China Jails 4 Officials of Banned Falun Gong

In the first trial targeting the outlawed Falun Gong spiritual movement, China fired a warning shot toward the group’s members Friday by sentencing four of its lower-level officials to prison terms of up to 12 years.

Regional leader Song Yuesheng received the longest sentence, for “using a cult to violate the law” and for trying to escape from police custody, a Hainan court official told the Reuters news agency. Three other defendants were sentenced to seven, three and two years in prison.

China has accused the group of using doomsday prophecies to undermine society and of contributing to the deaths of 1,400 of its members--charges the group denies.

The tough sentences handed out to relatively minor sect leaders indicate that senior Falun Gong officials now awaiting trial will receive harsh sentences.

“Mr. Song just organized some people to do some exercises and got 12 years,” said Frank Lu, an official with the Hong Kong-based Information Center of Human Rights and Democratic Movement in China. “If such low-level guys get 12 years, the top leaders maybe [will] get life.”

Beijing banned Falun Gong on July 22, a few months after about 10,000 members shocked senior Communist Party officials by demonstrating silently in front of party headquarters in Beijing. The group advocates the use of traditional breathing and meditation exercises to enhance spiritual power.

Government officials were not immediately available for comment, but scholars at a government-organized forum Friday said it is imperative that the nation be thorough in exterminating the group’s influence.

Human rights officials and diplomats say the government apparently hopes that this week’s tough legal decision will prompt ordinary members to abandon the group. In recent weeks, the government has started to make a distinction between leaders and common practitioners--who, it says, may have been misled.

“A swift, heavy sentence on the first trial is meant to make everyone take notice,” said one Western diplomat. “It’s a case of killing the chicken to scare the monkey.”

At the same time, senior government leaders want to avoid overreacting and setting off further unrest, the diplomat said.

Analysts say the Communist Party feels threatened by Falun Gong because it is widespread, well disciplined and organized; counts many party and army members among its ranks; and doesn’t cower easily. The group claims to have 100 million members, while the government says the figure is closer to 2 million.

Massive unemployment, a bloated state sector and weakened economic growth have left China’s Communist Party more sensitive than usual to even the hint of mass protest.

The movement’s worldwide leader, Li Hongzhi, lives in exile in the United States, and Washington has questioned Beijing’s treatment of the group. China has in turn warned Washington that support of the group could strain bilateral ties.

In recent months, Beijing has launched a major propaganda campaign against the group in daily television, radio and newspaper reports. For example, Friday’s broadcast of “Focus,” a popular TV magazine show, devoted an hour to a review of cults around the world. Its conclusion: Education can help the Chinese people recognize that Falun Gong is a superstitious, dangerous sect threatening to destabilize society.

Song and his three colleagues in Hainan, meanwhile, were jailed on charges including holding “an illegal gathering” after they led 183 members in exercise in a park Aug. 8, two weeks after the group was officially banned.

The official New China News Agency describes Song as an “organizer, schemer and commander” of Falun Gong in Hainan. The defendants in Friday’s decision, including a woman who was jailed for two years, have 10 days to appeal.

More than 100 leaders of Falun Gong--the group’s name means “wheel of law”--have been formally arrested, although human rights activists say several hundred more have been jailed for up to several years under “reeducation” measures that don’t require formal charges.

Beijing walks a fine line with its crackdown on the group because the traditional breathing and meditation exercises around which Falun Gong is designed are practiced by millions of Chinese, including such mainstream groups as the military.