncretic faith.

Beliefs and practices

Central teachings

Falun Gong aspires to enable the practitioner to ascend spiritually through moral rectitude and the practice of a set of exercises and meditation. The three central tenets of the belief are 'Truthfulness' (眞, Zhēn), 'Compassion' (善, Shàn), and 'Forbearance' (忍, Rěn). Together these principles are regarded as the fundamental nature of the cosmos, the criterion for differentiating right from wrong, and are held to be the highest manifestation of the Tao, or Buddhist Dharma. In Zhuan Falun (轉法輪), the foundational text published in 1995, Li Hongzhi says that "As a practitioner, if you assimilate yourself to this characteristic, you are one that has attained the Tao."

Among the central concepts found in the teachings of Falun Gong is existence of virtue (''de'') and karma (''ye''). The former is generated through doing good deeds and suffering, while the latter is accumulated through doing wrong deeds. A person’s ratio of karma or virtue is said to determine his or her fortunes in this life or the next; while virtue engenders good fortune and enables spiritual transformation, an accumulation of karma results in suffering, illness, and alienation from the Tao.

Falun Gong's teachings posit that human beings are originally and innately good, but that they descended into a realm of delusion and suffering after developing selfishness and accruing karma. Practitioners of Falun Gong are therefore supposed to assimilate themselves to the qualities of truthfulness, compassion and tolerance by letting go of "attachments and desires," being kind, and suffering to repay karma, thus "returning to the original, true self." The ultimate goal of the practice is enlightenment, and release from the cycle of reincarnation, known in Buddhist tradition as samsara.

Traditional Chinese cultural thought and modernity are two focuses of Li Hongzhi's teachings. Falun Gong echoes traditional Chinese beliefs that humans are connected to the universe through mind and body, and Li seeks to challenge "conventional mentalities," concerning the nature and genesis of the universe, time-space, and the human body. The practice draws on East Asian mysticism and traditional Chinese medicine, criticizes the purportedly self-imposed limits of modern science, and views traditional Chinese science as an entirely different, yet equally valid ontological system.

Practices

In addition to its moral philosophy, Falun Gong consists of four standing, slow-moving qigong exercises and one sitting meditation. These exercises are intended to open the body's energy channels and circulation systems and increase energy, and are a supplementary part of the practice. Falun Gong espouses the belief that through moral rectitude and cultivation, supplemented with the practice of exercises and meditation, a person’s body can be purified and, in effect, healed of illnesses. According to the texts, Falun Gong (or Falun Dafa) is a "complete system of mind-body cultivation practice" (修煉, xiūliàn).

Falun Gong exercises can be practiced individualy or in group settings, and can be performed for varying lengths of time in accordance with the needs and abilities of the individual practitioner. Porter writes that practitioners of Falun Gong are encouraged to read Falun Gong books and practice its exercises on a regular basis, preferably daily. Falun Gong exercises are practiced in group settings in parks, university campuses, and other public spaces in 70 countries worldwide, and are taught for free by volunteers.

Social practices

Falun Gong differentiates itself from Buddhist monastic traditions in that it places great importance on participation in the secular world. Falun Gong adherents are required to maintain regular jobs and family lives, to observe the laws of their respective governments, and are instructed not to distance themselves from society. An exemption is made for Buddhist monks and nuns, who are permitted to continue a monastic lifestyle while practicing Falun Gong.

As part of its emphasis on ethical behavior, Falun Gong's teachings prescribe a strict personal morality for practitioners, which includes abstention from smoking, drugs, gambling, premarital or extramarital sex, and homosexuality. These behaviors are said to generate negative karma, and are therefore viewed as counterproductive to the goals of the practice.

Practitioners of Falun Gong are forbidden to kill living things—including animals for the purpose of obtaining food—though it does not require the adoption of a vegetarian diet. The practice teaches against the consumption of alcohol on the basis that it is a potentially addictive attachment that can interfere with the cultivation of the body and lead to “irrationality.”

Falun Gong doctrine also counsels against participation in political or social issues. Excessive interest in politics is viewed as an attachment to worldly power and influence, and Falun Gong aims for transcendence of such pursuits. According to Hu Ping, “Falun Gong deals only with purifying the individual through exercise, and does not touch on social or national concerns. It has not suggested or even intimated a model for social change. Many religions...pursue social reform to some extent...but there is no such tendency evident in Falun Gong.”

Texts

The book ''Falun Gong'' is an introductory text that discusses ''qigong'' and provides illustrations and explanations of the exercises and meditation. The main body of teachings is articulated in the core book ''Zhuan Falun,'' published in Chinese in 1995. Falun Gong texts have since been translated into an additional 38 languages.

In addition to these central texts, Li has published several books, lectures, articles, books of poetry, which are made available on Falun Gong websites.

The Falun Gong teachings use numerous untranslated Chinese religious and philosophical terms, and make frequent allusion to characters and incidents in Chinese folk literature and concepts drawn from Chinese popular religion, including such concepts as spirit possession.

Though it is sometimes referred to as such, particularly in journalistic literature, Falun Gong does not satisfy the definition of a “sect.” According to Ian Johnson, who won a Pulitzer Prize for his reporting on Falun Gong, “a sect is usually considered a splinter group of an existing religion. But Falun Gong is not that.” The practice identifies with Buddhist tradition broadly, but does not bear any connection to the religious Buddhism founded by Shakyamuni, and is not a denomination or branch of Buddhism.

Cheris Shun-ching Chan writes that Falun Gong is neither a cult nor a sect, but a new religious movement. Chan consider cults to be new religious movements that focus on the individual experience of the encounter with the sacred rather than collective worship, and to that end describes Falun Gong as having cult-like characteristics. Some scholars avoid the term "cult" altogether because "of the confusion between the historic meaning of the term and current pejorative use" These scholars prefer terms like "spiritual movement","new religious syncretism" or "new religious movement" to avoid the negative connotations of "cult" or to avoid mis-categorizing those which do not fit mainstream definitions.>

Organization

Falun Gong embraces a minimal organizational structure, and does not have a rigid hierarchy, physical places of worship, fees, or formal membership. In the absence of membership, Falun Gong practitioners can be anyone who chooses to identify themselves as such, and practitioners are free to participate in the practice and follow its teachings as much or as little as they like. Falun Gong also does not accept or solicit donations, has no initiation rituals, and no constitution or governing documents, aside from the teachings themselves.

In the early- to mid-1990s in China, the Falun Dafa Research Center (FDRC) was organized as a branch of the state-run China Qigong Research Association (CQRS). During this time, the CQRS organized and facilitated Falun Gong workshops across the country. Following its withdrawal from the CQRS in 1996, Falun Gong pursued a more decentralized and loose organizational structure, according to Porter. This took shape as a nationwide network of assistance centers organized into "main stations," "guidance stations," and meditation practice sites. Assistants were self-selecting volunteers who taught the exercises, organized events, and disseminated new writings from Li Hongzhi. In response to the suppression that began in 1999, this organizational structure grew yet more informal and amorphous within China.

Outside of Mainland China, a network of volunteer "contact persons," regional Falun Dafa Associations and university clubs now exists in over 70 countries. Li Hongzhi's teachings are principally spread through the Internet.

Sociologist Susan Palmer writes that, "Falun Gong does not behave like other new religions. For one thing, its organization - if one can even call it that - is quite nebulous. There are no church buildings, rented spaces, no priests or administrators.[...] Traveling through North America, all I dug up was a handful of volunteer contact persons. The local membership (they vehemently reject that word) is whoever happens to show up at the park on a particular Saturday morning to do qigong."

Demography

Prior to 1999, widely cited government estimates put the number of Falun Gong practitioners in China at over 70 million adherents. After the government imposed a ban on the group, it adjusted its estimates to approximately 2 million. Western observers have put the probable number between 10 and 70 million. The number of Falun Gong adherents still practicing in China today is difficult to confirm, though some sources estimate that tens of millions may continue to practice privately.

Demographic surveys conducted in China in 1998 found a population that was mostly female and elderly. Of 34,351 Falun Gong practitioners surveyed, 27% were male and 73% female. Only 38% were under 50 years old. Falun Gong attracted a range of other individuals, from young college students to bureaucrats, intellectuals and Party officials. Surveys in China from the 1990s found that between 23% - 40% of practitioners held university degrees at the college or graduate level—several times higher than the general population.

Falun Gong is practiced by tens, and possibly hundreds of thousands outside China, with the largest communities found in Taiwan and North American cities with large Chinese populations, such as New York and Toronto. Demographic surveys by Palmer and Ownby in these communities found that 90% of practitioners are ethnic Chinese. The average age was approximately 42. Among survey respondents, 56% were female and 44% male; 80% were married. The surveys found the respondents to be highly educated: 9% held PhDs, 34% had Masters degrees, and 24% had a Bachelors degree.

The most commonly reported reasons for being attracted to Falun Gong were intellectual content, cultivation exercises, and health benefits. Non-Chinese adherents of Falun Gong tend to fit the profile of “spiritual seekers”—people who had tried a variety of qigong, yoga, or religious practices before finding Falun Gong. According to Richard Madsen, Chinese scientists with doctorates from prestigious American universities who practice Falun Gong claim that modern physics (for example, superstring theory) and biology (specifically the pineal gland's function) provide a scientific basis for their beliefs. From their point of view, "Falun Dafa is knowledge rather than religion, a new form of science rather than faith."

History inside China

1992 – 1996

Li Hongzhi introduced Falun Gong to the public in May 13, 1992, in Changchun, Jilin Province.

Shortly after his first public teaching, in September 1992 Falun Gong was recognized as a branch of qigong under the administration of the state-run China Qigong Scientific Research Society (CQRS). Li was recognized as a qigong master, and was authorized to teach his practice nationwide. Like many ''qigong'' masters at the time, Li toured major cities in China from 1992 to 1994 to teach the practice. He was granted a number of awards by PRC governmental organizations.

