Word: liu
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Dates: during 2000-2009
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...recently as last winter, dozens arrived in Tiananmen Square nearly every day to protest the party's crackdown on the movement. But on the recent second anniversary of the 1999 demonstration, only about 30 people reached the square; most days no one does. The majority of practitioners, like Liu, seem to have surrendered their faith--or, at least, say they have. Most of the die-hard elements have "cast off the fetters of the evil cult," crowed the People's Daily, the party's mouthpiece, last week...
...breaking the movement, the government has not yet addressed the sense of spiritual emptiness that gave birth to Falun Gong. Incense smoke flows thick in Buddhist temples across China, and the number of Christians has increased tenfold, to roughly 40 million, since the communists first swept to power. Even Liu Shujuan, the apostate who now leads others away, seems ambivalent about her conversion. "It's hard to say," she replies when asked whether she would still practice had the government not banned Falun Gong. Pause. A glance at her government minders. "I think it's still better...
Chinese police call people like Liu Shujuan "die-hard elements." After the government banned Falun Gong, her spiritual practice, Liu traveled three times to the political heart of China to protest in Tiananmen Square. The last time, in November, she brought her four-year-old daughter and unfurled a yellow banner reading, "The Falun Law Is the Universal Law!" Police jailed Liu and threatened to dispatch her to one of China's labor camps. Her terrified parents begged her to disavow her beliefs. Her husband smacked her. At work, her boss threatened to fire her. Then someone brought her weeping...
...state wanted more. In March, the Communist Party confined Liu to a hotel room for five days with renounced Falun Gong practitioners. They picked apart the spiritual movement's doctrine and blamed Liu, a 31-year-old grammar-school art teacher, for ruining her family. By the time the sessions ended, says Liu, "I realized I was thinking only of myself." She committed apostasy, signing a written pledge to "split from the evil cult Falun Gong and its heresies." These days, the party makes her lead similar sessions herself. Speaking in a carefully monitored meeting that includes two government officials...
...leaders. As recently as last winter, dozens arrived in Tiananmen Square nearly every day to protest the crackdown touched off by that show of grit and numbers. By contrast, on the recent second anniversary of the massive April protest, only 30 people reached the square. Most practitioners, like Liu, seem to have surrendered their faith, or at least say they have. Other die-hard elements "have cast off the fetters of the evil cult," crows the People's Daily, the party's mouthpiece...