U.S. Resident Gets 3-Year Term Over Falun Gong

Authorities here sentenced a U.S. resident to three years in prison Tuesday for spying and leaking secrets related to China’s suppression of the Falun Gong spiritual group, a senior U.S. diplomat said.

U.S. officials have repeatedly asked China to release Teng Chunyan, a 37-year-old Chinese national who has permanent resident status in the United States, since she was arrested in May.

A Beijing municipal court sentenced Teng for “releasing national security information to foreigners,” and Teng’s father confirmed the sentence to U.S. Embassy officials in Beijing. Teng is married to a U.S. citizen.

“We will be getting back to the Chinese on this,” said the senior diplomat, speaking on condition of anonymity.

The official added that Washington had hoped for “a benign outcome to the trial and, if not that, then a speedy return of Teng to the United States.”

According to human rights groups, Teng, a New York-based acupuncturist, was investigating the alleged detention of Falun Gong members in a Beijing mental asylum at the time of her arrest. Using the pseudonym Hannah Li, she also informed foreign reporters of Falun Gong demonstrations and helped arrange interviews.

Teng’s trial took place Nov. 23. A day later, outside the Chinese Consulate in Los Angeles, about 40 Falun Gong adherents protested her incarceration.

Beijing outlawed Falun Gong in July 1999, claiming it was a cult and had caused the deaths of about 1,500 adherents, defrauded others and tried to overthrow the government.

The group, which was founded in 1992, has attracted millions of followers with its yoga-like exercises and the apocalyptic visions of Li Hongzhi, its charismatic founder, who now resides in the U.S.

Falun Gong claims that nearly 100 of its followers have died in detention in China. Beijing has acknowledged some deaths but has said they were caused by illness or suicide.

Although China has previously expelled Falun Gong disciples who were U.S. permanent residents, it has not imprisoned any. But Teng was given a relatively light sentence compared with the terms of 10 years or more that have been handed down in a number of cases.

As Falun Gong demonstrators have become a common sight from Tiananmen Square here to United Nations headquarters in New York and even the U.S. Supreme Court, China’s crackdown on the group has become a point of friction between the United States and China.

The issue surfaced in the Los Angeles area earlier this month when Alhambra Mayor Paul L. Talbot apologized to a Chinese diplomat for his city’s recent proclamation of Dec. 4-8 as “Falun Dafa Week.” At the time of the proclamation, Talbot said, council members thought they were simply commending the use of meditation and exercise to improve the mind and body.

But Talbot said city officials were surprised to learn that Falun Dafa--an alternative name for Falun Gong--had been using the proclamation to imply that Alhambra supported its religious and political beliefs. When that came to the city’s attention, officials wrote a letter clarifying the intent of the proclamation, one of hundreds issued each year by the elected body.

Talbot said he explained to Chinese Deputy Consul General Xu Shiguo that the proclamation stemmed “from confusion” over what Falun Gong was and that city officials do not endorse any religious philosophy. The mayor said he apologized for “any embarrassment.”

Xu then presented him “with a stack of books that said it was a cult,” Talbot said.

Since China banned Falun Gong, the mayors of Baltimore, San Francisco and Seattle have retracted similar proclamations.

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Times staff writer Richard Winton in Los Angeles contributed to this report.