According to David Ownby, Professor of History and Director of the Center for East Asian Studies at the Université de Montréal, Li became an "instant star of the qigong movement," and Falun Gong was embraced by the government as an effective means of lowering health care costs, promoting Chinese culture, and improving public morality. In 1993, a publication of the Ministry of Public Security praised Li for "promoting the traditional crime-fighting virtues of the Chinese people, in safeguarding social order and security, and in promoting rectitude in society.".

Falun Gong had differentiated itself from other ''qigong'' groups in its emphasis on morality, low cost, and health benefits. It rapidly spread via word-of-mouth, attracting a wide range of adherents from all walks of life, including numerous members of the Chinese Communist Party.

Li charged less than competing ''qigong'' systems for lectures, tapes, and books, and in 1994 had altogether stopped collecting fees for his lectures. With the publication of the books Falun Gong and Zhuan Falun, Li made his teachings more widely accessible. 'Zhuan Falun'', published in January 1995 at an unveiling ceremony held in the auditorium of the Ministry of Public Security, became a best-seller in China.

In 1995, Chinese authorities began looking to Falun Gong to solidify its organizational structure and ties to the party-state. Li was approached by the Chinese National Sports Committee, Ministry of Public Health, and China Qigong Science Research Association (CQRS) to jointly establish a Falun Gong association. Li declined the offer. The same year, the CQRS issued a new regulation mandating that all qigong denominations establish a Communist Party branch. Li again refused.

Tensions continued to mount between Li and the CQRS in 1996. In the face of Falun Gong's rise in popularity, a large part of which was attributed to its low cost, competing ''qigong'' masters accused Li of undercutting them. According to Schechter, the ''qigong'' society under which Li and other ''qigong'' masters belonged asked Li to hike his tuition, but again Li refused, and emphasised the need for the teachings to be free of charge.

In March, 1996, in response to mounting disagreements, Falun Gong withdrew from the Qigong Association, after which time it operated outside the official sanction of the state. Falun Gong representatives attempted to register with other government entities, but were rebuffed. Li and Falun Gong were then outside the circuit of personal relations and financial exchanges through which masters and their ''qigong'' organizations could find a place within the state system, and also the protections this afforded.

1996 – 1999

The rapid rise and influence of Falun Gong received little journalistic attention until mid-1996. Chinese media were not supposed to report on qigong at all, but in 1994 and 1995, after some groups had grown very large, the tone began to shift in order to curb the growth of the qigong practices, some of which had attracted tens of millions of practitioners.

Falun Gong was initially shielded from the mounting criticism of qigong, but following its withdrawal from the CQRS in March 1996, it lost its protection. On 17 June 1996, the ''Guangming Daily'', an influential state-run newspaper, published a polemic against Falun Gong. The author wrote that the history of humanity is a "struggle between science and superstition," and called on Chinese publishers not to print "pseudo-scientific books of the swindlers." The article cited ''Zhuan Falun'' as an example of the rising number of publications riddled with "feudal superstition" (''fengjian mixin'') and "pseudoscience" (''wei kexue''). Until this juncture, Falun Gong had successfully negotiated the space between science and native tradition in the public representation of its teachings, avoiding any suggestion of superstition. The article set off a wave of criticism in the official press, with twenty major newspapers also issuing criticisms of Falun Gong. Soon after, on 24 July, the Central Propaganda Department banned all publication of Falun Gong books (though the ban was not consistently enforced). The state-administered Buddhist Association of China also begans issuing criticisms of Falun Gong, urging lay Buddhists not to take up the practice.

The events were an important challenge to Falun Gong, which practitioners did not take lightly. Thousands of Falun Gong followers wrote to ''Guangming Daily'' and to the CQRS to complain against the measures, claiming that they violated Hu Yaobang's 1982 'Triple No' directive. In other instances, Falun Gong adherents staged peaceful demonstrations outside media or local government offices to request retractions of perceived unfair coverage. Li made statements that practitioners' response to criticism showed their hearts and "would separate the false disciples from the true ones", also indicating that publicly defending the practice was a righteous act and an important aspect of Falun Gong cultivation.

Falun Gong was not the only target of the domestic media criticism, nor the only group to protest, but theirs was the most mobilised and steadfast response. Many of Falun Gong's protests against negative media portrayals were successful, resulting in the retraction of several newspaper stories critical of Falun Gong. This contributed to practitioners' belief that the media claims against them were false or exaggerated, and that their stance was justified.

In June 1998, Tianjin professor He Zuoxiu, brother-in-law of security tsar Luo Gan and an outspoken critic of qigong, appeared on a talk show on Beijing Television and openly disparaged ''qigong'' groups, making particular mention of Falun Gong. Falun Gong practitioners responded with peaceful protests, which was considered audacious under the circumstances, and lobbying of the station. The reporter responsible for the program was reportedly fired, and a program favorable to Falun Gong was aired several days later. Falun Gong practitioners also mounted demonstrations at 14 other media outlets.

In 1997, The Ministry of Public Security launched an investigation into whether Falun Gong should be deemed xie jiao (邪教, “evil religion”). The report concluded that “no evidence has appeared thus far.” The following year, however, on July 21, 1998, the Ministry of Public Security issued Document No. 555, "Notice of the Investigation of Falun Gong." The document asserted that Falun Gong is an “evil religion,” and mandated that another investigation be launched to seek evidence in support of the conclusion. Falun Gong practitioners report having phone lines tapped, homes ransacked and raided, and Falun Gong exercise sites disrupted. In this time period, even as criticism of qigong and Falun Gong mounted in some circles, Falun Gong maintained a number of high-profile supporters. In 1998, Qiao Shi, the recently retired Chairman of the Standing Committee of the National People’s Congress, initiated his own investigation into Falun Gong in response to Document No. 555. After months of investigations, his group concluded that “Falun Gong has hundreds of benefits for the Chinese people and nation, and does not a bit of harm.” Wu Shaozu, an official from China’s National Sports Commission, was at this time quoted in an interview with U.S. News & World Report that as many as 100 million may have taken up Falun Gong and other forms of qigong. Wu noted that the popularity of Falun Gong dramatically reduces health care costs, and that “Premier Zhu Rongji is very happy about that.”

Tianjin and Zhongnanhai protests

By the late 1990s, the Communist Party's relationship to the growing Falun Gong movement had become increasingly tense. Reports of discrimination and surveillance by the Public Security Bureau were escalating, and Falun Gong adherents were routinely organizing sit-in demonstrations responding to media articles they deemed to be unfair. The conflicting investigations launched by the Ministry of the Public Security on one side and the State Sports Commission and Qiao Shi on the other spoke of the disagreements among China’s elites on how to regard the growing practice.

In April 1999, physicist He Zuoxiu published an article critical of Falun Gong in Tianjin Normal University's ''Youth Reader'' magazine. The article cast qigong, and Falun Gong in particular, as superstitious and potentially dangerous. Falun Gong practitioners responded by picketing the offices of the newspaper requesting a retraction of the article.

Unlike past instances in which Falun Gong protests were successful, on April 22 the Tianjin demonstration was broken up by the arrival of three hundred riot police. Some of the practitioners were beaten, and forty-five arrested. Other Falun Gong practitioners were told that if they wished to appeal further, they needed to take the issue up with the Ministry of Public Security and go to Beijing to appeal

The Falun Gong community quickly mobilized a response, and on the morning of April 25, upwards of 10,000 practitioners gathered near the central appeals office to demand an end to the escalating harassment against the spiritual practice, and request the release of the Tianjin practitioners. It was Falun Gong practitioners' attempt to seek redress from the leadership of the country by going to them and, "albeit very quietly and politely, making it clear that they would not be treated so shabbily." Security officers had been expecting them, and corralled the practitioners onto Fuyou Street in front of the Zhongnanhai government compound. They sat or read quietly on the sidewalks surrounding the Zhongnanhai.

As the Falun Gong crowd grew outside Zhongnanhai, President Jiang Zemin received a phone call from Luo Gan informing him of Falun Gong's presence outside the compound. Jiang was reportedly angered by the audacity of the demonstration—the largest since the Tiananmen Square protests ten years earlier.

Five Falun Gong representatives met with Premier Zhu Rongji and other senior officials to negotiate a resolution. The Falun Gong representatives were assured that the regime supported physical exercises for health improvements and did not consider the Falun Gong to be anti-government. Upon reaching this resolution, the crowd of Falun Gong protesters dispersed.

President Jiang Zemin reportedly criticized Premier Zhu for being "too soft" in his handling of the situation. That evening, Jiang composed a letter indicating his desire to see Falun Gong "defeated." In the letter, Jiang expressed concerns over the size and popularity of Falun Gong, and in particular about the large number of senior Communist Party members found among Falun Gong adherents. He also intimated that Falun Gong’s moral philosophy was at odds with the atheist values of Marxist-Leninism, and therefore constituted a form of ideological competition.

Jiang is held by Falun Gong to be personally responsible for this decision to suppress Falun Gong: Peerman cited reasons such as suspected personal jealousy of Li Hongzhi; Saich points to Jiang's anger at Falun Gong's widespread appeal, and ideological struggle as causes for the crackdown that followed. Willy Wo-Lap Lam suggests Jiang's decision to suppress Falun Gong was related to a desire to consolidate his power within the Politburo. According to Human Rights Watch, Communist Party leaders and ruling elite were far from unified in their support for the crackdown;.

Porter writes that He Zuoxiu's article in Tianjin may have been designed to provoke Falun Gong. Porter, along with Gutmann and Zhao, highlight the familial relationship between He and Luo Gan to suggest that the two may have been colluding to bait Falun Gong into protesting at Tianjin, and then at Zhongnanhai, in order to concoct a pretext for suppression: "Things could not have worked out better for the two if they had planned it — which, it appears, they just might have." Luo Gan had been a long-time opponent of Falun Gong, and a World Journal report suggested that certain high-level Party officials wanted to crack down on the practice for years, but lacked sufficient pretext until the protest at Zhongnanhai. After the Zhongnanhai demonstration, Luo Gan was appointed to lead the effort to suppress Falun Gong.

