After 20 Years Of Crackdown, Falun Gong Fights On

Despite being a shadow of the spiritual movement's heyday on the mainland, Falun Gong remain stubbornly persistent with members congregating in open places in areas, like Hong Kong, where they still command steadfast followers.

The Falun Gong triggered a relentless Chinese government crackdown against the movement when thousands of its members protested around the Communist Party headquarters in Beijing 20 years ago.

The government outlawed the group following the April 25, 1999 demonstration.

Now deemed an evil cult by mainland authorities, the group has gone underground on the mainland while its followers can be seen in public areas including the busy areas of Tsim Sha Tsui in Kowloon doing slow meditative exercises and espousing the values of "truthfulness, compassion and forbearance".

The spiritual movement was founded in 1992 by Li Hongzhi, a former employee of a state-owned grain company from northeast China. Within years he had amassed tens of millions of followers.

Though it insists is is not a religion, Falun Gong also emphasises moral teachings mixing Buddhist and Taoist philosophies.

The central government once supported the movement and encouraged the practice to ease the burden on a creaky health system.

A major turning point came on April 25, 1999, when over 10,000 Falun Gong followers encircled Zhongnanhai, the Communist Party's headquarters in Beijing – the largest demonstration in the capital since the People's Liberation Army crushed the Tiananmen student protests a decade earlier.

Participants in the silent rally protested against official harassment and demanded freedom to study the teachings of its leader and follow its beliefs.

They peacefully dispersed later that day after government leaders agreed to hold talks with the group.

However, Falun Gong's ability to mobilise large numbers of followers caught the government off guard and alarmed leaders.

Several months later, Beijing banned Falun Gong, declaring it an illegal organisation and accusing it of "spreading fallacies, hoodwinking people, inciting and creating disturbances and jeopardising social stability".

It rounded up leaders and launched a major propaganda campaign painting the group as a cult that cheats its followers.

Tens of thousands of followers were detained in the months following the ban, according to official figures.

Falun Gong accuses Beijing of torturing adherents and holding many in prison and labour camps, as well as harvesting the organs of detained followers, which Beijing denies.

It estimates that over 4,000 practitioners have died as a result of torture in custody and other forms of persecution in the two decades that followed.

Though the government's campaign against the group continues, NGO Freedom House estimated in a 2017 report that millions on the mainland continue to practice Falun Gong, including many who took it up after the government ban. (AFP)