Word: falun
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...smoky haze around the snowy square has dissipated, the questions surrounding the dramatic incident have not. A Beijing arm of the outlawed spiritual group Falun Gong strongly suggested the protesters, one of whom died, were devotees. "We heeded a call from our master to strengthen our fight against evil," said a member of the group based in the Chinese capital. Yet hours later, Falun Gong's New York head office distanced itself from the act: "This so-called suicide attempt on Tiananmen Square has nothing to do with Falun Gong practitioners because the teachings of Falun Gong prohibit any form...
...This lack of solidarity is adding to a growing desperation among the meditation group's rank and file, many of whom feel out of touch with their exiled master and misguided by his overseas ministers. Ever since Beijing outlawed it as an "evil cult" two years ago, Falun Gong?an eclectic mix of Taoism, Buddhism and Qigong breathing exercises?has prided itself on its organizational acumen. In April 1999, the group achieved the impossible, silently assembling 10,000 adherents in front of Beijing's walled leadership compound. Even as thousands of its members were thrown into labor camps and more...
...Certainly, the government would be delighted by any disarray within the group's ranks. Despite an unrelenting propaganda campaign?Beijing claims that 1,700 followers have died because of eccentric Falun Gong practices?most Chinese view the group as harmlessly kooky. Yet for the nation's control-crazed rulers, no group, not even firebrand dissidents who call for immediate political reform, is as menacing as these quiet meditators who have mounted among the most sustained protests in the history of the People's Republic...
...part, Falun Gong continues to claim that it has no overarching political agenda. Still, the group has taken to describing Jiang Zemin as a "demon worshipper" infected with "Mad Power disease." And on January 1, its mysterious master, New York-based Li Hongzhi, upped the ante by releasing a curious scripture that appeared to allow violence in extreme cases when protesting ill treatment. For some Falun Gong followers, the words were a welcome call to arms. "It is not in Falun Gong's nature to be violent," says a retired teacher, who was arrested last year for her ties...
Still, Friday's high-court theater showed what can happen when the shouters are kept outside. Yes, there were plenty of them: more than 1,000 citizens loudly exercising their First Amendment rights, including Falun Gong members and Maryland high school kids, Republican mothers and Al Sharpton, a lady breezing by in a mink coat and a haggard man with a braided beard who was clutching a protest permit. At one point, the Bushies began yelling, "Con-cede again!" Which of course drew the Gore partisans' response, "Don't get snippy!" But scattered among the protesters were plenty of regular...