Suppression

On July 20, 1999, security forces abducted and detained thousands of Falun Gong leaders. Two days later on July 22, the PRC Ministry of Civil Affairs outlawed the Falun Dafa Research Society as an illegal organization "engaged in illegal activities, advocating superstition and spreading fallacies, hoodwinking people, inciting and creating disturbances, and jeopardizing social stability.", and the Ministry of Public Security declared it a crime to practice Falun Gong in groups, to possess Falun Gong's teachings, to display Falun Gong banners or symbols, or to protest the ban.

The ensuing campaign aimed to "eradicate" the group through a combination of propaganda, imprisonment, and coercive thought reform of adherents, sometimes resulting in deaths. In October 1999, four months after the ban, legislation was created to outlaw "heterodox religions" and applied to Falun Gong retroactively.

The U.S. State Department cites estimates that up to half of China's reeducation-through-labor camp population is made up of Falun Gong adherents. In some labor camp and prison facilities, the majority of detainees are Falun Gong prisoners of conscience, and Falun Gong inmates are often said to receive the longest sentences and the worst treatment.

According to Johnson, the campaign against Falun Gong extends to many aspects of society, including the media apparatus, police force, military, education system, and workplaces. An extra-constitutional body, the "6-10 Office" was created to "oversee the terror campaign." Human Rights Watch (2002) noted that families and workplaces were urged to cooperate with the government.

In February 2001, in an attempt to show unity, the Communist Party held a Central Work Conference and discussed Falun Gong. Under Jiang's leadership, the crackdown on Falun Gong became part of the Chinese political ethos of "upholding stability" – much the same rhetoric employed by the party during Tiananmen in 1989. Jiang's message was echoed at the 2001 National People's Congress, where Premier Zhu Rongji made special mention of Falun Gong in his outline of the PRC Tenth Five-Year Plan, saying "we must continue our campaign against the Falun Gong cult," effectively tying Falun Gong's eradication to China's economic progress. Though less prominent on the national agenda, the suppression against Falun Gong has carried on during the tenure of Hu Jintao; successive, high-level “strike hard” campaigns against Falun Gong have been initiated in both 2008 and 2009. In 2010, a three-year campaign was launched to renew effects at the coercive “transformation” of Falun Gong adherents.

Speculation on rationale

Foreign observers have attempted to explain the Party’s rationale for banning Falun Gong as stemming from a variety of factors. These include Falun Gong’s popularity, its independence from the state and refusal to toe the Party line, internal power politics within the Communist Party, and Falun Gong’s moral and spiritual content, which put it at odds with the officially atheist ideology.

Willy Wo-Lap Lam writes that president Jiang Zemin’s campaign against Falun Gong may have been used to promote allegiance to himself; Lam quotes one party veteran as saying “by unleashing a Mao-style movement [against Falun Gong], Jiang is forcing senior cadres to pledge allegiance to his line.” ''The Washington Post'' reported that sources indicated not all of the standing committee of the Politburo shared Jiang's view that Falun Gong should be eradicated, but James Tong suggests there was not substantial resistance from the Politburo.

Human Rights Watch notes that the crackdown on Falun Gong reflects historical efforts by the Chinese Communist Party to eradicate religion, which the government believes is inherently subversive. The Chinese government protects five “patriotic,” Communist Party-sanctioned religious groups. Unregistered religions that fall outside the state-sanctioned organizations are thus vulnerable to suppression. ''The Globe and Mail'' wrote : "...any group that does not come under the control of the Party is a threat" Craig Smith of ''the Wall Street Journal'' suggests that the government which has by definition no view of spirituality, lacks moral credibility with which to fight an expressly spiritual foe; the party feels increasingly threatened by any belief system that challenges its ideology and has an ability to organize itself. That Falun Gong, whose belief system represented a revival of traditional Chinese religion, was being practiced by a large number of Communist Party members and members of the military was seen as particularly disturbing to Jiang Zemin. "Jiang accepts the threat of Falun Gong as an ideological one: spiritual beliefs against militant atheism and historical materialism. He [wished] to purge the government and the military of such beliefs".

''Xinhua News Agency,'' the mouthpiece of the Communist Party, declared that Falun Gong is "opposed to the Communist Party of China and the central government, preaches idealism, theism and feudal superstition." Xinhua also asserted that "the so-called 'truth, kindness and forbearance' principle preached by Li has nothing in common with the socialist ethical and cultural progress we are striving to achieve," and argued that it was necessary to crush Falun Gong in order to preserve the "vanguard role and purity" of the Communist Party. Other articles appearing in the state-run media in the first days and weeks of the ban posited that Falun Gong must be defeated because its “theistic” philosophy was at odds with the Marxist-Leninism paradigm and with the secular values of materialism.

Yuezhi Zhao argues that a number of factors contributed to the souring of relations between Falun Gong and the Chinese state and media. These included infighting between China's qigong establishment and Falun Gong, speculation over blackmailing and lobbying by qigong opponents and "scientists-cum-ideologues with political motives and affiliations with competing central Party leaders," which caused the shift in the state's position, and the struggles from mid-1996 to mid-1999 between Falun Gong and the Chinese power elite over the status and treatment of the movement. According to Zhao, Falun Gong practitioners have established a "resistance identity"—one that stands against prevailing pursuits of wealth, power, scientific rationality, and "the entire value system associated with China’s project of modernization." In China the practice represented an indigenous spiritual and moral tradition, a cultural revitalization movement, and drew a sharp contrast to "Marxism with Chinese characteristics."

Vivienne Shue similarly writes that Falun Gong presented a comprehensive challenge to the Communist Party’s legitimacy. Shue argues that Chinese rulers historically have derived their legitimacy from a claim to possess an exclusive connection to the “Truth.” In imperial China, truth was based on a Confucian and Daoist cosmology, where in the case of the Communist Party, the truth is represented by Marxist-Leninism and historical materialism. Falun Gong challenged the Marxist-Leninism paradigm, reviving an understanding based on more traditionally Buddhist or Daoist conceptions. David Ownby contends that Falun Gong also challenged the Communist Party’s hegemony over Chinese nationalist discourse: “[Falun Gong’s] evocation of a different vision of Chinese tradition and its contemporary value is now so threatening to the state and party because it denies them the sole right to define the meaning of Chinese nationalism, and perhaps of Chineseness."

Conversion program

According to James Tong, the regime aimed at both coercive dissolution of the Falun Gong denomination and "transformation" of the practitioners. By 2000 the Party upped its campaign by sentencing "recidivist" practitioners to "re-education through labor", in an effort to have them renounce their beliefs and "transform" their thoughts. Terms were also arbitrarily extended by police, while some practitioners had ambiguous charges levied against them, such as "disrupting social order," "endangering national security," or "subverting the socialist system." According to Bejesky, the majority of long-term Falun Gong detainees are processed administratively through this system instead of the criminal justice system. Upon completion of their re-education sentences, those practitioners who refused to recant were then incarcerated in "legal education centers" set up by provincial authorities to "transform minds".

Much of the conversion program relied on Mao-style techniques of indoctrination and thought reform, where Falun Gong practitioners were organized to view anti-Falun Gong television programs and enroll in Marxism and materialism study sessions. Traditional Marxism and materialism were the core content of the sessions.

The government-sponsored image of the conversion process emphasises psychological persuasion and a variety of "soft-sell" techniques; this is the "ideal norm" in regime reports, according to Tong. Falun Gong reports, on the other hand, depict "disturbing and sinister" forms of coercion against practitioners who fail to renounce their beliefs. 14,474 cases are classified by different methods of torture, according to Tong (Falun Gong agencies document over 63,000 individual cases of torture). Among them are cases of severe beatings; psychological torment, corporal punishment and forced intense, heavy-burden hard labor and stress positions; solitary confinement in squalid conditions; "heat treatment" including burning and freezing; electric shocks delivered to sensitive parts of the body that may result in nausea, convulsions, or fainting; "devastative" forced feeding; sticking bamboo strips into fingernails; deprivation of food, sleep, and use of toilet; rape and gang rape; asphyxiation; and threat, extortion, and termination of employment and student status.

The cases appear verifiable, and the great majority identify (1) the individual practitioner, often with age, occupation, and residence; (2) the time and location that the alleged abuse took place, down to the level of the district, township, village, and often the specific jail institution; and (3) the names and ranks of the alleged perpetrators. Many such reports include lists of the names of witnesses and descriptions of injuries, Tong says. The publication of "persistent abusive, often brutal behavior by named individuals with their official title, place, and time of torture" suggests that there is no official will to cease and desist such activities.

Death Toll

Due to the difficulty in corroborating reports of torture deaths in China, estimates on the number of Falun Gong adherents killed under persecution vary widely. In 2009, the New York Times estimated that “at least 2,000” had died as a result of torture and abuse in custody. Falun Gong sources have reported approximately 3,400 deaths. According to Ethan Gutmann of the Foundation for Defense of Democracies, a likely death toll based on refugee testimony is approximately 65,000.

Media campaign

Leung remarked that the effort was driven by large-scale propaganda through television, newspapers, radio and internet. Within the first month of the crackdown, 300–400 articles attacking Falun Gong appeared in each of the main state-run papers, while primetime television replayed alleged exposés on the group, with no divergent views aired in the media. The "massive propaganda campaign" focused on allegations that Falun Gong jeopardized social stability, was deceiving and dangerous, was "anti-science" and threatened progress, and argued that Falun Gong's moral philosophy was incompatible with a Marxist social ethic.

