Who are Falun Gong?



Truthfulness, compassion, tolerance. It's difficult to argue against these ideals. But the Chinese government do.
They are the watchwords of Falun Gong, a Chinese movement stemming from the ancient practice of meditation and exercise of Qigong. Started in 1992, it spread so quickly, its membership running into millions, that the government saw it as a dissident movement and the persecution began.
Among them are the Falun Gong artists, who are having major exhibitions in the West. There are two in London and two in Scotland, in Dundee and Aberdeen, with 40 works displayed. The New York Art Centre has assembled 61 works.
These are highly figurative artists and most of the works, visitors are told, are prints because of the difficulty of transport. But it's impossible to ignore the way the paintings glow with the certainty and belief of the artist, as well as a high technical ability. The faces catch and hold the attention, and, at best, can be reminiscent of the power of an El Greco face.
Many of the artists' work is concentrated on the imprisonment and torture inflicted on Falun Gong members since 1999, when it was outlawed,and since when an estimated 3000 have died in prison. The East Asian team of the Amnesty International international secretariat confirms this persecution, adding that it has grown greatly since the Olympic Games were held in Bejing. This is attributed to a growing feeling of insecurity in the Chinese government because of the opening up to global influences, even though they are now seen as one of the major economic powers. Perhaps that growing power in the world is one reason why little is known or heard either of Falun Gong or its artists and the unrelenting torture and rape in the prison cells of its members.
The paintings, seen in one exhibition, can unexpectedly hit the heart. An oil on canvas, by Xiqiang Dong, "My Son", has a mother's eyes peering into ours, asking why. In one arm she holds the dead body of her son and in the other a medical release slip. Prisoners are usually sent to die at home.
Another oil on canvas by Xiaoping Chen shows a young woman singing to her captor, drawn from the story of an American woman who supported Falun Gong and was arrested in Tiananmen Square
Yuan Li's "A Tragedy in China" shows a young woman sitting on a bed with her dead husband beside her with in one hand a torn, unsigned paper that reads "brainwashing papers" with his ankles still in iron hackles and with a wounded, bloodstained abdomen.
Not all deal with the persecution. Xiqiang Dong's "After the Parade" shows a woman gazing in fulfilment after the days' events, wearing traditional clothing, with a lotus flower cupped in her hand. Falun Gong followers have been returning to their roots, going back to the time before Communist rule and searching for the renewal of their proud and ancient culture.
But they have a hard fight ahead, in which many are likely to die. There are also reports of a massive trade in transplanted organs from victims, hard to verify, but which are under intense investigation. It is a huge industry in China. Amnesty International neither discount nor confirm them, but the European Parliament Vice President, Edward McMillan Scott, has condemned it saying there is enough circumstantial evidence to alert the international community to what amounts to genocide.
Amnesty International finds there is little international attention focused on this and on the high level of persecution in China of Falun Gong. Guards are given forms for each prisoner with instructions to get them to sign to their guilt, motivating guards to abuse the prisoners in any way they want.
In the past two years, there has been an increase in the crackdown on human rights in China, and no let up in the persecution of Falun Gong both before and after the Olympics. There was a very high level of persecution last year, according to Amnesty International, and the growing fear in the government of groups claiming freedom is likely to lead to higher levels this year.
The persecutions in 1999 brought with it accusations by the government of conspiracy with the US. But it is now the freedom of the movement which the Chinese government fears. With the artists now exhibiting freely in the West and with its own art organisation in Britain and an application for charitable status, Falun Gong and its art is now likely to thrive overseas, at least. When will the Chinese follow and stop the persecution?

In the final stages of the last war, what the British called "pilotless planes" terrorised London. The bombing blitzes of the earlier years of the war had passed. These could produce equal and even worse destruction.
Produced by the Nazis with slave labour, there were two types. The first was the VI. You could hear it coming, slowly, then the engine sound would break off, and a few seconds later there would be an almighty explosion. They were not, apparently, aimed at anywhere in particular. It might be a hospital, the Cafe de Paris, a school. The result was the same - total death and destruction.
The later type, the V2, arrived in 1945, the year the war ended. This was even more frightening. There was a short warning of the VI arrival, from the forces keeping watch on the coast, and from the noise of its engine. You only knew the V2 had arrived when its deadly cargo landed on its random target. I was in hospital in London, having a minor operation on my neck, during the V2 blitz. Recovery meant lying in bed and waiting for the next huge explosion,. There would usually be three or four each day - there may have been more, but these were the ones I heard from the hospital in Marylebone. It just meant that you lay there waiting for the next one to land on the hospital.
The US bombers were still taking off nightly from their bases 40 miles away at Newbury, and elsewhere in the West,sto bomb Berlin. But there was no protection against the V2's, no air raid warnings, no hope of getting to a shelter.
And now it is happening again. This time they are called Drones, and it is the Americans, not the Nazis, who are operating them. The Unmanned Ariel Vehicles, their formal name, are targeted and directed through space technology. In Afghanistan, hundreds of people have been killed by drone attacks and Israel, which also uses them, has been accused of killing Palestinians during the January attack. They are being used extensively in Pakistan.
Pilots in California operate the drones 7000 miles away over Iraq. They can see the results of the damage and death they have caused on their computer screens. They are said to be suffering battlefield type stress, and if they have any hearts, no wonder.
There has been high-level condemnation of drones, both in the US and here, where Professor Paul Rogers, the eminent peace studies academic, believes that drone deployments would be better termed as air raids. He thinks that the drone attacks in western Pakistan are actually helping and encouraging support for Al Quaeda. Lord Bingham, recently the senior law lord, has compared them to cluster bombs and landmines and said that some weapons were so cruel as to be beyond the pale of human tolerance.
Peaceful local gatherings have been massacred by the descent of a drone. Children are killed, homes destroyed. And, by the way, drones are developed, as well as in other places, in Staffordshire and Wales.