State propaganda initially used the appeal of scientific rationalism to argue that Falun Gong's worldview was in "complete opposition to science" and communism. The ''People's Daily'' asserted on 27 July 1999, that it "was a struggle between theism and atheism, superstition and science, idealism and materialism." A polarized depiction was created where the scientific worldview represented by Marxist-Leninism was legitimized as "moral and truthful," while the Falun Gong discourse was "evil and deceptive." Anti-Falun Gong propaganda activities dominated the Chinese media during that time as the government justified its actions, arguing that Falun Gong practice was dangerous, and damages people's physical and mental health.

According to China scholars Daniel Wright and Joseph Fewsmith, for several months after Falun Gong was outlawed, China Central Television's evening news contained little but anti-Falun Gong rhetoric charging that it cheats its followers, separates families, damages health, and hurts social stability. The government operation was "a study in all-out demonization," they write. Falun Gong was compared to "a rat crossing the street that everyone shouts out to squash" by ''Beijing Daily''; other officials said it would be a "long-term, complex and serious" struggle to "eradicate" Falun Gong.

David Ownby and Ian Johnson have argued that the Chinese state gave the cultic appellation to Falun Gong by borrowing arguments from Margaret Singer and the West's anti-cult movement to blunt the appeal of Falun Gong. According to John Powers and Meg Y. M. Lee, because the Falun Gong was categorized in the popular perception as an "apolitical, qigong exercise club," it was not seen as a threat to the government. The most critical strategy in the Falun Gong suppression campaign, therefore, was to convince people to reclassify the Falun Gong into a number of "negatively charged religious labels," like "evil cult," "sect," or "superstition." The group's non-violent and relatively silent protests were reclassified as creating "social disturbances." In this process of reclassification and relabelling, the government was attempting to tap into a "deep reservoir of negative feelings related to the historical role of quasi-religious cults as a destabilising force in Chinese political history."

On the eve of Chinese New Year on 23 January 2001, five people attempted to set themselves ablaze on Tiananmen Square. The official Chinese press agency, Xinhua News Agency, and other state media asserted that the self-immolators were practitioners while the Falun Dafa Information Center disputed this, on the grounds that the movement's teachings explicitly forbid suicide and killing, and further alleged that the event was a cruel but clever piece of stunt-work. The incident received international news coverage, and video footage of the burnings were broadcast later inside China by China Central Television (CCTV). Images of a 12 year old girl, Liu Siying, burning and interviews with the other participants in which they stated their belief that self-immolation would lead them to paradise were shown. Falun Gong-related commentators pointed out that the main participants' account of the incident and other aspects of the participants' behavior were inconsistent with the teachings of Falun Dafa. ''Washington Post'' journalist Phillip Pan wrote that the two self-immolators who died were not actually Falun Gong practitioners. ''Time'' reported that prior to the self-immolation incident, many Chinese had felt that Falun Gong posed no real threat, and that the state's crackdown had gone too far. After the event, however, the mainland Chinese media campaign against Falun Gong gained significant traction. As public sympathy for Falun Gong declined, the government began sanctioning "systematic use of violence" against the group. According to Falun Gong websites, the number of Falun Gong adherents tortured to death rose from 245 in 2000 to 419 in 2001.

Falun Gong’s response to suppression

Falun Gong's response to the suppression in China began in July 1999 with appeals to local, provincial and central petitioning offices in Beijing. It soon progressed to larger demonstrations on Tiananmen Square, in which hundreds of Falun Gong adherents traveling daily to the Square to practice Falun Gong exercises or raise banners in defense of the practice. These demonstrations were invariably broken up by security forces, and the practitioners involved were arrested, sometimes violently, and detained. By 25 April 2000, within one year after the demonstration at Zhongnanhai, a total of more than 30,000 practitioners were arrested there, and seven hundred Falun Gong followers were arrested during a demonstration in the Square on 1 January 2001. Public protests continued well into 2001. Writing for the ''Wall Street Journal'', Ian Johnson noted that "Falun Gong faithful have mustered what is arguably the most sustained challenge to authority in 50 years of Communist rule."

By late 2001, demonstrations in Tiananmen Square had become less frequent, and the practice was driven deeper underground. As public protest fell out of favor, practitioners established underground "material sites" which would produce literature and DVDs to counter the portrayal of Falun Gong in the official media. Practitioners then distribute these materials, often door-to-door. Falun Gong sources estimated in 2009 that over 200,000 such sites exists across China today. The production, possession, or distribution of these materials is frequently grounds for security agents to incarcerate or sentence Falun Gong adherents.

In 2002, Falun Gong activists in China tapped into television broadcasts, replacing regular state-run programming with their own content. Among the more notable instances occurred in March 2002, when Falun Gong practitioners in Changchun intercepted eight cable television networks in Jilin Province, and for nearly an hour, televised a program titled "Self-Immolation or a Staged Act?". All six of the Falun Gong practitioners involved were captured and tortured to death.

Outside China, Falun Gong practitioners have set up international media organizations to gain wider exposure for their cause and challenge narratives of the Chinese state-run media. These include ''The Epoch Times'' newspaper, New Tang Dynasty Television, and Sound of Hope radio station. According to Zhao, through The Epoch Times it can be discerned how Falun Gong is building a "de facto media alliance" with China's democracy movements in exile, as demonstrated by its frequent printing of articles by prominent overseas Chinese critics of the PRC government. In 2007, Falun Gong adherents in the United States formed Shen Yun Performing Arts, a dance and music company that tours internationally. Falun Gong software developers in the United States are also responsible for the creation of several popular censorship-circumvention tools employed by internet users in China.

Falun Gong Practitioners outside China have filed dozens of largely symbolic lawsuits against Jiang Zemin, Luo Gan, and other Chinese officials alleging genocide and crimes against humanity. According to ''International Advocates for Justice'', Falun Gong has filed the largest number of human rights lawsuits in the 21st century and the charges are among the most severe international crimes defined by international criminal laws. Ownby stated that 54 civil and criminal lawsuits were under way in 33 countries in 2006. In many instances, courts have refused to adjudicate the cases on the grounds of sovereign immunity. In November 2009, however, Jiang Zemin and other high-ranking Chinese officials are indicted by a Spanish court on charges of genocide and crimes against humanity for their involvement in the suppression of Falun Gong. A month later, an Argentine judge concludes that top Chinese officials Jiang Zemin and Luo Gan had adopted a "genocidal strategy" in pursuing the eradication of Falun Gong, and asks Interpol to seek their arrest.

In May 2011, a lawsuit was filed on behalf of Falun Gong adherents against Cisco. The suit alleges, based mainly on internal Cisco documents, that the technology company "designed and implemented a surveillance system for the Chinese Communist Party, knowing it would be used to root out members of the Falun Gong religion and subject them to detention, forced labor and torture."

Falun Gong outside China

Falun Gong volunteer instructors and Falun Dafa Associations are currently found in over 70 countries outside China, with the most active communities in the United States and Canada. Falun Gong adherents overseas have responded to the suppression in China through regular demonstrations, parades, and through the creation of media outlets, performing arts companies, and censorship-circumvention software mainly intended to reach Mainland Chinese audiences.

Falun Gong was first taught at the Chinese consulate in New York in 1995 as part of the Party's "cultural propaganda to the West," alongside Chinese silk craft and cooking. The consulate at that time also set up Falun Gong clubs at MIT and Columbia University which are active to this day. Starting in 1995, Li himself taught the practice outside of China, chairing a series of conferences in Sweden and at the Chinese embassy in Paris, upon invitation by the PRC ambassador to France. Li taught in Australia and North America in August and October 1996, respectively.

Falun Gong's growth outside China largely corresponded to the migration of students from Mainland China to the West in the early- to mid-1990s, and in North America and Europe, the practice was taught mainly on university campuses. It is organized by regional Falun Dafa Associations and contact persons who volunteer to teach the practice.

International reception

Western governments and human rights organizations have expressed condemnation for the suppression in China and greeted Falun Gong with qualified sympathy. Since 1999 Members of the United States Congress have made public pronouncements and introduced several resolutions in support of Falun Gong. Most recently, House Resolution 605 called for "an immediate end to the campaign to persecute, intimidate, imprison, and torture Falun Gong practitioners," said that Chinese authorities have devoted extensive time and resources over the past decade to distribute "false propaganda" about the practice worldwide, and expressed sympathy to persecuted Falun Gong practitioners and their families.

From 1999–2001, Western media reports on Falun Gong—and in particular, the mistreatment of practitioners—were frequent, if mixed. By the latter half of 2001, however, the volume of media reports declined precipitously, and by 2002, major news organizations like the ''New York Times'' and ''Washington Post'' had almost completely ceased their coverage of Falun Gong from China. In a study of media discourse on Falun Gong, researcher Leeshai Lemish found that Western news organizations also became less balanced, and more likely to uncritically present the narratives of the Communist Party, rather than those of Falun Gong or human rights groups.

The Chinese Communist Party has attempted to mute support for Falun Gong practitioners among politicians, journalists, and academics overseas. This has included visits to newspaper officers by diplomats to "extol the virtues of Communist China and the evils of Falun Gong," linking support for Falun Gong with "jeopardizing trade relations," and sending letters to local politicians telling them to withdraw support for the practice. Pressure on Western institutions also takes more subtle forms, including academic self-censorship, whereby research on Falun Gong could result in a denial of visa for fieldwork in China; or exclusion and discrimination from business and community groups who have connections with China and fear angering the Communist Party. Media organizations and human rights groups also self-censor on the topic, given the PRC governments vehement attitude toward the practice, and the potential repercussions that may follow for making overt representations on Falun Gong's behalf.

Alongside these tactics, the "cult" label applied to Falun Gong by the Chinese authorities never entirely went away in the minds of some Westerners, according to Ownby, and the stigma still plays a role in wary public perceptions of Falun Gong.

Ethan Gutmann, a journalist reporting on China since the early 1990s, has attempted to explain the apparent dearth of public sympathy for Falun Gong as stemming, in part, from the group's shortcomings in public relations. Unlike the democracy activists or Tibetans, who have found a comfortable place in Western perceptions, "Falun Gong marched to a distinctly Chinese drum," Gutmann writes. Moreover, practitioners' attempts at getting their message across carried some of the uncouthness of Communist party culture, including a perception that practitioners tended to exaggerate, create "torture tableaux straight out of a Cultural Revolution opera," or "spout slogans rather than facts." This is coupled with a general doubtfulness in the West of persecuted refugees.

Falun Gong also lacks robust backing from the American constituencies that usually support defense of religious freedom: liberals are wary of Falun Gong's conservative sexual morality, while Christian conservatives don't accord the practice the same space as persecuted Christians. The American political center does not want to push the human rights issue so hard that it would disrupt commercial and political engagement with China. Thus, Falun Gong practitioners have largely had to rely on their own resources.

Adam Frank writes that in reporting on the Falun Gong, the Western tradition of casting the Chinese as "exotic" took dominance, and that "the facts were generally correct, but the normalcy that millions of Chinese practitioners associated with the practice had all but disappeared."

Controversies

Among the most persistent controversies surrounding Falun Gong is its characterization by the PRC government as "xiejiao"—a "heterodox organization," "evil religion," or "evil cult." The view that Falun Gong is a cult, widely used as part of Chinese state propaganda against the practice and adopted by some members of the anti-cult movement, is mostly rejected by mainstream scholarship.

The Chinese Buddhist Association, concerned with Buddhist apostates taking up Falun Gong practice, were the first to term Falun Gong ''xiejiao'' in the latter half of 1996. A direct translation of that term is "heretical teaching," but during the anti-Falun Gong propaganda campaign was rendered as "evil cult" in English. Western media initially adopted this language after the PRC government's media reports, but soon began using less loaded terms.

From July 1999 onward, amidst the suppression of Falun Gong, Chinese authorities sought to portray Li Hongzhi as having enriched himself through the practice, thus giving rise to some debate over whether or not Li made money from the practice in China, and if so, how much. From 1992–1994, while he was giving lecture seminars across China at the invitation of local qigong societies, Li did charge fees to attend his classes. However, his fees were said to be considerably lower than those of competing qigong practices, and the local qigong associations received a substantial share. Li justified the fees as being necessary to cover travel costs and other expenses, and on some occasions, he donated the money earned to charitable causes. In 1994, Li ceased charging fees altogether, thereafter stipulating that Falun Gong must always be taught for free. The practice’s teachings are available for free download online.

Dai Qing (2000) states that by 1997, Li was receiving annual income in excess of ¥10 million through sales of his books, arguing that "Li's income is more legitimate than those of corrupt government officials." However, during the period of Falun Gong's greatest book sales in China, Li Hongzhi did not receive royalties because all publications were bootleg (the texts having been banned by the authorities in 1996 in an attempt to curb the practice's growth).

Although scholars have observed that Falun Gong maintains an informal, non-hierarchical organizational structure, Chinese authorities have sought to portray Falun Gong as a hierarchical and well-funded organization, able to mobilize millions of practitioners. James Tong writes that it was in the government's interest to portray Falun Gong as highly organized: "The more organized the Falun Gong could be shown to be, then the more justified the regime's repression in the name of social order was." He concluded that Party's claims lacked "both internal and external substantiating evidence," and that the despite the arrests and scrutiny, the authorities never "credibly countered Falun Gong rebuttals."

Falun Gong's conservative moral teachings have attracted some controversy in progressive circles in the West. For instance, in 2001 a nomination of Li Hongzhi for the Nobel Peace Prize by San Francisco legislators was withdrawn in light of Falun Gong's teachings on homosexuality as immoral. The Falun Dafa Information Center states that Falun Gong welcomes gays, lesbians, and bisexuals to the practice, that they are not accorded special treatment, and that while Falun Gong teaches that certain practices "generate more karma", this does not equate to a position statement, social stance, or regulation. In discussing the portrayal of Falun Gong as “anti-gay,” Ethan Gutmann remarks that “Falun Gong teachings on this point are essentially indistinguishable from traditional Christianity, Judaism, Islam, and Buddhism.”

Opinions among scholars differ as to whether Falun Gong contains an apocalyptic message, and if so what the consequences of that are. Li maintains that mankind has been destroyed 81 times, and, according to some interpretations, that another round of destruction may be imminent. At least one follower suggested there would be "some sudden change that will be good for good people, but bad for bad people." Richard Gunde, Assistant Director of the Center for Chinese Studies at UCLA, argues that Falun Gong is unlike western cults that fixate on death and Armageddon, but merely promises its followers a long and healthy life. "Falun Gong has a simple, innocuous ethical message," Gunde says, "and its leader, Li Hongzhi, despite his unusual, if not bizarre, statements, is in many ways simple and low key." At the local level Li's fantastic claims seem to be of little theological importance, since Falun Gong practice does not require unquestioning acceptance of all of Li's teachings, and there is no overt emphasis on dogmatically enforcing orthodoxy, according to Craig Burgdoff.

See also

Human rights in the People's Republic of China

References

Further reading

David Ownby, ''Falun Gong and the Future of China'' (Oxford University Press, 2008) ISBN 978-0-19-532905-6

Maria Hsia Chang, ''Falun Gong: The End of Days'' (New Haven, Connecticut: Yale University Press, 2004) ISBN 0-300-10227-5

Danny Schechter, ''Falun Gong's Challenge to China'' (Akashic Books, 2000) hardback ISBN 1-888451-13-0, paperback ISBN 1-888451-27-0

James Tong. “Revenge of the Forbidden City: The suppression of the Falungong in China, 1999-2005.” Oxford University Press, 2009.

Vivienne Shue. “Legitimacy Crisis in China?.” In Peter Hays Gries and Stanley Rosen (eds.), State and Society in 21st-century China. Crisis, Contention, and Legitimation. New York: RoutledgeCurzon, 2004.

Ian Johnson. “Wild Grass: Three Stories of Change in Modern China.” Pantheon: 2004.

External links

Falundafa.org

Faluninfo.net

Clearwisdom.net

Category:Article Feedback Pilot Category:Culture of the People's Republic of China Category:New religious movements Category:Religion in the People's Republic of China Category:Society of the People's Republic of China Category:Meditation Category:Qigong

ar:فالون غونغ az:Falunqun zh-min-nan:Hoat-lûn-kong br:Falun Gong cs:Falun Gong da:Falun Gong de:Falun Gong es:Falun Gong eo:Falun Gong fa:فالون‌گانگ fr:Falun Gong gl:Falun Gong ko:파룬궁 hr:Falun gong id:Falun Gong is:Falun Gong it:Falun Dafa he:פאלון גונג lv:Faluņgun lt:Falun Gong hu:Falun Gong ms:Falun Gong nl:Falun Gong ja:法輪功 no:Falun Gong pl:Falun Gong pt:Falun gong ro:Falun Gong ru:Фалуньгун sq:Falun Dafa simple:Falun Gong sr:Фалун Гонг fi:Falun Gong sv:Falungong tr:Falun Gong uk:Фалунь Дафа vi:Pháp Luân Công zh:法轮功

name	Gong Li
tradchinesename	鞏俐
simpchinesename	巩俐
pinyinchinesename	Gǒng Lì
birth date	December 31, 1965
birth place	Shenyang, China
spouse	Ooi Hoe Soeng (1996–2010)
Hongkongfilmwards	Best Actress2007 ''Curse of the Golden Flower''
Hkfcsawards	Best Actress2007 ''Curse of the Golden Flower''
Goldenroosterawards	Best Actress1993 ''The Story of Qiu Ju''2000 ''Breaking the Silence''
hundredflowersawards	Best Actress1993 ''Raise the Red Lantern''2001 ''Breaking the Silence''Best Supporting Actress1989 Codename Cougar }}

Gong Li (born 31 December 1965) is a film actress. Gong first came into international prominence through close collaboration with Chinese director Zhang Yimou and is credited with helping bring Chinese cinema to Europe and the United States.

She has twice been awarded the Golden Rooster and the Hundred Flowers Awards as well as the Berlinale Camera, Cannes Festival Trophy, National Board of Review, New York Film Critics Circle Award, and Volpi Cup.

She married Singaporean businessman Ooi Hoe Soeng in 1996, and became a Singaporean citizen in 2008.

Early life

Gong Li was born in Shenyang, Liaoning, the youngest in a family of five children. Her father was a professor of economics and her mother, who was 40 when Gong was born, was a teacher. Gong grew up in Jinan, the capital of Shandong.

In 1985, Gong sought to study at China's top music school, but was denied entrance. Later that same year, she was accepted to the prestigious Central Academy of Drama in Beijing and graduated in 1989. While as a student at Central Academy of Drama, she was discovered by Zhang Yimou, who chose her for the lead role in ''Red Sorghum,'' his first film as a director.

Career

Over the next several years after her 1987 debut in ''Red Sorghum'', Gong received international acclaim for her roles in several more Zhang Yimou films: She appeared in ''Ju Dou'' in 1990; Her performance in the Oscar-nominated ''Raise the Red Lantern'' put her in the international spotlight; In ''The Story of Qiu Ju'', she was named Best Actress at the 1992 Venice Film Festival. These roles established her reputation, according to ''Asiaweek'', as "one of the world's most glamorous movie stars and an elegant throwback to Hollywood's golden era." In many of her early movies, Gong Li represents a tragic victim and an abused soul (physically or emotionally), trying to release her self from an impossible maze of corruption, violence and suppression. In ''Raise the Red Lantern'' and ''Shanghai Triad'' an additional tragic element is added to her being as she unintentionally becomes the executer of new innocent victims, making her realize that she has assisted the dark cynical system.

In June 1998, Gong Li became a recipient of France's Ordre des Arts et des Lettres. Two years later, she was invited by the Berlin Film Festival to be the president of its international jury at the festival's 50th anniversary (2001 February).

In 1993 she received a New York Film Critics Circle award for her role in ''Farewell My Concubine''. Directed by Chen Kaige, the film was her first major role with a director other than Zhang Yimou. In the same year, she was awarded with the Berlinale Camera at the 43rd Berlin International Film Festival.

In 2006, ''Premiere Magazine'' ranked her performance in ''Farewell My Concubine'' as the 89th greatest performances of all time.

Gong Li was nominated Goodwill Ambassador of the Food and Agriculture Organization of the United Nations (FAO) on 16 October 2000.

Immune to political repercussions because of her fame, Gong Li began criticizing the censorship policy in China. Her films ''Farewell My Concubine'' and ''The Story of Qiu Ju'' were initially banned in China for being thinly-veiled critiques of the Chinese government. Regarding the sexual content in ''Ju Dou'', Chinese censorship deemed the film "a bad influence on the physical and spiritual health of young people."

Despite her popularity, Gong avoided Hollywood for years, due to a lack of confidence in speaking English. She made her English speaking debut in 2005 when she starred as the beautiful but vindictive Hatsumomo in ''Memoirs of a Geisha''. Her performance was met with generally positive reviews.

Her other English-language roles to date included ''Chinese Box'' in 1997, ''Miami Vice'' in 2006 and ''Hannibal Rising'' in 2007. In all three films, she learned her English lines phonetically. In 2010, She stated that she was becoming more selective with the Chinese language projects offered to her during a press junket for her upcoming film 'Shanghai'.

She narrated "Beijing" (2008), an audio walking tour by Louis Vuitton and Soundwalk, which won an Audie Award for best Original Work (2009).

In 2010, she starred in the World War Two-era thriller 'Shanghai' about an American man, Paul Soames (played by John Cusack) who returns to a corrupt, Japanese-occupied Shanghai four months before Pearl Harbor and discovers his friend has been killed. In this film, Gong plays Anna Lan-Ting, the wife of triad boss Anthony Lan-Ting (played by Chow Yun-fat). Ken Watanabe co-stars as Japanese military intelligence officer Captain Tanaka.

Personal life

Her collaboration with director Zhang Yimou was highly publicized. A film she made with Zhang (''To Live'') (1995) ended their professional relationship; the film was banned in China. They were reunited in 2006 for Zhang's ''Curse of the Golden Flower.''

In 1996, news began circulating that Gong had married the Singaporean tobacco tycoon, Ooi Hoe Soeng (黄和祥). They were married in November 1996 at Hong Kong's China Club.

She was voted the most beautiful woman in China in 2006.

Gong Li applied for Singapore citizenship in early 2008. When overseas professional obligations prevented her from showing up at her scheduled August citizenship ceremony. In an effort to make amends, Gong attended a citizenship ceremony held at Teck Ghee Community Club and received her Singapore citizenship certificate from Member of Parliament Lee Bee Wah.

On 28 June 2010, the chief editor of Chinese entertainment magazine "Southern Entertainment Magazine" revealed that Gong's agent confirmed that Gong Li and her husband Ooi Hoe Soeng (黄和祥) had divorced.

Gong was a spokeswoman for Shanghai Tang clothing store.

Filmography

{|class="wikitable" style="font-size: 90%;" border="2" cellpadding="4" background: #f9f9f9; |- align="center" ! style="background:#B0C4DE;" | Year ! style="background:#B0C4DE;" | Title ! style="background:#B0C4DE;" | Role ! style="background:#B0C4DE;" | Awards |- |1987 |''Red Sorghum''红高梁 |Jiu'er | |- |rowspan=3|1989 |''The Empress Dowager''西太后 |Guilian | |- |''Mr. Sunshine''開心巨無霸 | | |- |''Codename Cougar''代号美洲豹 |Ah Li |Hundred Flowers Award for Best Supporting Actress |- |rowspan=2|1990 |''A Terracotta Warrior''秦俑 |Winter/Lili Chu |Nominated – Hong Kong Film Award for Best Actress |- |''Ju Dou''菊豆 |Ju Dou |First Chinese film nominated for an Academy Award, entered at Cannes |- |rowspan=3|1991 |''God of Gamblers III: Back to Shanghai''賭俠2之上海灘賭聖 |Yu-Sin/Yu-Mong | |- |''Raise the Red Lantern''大红灯笼高高挂 |Songlian |Hundred Flowers Awards for Best Actress |- |''The Banquet''豪門夜宴 |Waitress at banquet | |- |rowspan=2|1992 |''The Story of Qiu Ju''秋菊打官司 |Qiu Ju |Golden Rooster Awards for Best ActressVolpi Cup for Best ActressGolden Phoenix Awards for Best Female Actor |- |''Mary from Beijing''夢醒時分 |Mary | |- |rowspan=2|1993 |''Farewell My Concubine''霸王别姬 |Juxian | New York Film Critics Circle Award for Best Supporting Actress |- |''Flirting Scholar''唐伯虎點秋香 |Chou Heung | |- |rowspan=4|1994 |''Dragon Chronicles: The Maidens of Heavenly Mountain''新天龍八部之天山童姥 |Mo Han-Wen | |- |''A Soul Haunted by Painting''画魂 |Pan Yuliang | |- |''To Live''活着 |Xu Jiazhen |Nominated – Chlotrudis Award for Best Actress |- |''The Great Conqueror's Concubine''西楚霸王 |Lü Zhi | |- |1995 |''Shanghai Triad''摇啊摇，摇到外婆桥 |Xiao Jingbao | |- |1996 |''Temptress Moon''风月 |Pang Ruyi |Nominated – Hong Kong Film Award for Best Actress |- |1997 |''Chinese Box''中國匣子 |Vivian | |- |1998 |''The Emperor and the Assassin''荆柯刺秦王 |Lady Zhao | |- |2000 |''Breaking the Silence''漂亮妈妈 |Sun Liying |Golden Rooster Awards for Best ActressMontreal World Film Festival for Best ActressGolden Phoenix Awards for Best ActressHundred Flowers Awards for Best ActressShanghai Film Critics Awards for Best Actress |- |2002 |''Zhou Yu's Train''周渔的火车 |Zhou Yu |Students' Choice Award for Favourite Actress |- |rowspan=2|2004 |''2046'' |Su Li Zhen |Wong Kar-wai, director |- |''Eros''爱神 |Miss Hua | |- |2005 |''Memoirs of a Geisha''艺伎回忆录 |Hatsumomo |National Board of Review Award for Best Supporting ActressNominated – Satellite Award for Best Supporting Actress - Motion Picture |- |rowspan=2|2006 |''Miami Vice''迈阿密风暴 |Isabella | |- |''Curse of the Golden Flower''满城尽带黄金甲 |Empress Phoenix |Hong Kong Film Award for Best ActressHong Kong Film Critics Award for Best ActressNominated – Asian Film Awards for Best Actress |- |2007 |''Hannibal Rising''沉默的羔羊前传之揭开罪幕 |Lady Murasaki Shikibu Lecter | |- |2010 |''Shanghai''諜海風雲 |Anna Lan-Ting | |- |2011 |''What Women Want''我知女人心 |Li Yilong | |}

See also

Cinema of China

References

External links

Category:1965 births Category:Living people Category:Best Actress HKFA Category:Chinese actors Category:Singaporean people of Chinese descent Category:Immigrants to Singapore Category:People from Shenyang Category:People from Jinan Category:Singaporean actors Category:Central Academy of Drama alumni

ar:جونج لي da:Gong Li de:Gong Li el:Γκονγκ Λι es:Gong Li eo:Gong Li eu:Gong Li fa:گونگ لی fr:Gong Li ko:공리 (배우) id:Gong Li it:Gong Li he:גונג לי jv:Gong Li hu:Gong Li mr:कोंग ली nl:Gong Li ja:コン・リー no:Gong Li pl:Gong Li pt:Gong Li ro:Gong Li ru:Гун Ли sq:Gong Li sh:Gong Li fi:Gong Li sv:Gong Li th:กง ลี่ tr:Gong Li vi:Củng Lợi zh:巩俐

Name	Li Hongzhi
Birth date	May 13, 1951(according to Li Hongzhi)July 07, 1952(according to Chinese government)
Birth place	Gongzhuling, Jilin, China
Residence	United States
Nationality	Chinese
Known for	Founding of Falun Gong
Footnotes	}}

Li Hongzhi (; born 13 May 1951 or 7 July 1952) is the founder and spiritual master of Falun Gong (or ''Falun Dafa''), a "system of mind-body cultivation" in the ''qigong'' tradition. Li Hongzhi introduced Falun Gong on 13 May 1992 in Changchun, and subsequently gave lectures and taught Falun Gong exercises across China. The movement gained significant popularity in the 1990s, but was suppressed by the Chinese government in 1999.

Accounts of Li's early life differ between detractors and supporters. Official Chinese sources say that Li was an ordinary army grain clerk and trumpet player, while the Falun Gong text ''Zhuan Falun'' says that Li was trained by a Buddhist and Taoist masters from childhood and possessed extraordinary powers. Falun Gong's teachings are compiled from Li's lectures, and Li holds definitional power in that belief system. Li moved to the United States in 1996 and continues to teach the practice.

Early life

There are competing accounts of Li's life that surfaced before and after Falun Gong was banned in July 1999. David Ownby believes that both accounts should be treated with a healthy dose of skepticism. In ''Falun Gong and the future of China'', Ownby said that Li Hongzhi was born Li Lai, on 27 July 1952, and that his parents divorced whilst he was a toddler. The biography in ''China Falun Gong'' (1992) states that Li was "completely poverty-stricken" with his mother "relying on a wage of some 30 yuan to bring up the whole family" The 1994 edition of ''Zhuan Falun'' states that Li was born into a "white-collar", "ordinary intellectual" family.

Chinese authorities say that Li studied at primary and junior high middle schools in Changchun between 1960 and 1969. Growing up during the Cultural revolution, Li's formal education was adversely affected. According to the Chinese government biography, Li held "a series of unremarkable jobs": between 1970 and 1972, Li worked at an army stud farm; from 1972 to 1978, was a trumpet player in a forest police unit in Jilin Province, and then served as an attendant at a hotel attached to the same unit. From 1982 to 1991 he worked at the security department of the Changchun Cereals Company.

Li says that he was born on 13 May 1951 in Gongzhuling, Jilin province. The Chinese authorities say that he was born on 7 July 1952. In 1994, he fell out with a faction in Changchun which wanted to open a clinic where they would presumably hold their own fee-charging workshops but was rebuffed by Li, and its members were expelled from the movement. This group would send a three-volume report to several government ministries in late 1994, denouncing Li and Falun Gong and saying that Li had no superpowers and was unable to cure people — including the first time allegation that Li had altered his birthdate to that of Sakyamuni. Falun Gong replied to the various recipients in detail on 2 February 1995. In 1999, the Chinese government once again asserted that he modified his birth date, citing a Changchun Public Security Bureau document dated 24 September 1994, whereby Li formally altered his birthday. Li rejected the accusation as a "smear", and asserted that his recorded birth date of 7 July 1952 was just one of the pervasive bureaucratic errors during the Cultural Revolution. In the end of 1999, a Hong Kong World News reporter paid a visit to the Changchun Public Security Bureau to investigate and confirmed that Mr. Li Hongzhi had changed back to his correct birth date. After the reporter's visit, one policemen was fired and twenty-one policemen were punished in Changchun Public Security Bureau in January 2000. He denied that he saw any particular significance to it, saying "Many criminals were also born on that date. I have never said that I am Sakyamuni." In the book Zhuan Falun Fajie published in 1997, people can find following question and answer: "Question: Who were you in your previous life? Teacher: I’m just Li Hongzhi. By no means am I Buddha Shakyamuni."

Spiritual biography

Li says that his human life is of no particular importance to his teachings, and the biography that appeared as an appendix to the Falun Dafa text ''Zhuan Falun'' focuses only on spiritual aspects, displaying similarities to biographies of other ''qigong'' masters and men who claimed to be holy in Chinese history. According to the ''Zhuan Falun'' biography, Li Hongzhi had been taught ways of "cultivation practice" (''xiulian'') by several Masters of the ''Dao'' and the Buddhist disciplines of thought from a very young age. At four, he was trained by Quan Jue, the Tenth Heir to the Great Law of the Buddha School. By age eight, he had acquired "the superb great law with supernatural powers", which was supposed to include invisibility, levitation, etc. Li also became compassionate and developed an altruistic moral code. Master Quan left him at age twelve, to be replaced by Taoist master Baji Zhenren.

A third Master arrived in 1972 from the Great Way School with the Taoist (alias of ''True Taoist'', ''Zhendaozi''), who had come from the Changbai Mountains near the North Korean border. The True Taoist taught Li the way of inner cultivation through ''Qigong'', stressing ''xinxing'' (i.e. "mind or heart nature, moral character"). Due to the Cultural Revolution, Li only practiced Qigong at night. A fourth Master - a woman from the Buddha School - trained Li after the True Taoist's departure in 1974. After training with these four Masters, Li's "energy potency had reached a very high level." The biography goes on to state that he has received training from over twenty masters in his lifetime and that "Some of his supernatural powers are difficult for ordinary people to imagine or understand."

In ''Zhuan Falun'', Li further claims 'miracles' he performed that while practising with disciples in 1990. For example, he was able to push away stormy weather and hold off rain for the whole duration of the practice session, and "half an hour" afterwards. His personal development plateaued around this time, with the biography stating that Li was able "to see the truth of the universe, many more beautiful things which have existed there for a long time, as well as the origin, development and future of mankind."

After Falun Gong's ban in mainland China in 1999, new editions of Falun Gong's books no longer contain biographies of Li. These changes seem to reflect a larger trend of Li retreating from the public eye. Since 2000 he has very rarely appeared in public, his presence almost entirely being electronic or re-routed through quotations on Falun Gong's websites. Li Hongzhi's biography were removed from Falun Gong websites some time after 2001.

Falun Gong

According to ''Zhuan Falun'', Falun Gong's system was developed between 1984 and 1989 after years of synthesis from general ''Qigong'' principles and advice from Masters of numerous religious and spiritual schools. It claims to have "assembled all the mystical powers, which are the essence of the whole cosmos."

Li Hongzhi introduced ''Falun Dafa'', or the Great Law of the Wheel of Dharma, on 13 May 1992 at the fifth Middle School in Changchun, Jilin. From 1992 to 1994 he traveled throughout China, giving lectures and teaching Falun Gong exercises; His following grew rapidly. Li's success was largely linked to the huge popularity enjoyed by ''Qigong'' in the late 1980s and early 1990s under Deng Xiaoping's social liberalization. He differentiated Falun Gong by prioritising "accessibility to the public" and moral content, away from esoteric notions often found in other Qigong systems.

Falun Gong's teachings are compiled from Li's lectures, and he holds definitional power in the Falun Gong belief system. Li was also critical of alternative systems within the ''Qigong'' movement, stating it was "rife with false teachings and greedy and fraudulent 'masters'" and set out to rectify it. Li said that Falun Gong was a part of a "centuries-old tradition of cultivation," and in his texts would often attack those who taught "incorrect, deviant, or heterodox ways." Li differentiated Falun Gong from other movements in Qigong by emphasizing moral values aimed to "purify one's heart and attain spiritual salvation." rather than what he saw as undue emphasis on physical health and the development of supernatural powers.

Ian Johnson points out that during the greatest period of Falun Gong book sales in China, Li Hongzhi never received any royalties because all publications were bootleg. Li's success also had a large part to do with people seeking effective alternative medicine treatments at a time when China's health care system was struggling desperately to meet demand. As the Master of the Falun Gong cultivation system, Li claimed to "purify the students' bodies" and "unblock their main and collateral channels" and in doing so "remove the root of their disease," if they were ill. He also reputedly planted a ''Falun'' or "law wheel" in the abdomen of each student, and other "energy mechanisms" in other parts of their bodies. Li also described how his "Law bodies" will protect each practitioner and how he "clear[s] up the students' house and places of practice and then put[s]'a covering of safety'".

According to Falun Gong groups, Li's success was recognized at the 1992 and 1993 Beijing Oriental Health Expo, where he gave three lectures instead of one due to popular demand, and received numerous "special awards". In March 1995, Li Hongzhi arrived in France at the invitation of China's ambassador there, beginning seven days of lectures in Paris. This was followed in May by a lecture series in Sweden. Li has lived in the United States since 1998.

Life abroad

On 10 May 1999, Li gave an interview with ''Time'', during which he stated that "human moral values are no longer good" and reiterated Falun Gong's differentiation from other ''Qigong'' groups. He also expounded on the "Dharma-ending period" and claimed the existence of aliens were corrupting human beings. He avoided questions about his personal background, stating, "I don't wish to talk about myself at a higher level. People wouldn't understand it."

On 29 July 1999, after Falun Gong was banned, the Chinese government levelled a series of charges against Li, including the charge of "disturbing public order." At that time, Li Hongzhi was living in the United States. The Chinese government's request to Interpol for his arrest was rejected on the grounds that the request was a matter "of a political or religious character" and lacked information on any "ordinary law crime he would have committed" The Chinese government also revoked his passport, preventing him from traveling internationally.

Li Hongzhi has received awards and proclamations in a number of countries. These include certificates of recognition from several governmental bodies in the United States - including Honorary Citizenship awarded by The State of Georgia and city of Atlanta. In 14 March 2001, The Freedom House bestowed Li Hongzhi and Falun Gong with an International Religious Freedom Award for the advancement of religious and spiritual freedom at a ceremony in the United States Senate. In the same year, Li was ranked the most powerful communicator in Asia by ''Asiaweek'' magazine "for his power to inspire, to mobilize people and to spook Beijing."

An attempt to nominate Li Hongzhi for the Nobel Peace Prize in 2001 by Bay Area legislators was withdrawn after they were notified of Falun Gong's views on homosexuality.

Bibliography

Falun Gong. Considered an introductory exposition of the principles of Falun Gong and the traditional Chinese concept of cultivation practice, along with descriptions of the exercises of Falun Gong. First published in April 1993.

Nine Day Lectures on Falun Dafa. From 1992 to 1994, Li Hongzhi presented his teachings across China, the contents of which were ultimately edited and compiled into the book ''Zhuan Falun''. The teachings entailed a one to two hour lecture on each of 8 to 10 consecutive days. Exercise instruction was offered thereafter. The final of these lecture series, delivered in Guangzhou, China, in 1994, were recorded live and they form a central part of Falun Gong's teachings.

Zhuan Falun-''Turning the Law Wheel''. Considered the central and most comprehensive exposition of the teachings of Falun Gong. First published in January 1995.

Hong Yin ''- Grand Verses''. A collection of short poems written by Li, often touching upon issues pertinent to the traditional Chinese concept of cultivation practice.

Lectures and Writings. Transcripts of Lectures delivered by Li and articles periodically published by him also form a central part of Falun Gong's teachings.

References

External links

;Li Hongzhi's teachings

Videos of Li Hongzhi's nine day lecture in Guangzhou, China (With English overlay) at falundafa.org

"Some Thoughts of Mine", June 1999 at falundafa.org

Book: Practitioners recollection about their Teacher at clearwisdom.net

The actual teachings of Li Hongzhi at falundafa.org

;Interviews

Category:1951 births Category:Living people Category:Chinese dissidents Category:Falun Gong Category:Founders of religions Category:People from Jilin Category:Chinese religious leaders

de:Li Hongzhi es:Li Hongzhi fr:Li Hongzhi ko:리훙즈 hr:Li Hongzhi it:Li Hongzhi nl:Li Hongzhi ja:李洪志 no:Li Hongzhi pl:Li Hongzhi ru:Ли Хунчжи sr:Ли Хонгџи sv:Li Hongzhi vi:Lý Hồng Chí zh:李洪志

{{infobox skier|name	Petter Northug
fullname	Petter Northug Jr.
birth date	January 06, 1986
birth place	Levanger, Norway
height
club	Strindheim IL
skis	Fischer
seasons	2005–
wins	10
additionalpodiums	11
totalpodiums	21 }}

}}

Petter Northug Jr. (born 6 January 1986) is a Norwegian cross country skier and double Olympic champion. He has 9 World Championship and Winter Olympic gold medals with 13 medals overall, and nine individual FIS Cross-Country World Cup wins with 20 podium places. Northug is widely considered the world's best cross-country skier.

Early life and career

During his first years, Northug was generally considered a star of the future. Whilst he was still a junior Verdens Gang newspaper reported in November 2005 that "the ski manufacturers are fighting to get Northug". Fischer won his signature, and his contract included a base salary (the first time ever for a junior), which would be multiplied by five if he made the Norwegian elite team for 2006/07, which he did. The contract also offered bonuses if he won medals in the junior World Championships.

Northug has six gold medals from junior World Championships. His first two gold medals came in 2004/05 in the pursuit and the 10 km freestyle in Rovaniemi, then in 2005/06 in Kranj he won gold in the 10 km classic, the pursuit, the sprint, and the relay. He also has two silver medals (one in the sprint, and one in the relay, both in 2004/05). His victories made him the first athlete ever to win five individual gold medals at the FIS Junior Nordic World Ski Championships. During 2005/06 he also took part in the Norwegian National Championships, and won the double pursuit race, beating Frode Estil by 1.9 seconds, and became the first junior to ever win a Norwegian National Championship.

Before he joined the World Cup he competed in a few Continental Cup meetings, but mostly in the Scandinavian Cup. During his Scandinavian Cup career (2004/05 & 2005/06) he had seven podium finishes, he came second once in 2004/05, and in 2005/06 he scored four victories, and two second places.

Athletic career

The 2005/06 season was Northug's first in the World Cup, although he competed in one race the season before, a sprint in Drammen, he came 35th. During the 2005/06 season he shared his time equally between the World Cup and the Scandinavian Cup, although in early May 2006 it was announced that Northug would be in the senior national team for the 2006/07 season. Northug also claimed his first World Cup victory in the 2005/06 season, in a pursuit race in Falun, beating 2005/06 World Cup winner Tobias Angerer, who came second, and 2004/05 overall champion Axel Teichmann was third. Then in the last race of the year, a pursuit in Sapporo he claimed another podium place, coming second. He lost to Mathias Fredriksson by 3.8 seconds. He also came seventh, tenth, and twelfth in sprint races, and fifteenth in the 50 km freestyle in Holmenkollen. Northug finished the 2005/06 World Cup season in 14th place overall. He also finished 14th in the distance standings, and 24th in the sprint.

After Norway's disappointing display at the 2006 Winter Olympics, the Norwegian press questioned why Northug was not taken to the games. Northug himself admitted he was disappointed after not getting selected, especially as he had won the double pursuit in the National Championships earlier in the year.

Northug won his first gold medal at the FIS Nordic World Ski Championships in Sapporo as a member of the 4 x 10 km relay in 2007. He added three more golds at the FIS Nordic World Ski Championships 2009 in Liberec, earning them in the 15 km + 15 km double pursuit, 4 x 10 km relay and 50 km freestyle mass start.

Northug was the runner up to the overall World Cup in the 2008/2009 season, losing to the Swiss Dario Cologna after leading before the final races.

Northug finished in an extremely disappointing 41st place in the first Cross Country event during the 2010 Winter Olympics in Vancouver, Canada. A day later, Northug responded with a bronze medal in the Sprint Event. This success was short lived however, as he broke his pole in the end of the 30 km pursuit. He then won his first Olympic gold, in the Team Sprint, alongside Øystein Pettersen.

Days later he was skiing the anchor leg in the 4 x 10 km relay. When he took over from Lars Berger who was skiing the 3rd leg, he was 37.5 seconds behind the lead group. Despite this he managed to perform his incredibly fast finish to catch and overtake France and the Czech Republic to win Norway a silver medal.

Northug won the Men's 50 kilometre classic at the 2010 Winter Olympics. Less than two weeks later, he won the 50 kilometre freestyle event at the Holmenkollen, becoming the first skier to win the 50 km at the Winter Olympics, World Championships, and Holmenkollen since Sweden's Gunde Svan reached that triple crown in 1988.

In September 2010 details of Northug's sponsorship contract with soft drink manufactuer Red Bull were publicized by Norwegian broadcaster TV 2, which did not divulge its sources, revealing the most profitable sponsorship agreement with an individual athlete in Norwegian history. For four years, until after the 2014 Winter Olympics, Northug will be receiving a minimum of NOK 1 million annually with a prospect of getting twice the amount if his performances equal those in his most recent seasons. During the 2011 World Championship, he gained widespread international attention when he controversially crossed the finish-line sideways after convincingly beating his opponents. The gesture was regarded as utterly disrespectful, most notably towards his most fierce rival, Marcus Hellner.

Personal life

He has two brothers, Even and Tomas. Northug finished school in 2006, but during the summer of 2005 he changed schools from Steinkjer to Meråker and moved into a cabin next to the ski trails to optimize his training conditions.

Petter Northug participated and cashed (on 653rd place) in the 2010 World Series of Poker main event.

Career highlights

;Olympic Games :2010 Vancouver 1st, 50 km classic :2010 Vancouver 3rd, Sprint classic :2010 Vancouver 1st, Team sprint (with Øystein Pettersen) :2010 Vancouver 2nd, 4x10 km relay (with Johnsrud Sundby / Hjelmeset / Berger)

;FIS Nordic World Ski Championships :2011 - Oslo 1st, 50 km freestyle :2011 - Oslo 1st, 4x10 km relay (with Johnsrud Sundby / Rønning / Gjerdalen) :2011 - Oslo 1st, 30 km pursuit :2011 - Oslo 2nd, 1.5 km freestyle sprint :2011 - Oslo 2nd, Team sprint (with Ola Vigen Hattestad) :2009 - Liberec 1st, 50 km freestyle :2009 - Liberec 1st, 4x10 km relay (with Ruud Hofstad / Hjelmeset / Rønning) :2009 - Liberec 1st, 2x15 km pursuit :2007 - Sapporo 1st, 4x10 km relay (with Rønning / Hjelmeset / Berger) :2007 - Sapporo 7th, team sprint (with Tor Arne Hetland) :2007 - Sapporo 5th, 2x15 km pursuit :2007 - Sapporo 24th, 15 km freestyle

;FIS Nordic Junior World Ski Championships :2005 - Rovaniemi 1st, 2x10 km pursuit :2005 - Rovaniemi 1st, 10 km freestyle :2005 - Rovaniemi 2nd, classic sprint :2005 - Rovaniemi 2nd, 4x5 km relay (with Markset / Hafsås / Svendsen) :2006 - Kranj 1st, 1 km freestyle sprint :2006 - Kranj 1st, 10 km classic :2006 - Kranj 1st, 2x10 km pursuit :2006 - Kranj 1st, 4x5 km relay (with Elvestad / Olsen / Sæves)

;Tour de Ski :2006/2007 - 4th :2007/2008 - 8th :2008/2009 - 2nd :2009/2010 - 2nd :2010/2011 - 2nd

;Overall World Cup :2005/2006 - 14th :2006/2007 - 7th :2007/2008 - 12th :2008/2009 - 2nd :2009/2010 - 1st

;World Cup podiums :2006 - Falun 1st, 2x10 km pursuit :2006 - Sapporo 2nd, 2x15 km pursuit :2006 - La Clusaz 2nd, 4x10 km relay (with Hetland / Rønning / Bjørndalen) :2007 - Asiago 3rd, 1.2 km freestyle sprint :2007 - Lahti 1st, 1.2 km freestyle sprint :2008 - Asiago 1st, 1.2 km freestyle sprint :2008 - Gällivare 3rd, 15 km freestyle :2008 - Gällivare 1st, 4x10 km relay :2008 - La Clusaz 1st, 30 km freestyle mass start :2008 - La Clusaz 1st, 4x10 km relay (with Hetland / Sundby / Gjerdalen) :2009 - Lahti 1st, 1.2 km freestyle sprint :2009 - Trondheim 2nd, 1.2 km classical sprint :2009 - Kuusamo 1st, 15 km classical :2009 - Rogla 1st, classical sprint :2009 - Rogla 1st, 30 km classical mass start :2010 - Drammen 2nd, classical sprint :2010 - Holmenkollen 1st, 50 km freestyle mass start

;Norwegian National Championships :2007 - Grova 1st, 15 km freestyle :2008 - Granåsen 3rd, 15 km freestyle :2008 - Granåsen 3rd, 2x15 km pursuit

References

External links

Official website

Category:1986 births Category:Cross-country skiers at the 2010 Winter Olympics Category:Holmenkollen winners Category:Living people Category:Norwegian cross-country skiers Category:Olympic cross-country skiers of Norway Category:Olympic bronze medalists for Norway Category:Olympic gold medalists for Norway Category:Olympic silver medalists for Norway Category:People from Mosvik Category:Olympic medalists in cross-country skiing

ca:Petter Northug cs:Petter Northug da:Petter Northug de:Petter Northug et:Petter Northug fr:Petter Northug ko:페테르 노르투그 is:Petter Northug it:Petter Northug lv:Peters Nurtugs nl:Petter Northug no:Petter Northug nn:Petter Northug pl:Petter Northug ru:Нортуг, Петтер sk:Petter Northug fi:Petter Northug sv:Petter Northug uk:Петтер Нортуг