(11 Feb 2000) Mandarin/Nat
One week after Chinese police broke up a large protest by followers of the Falun Gong meditation sect, the group remains defiant.
And although more than six months have passed since Falun Gong was denounced and banned as an evil cult, Beijing's crackdown seems to be only heightening resistance.
China's government has branded Falun Gong the biggest threat to communist rule since the Tiananmen Square protests in 1989.
Nine of the movements believers gathered this week in Beijing to talk to foreign reporters - in direct defiance of a government ban and despite the risk of arrest for meeting with foreign journalists.
Seven of them have only recently been released from a psychiatric hospital where Chinese police held them incommunicado from their families for six weeks.
Thousands of others have been sent to labour camps, and top group leaders have been sentenced to prison terms of up to 18 years.
But 64-year old retired schoolteacher Jiang Jing Fang remains undeterred.
SOUNDBITE: (Mandarin)
\"As long as I have the true essence of our movement, I will have no regrets even if I am killed. So no matter what kind of pressure the government applies to us, I will always continue to practice this.\"
SUPER CAPTION: Ms. Jiang Jing Fang, Falun Gong Member and Retired Schoolteacher
Security remains intense in Tiananmen Square a week after police beat and detained an estimated hundred-plus Falun Gong adherents who staged a midnight protest here on lunar New Year's eve.
The demonstration was the largest since a series of protests last year which launched the battle between the Beijing government and the group.
Falun Gong was founded by an ex-government grain clerk in 1992.
Since then it has attracted millions of followers with its mix of slow-motion meditation exercises, Buddhist and Taoist cosmology and its message of moral living.
The size and coordination of last week's protest may have surprised Chinese authorities.
Zhang Wen Long says the government should be ready for more.
Zhang lost his job as a construction worker because he belongs to the movement.
SOUNDBITE: (Mandarin)
\"If our goal is to protect the justice in our society, then we won't fear death. Furthermore, Falun Dafa (Falun Gong) is universal, and every one of us has experienced its supernatural power. So we would die for this. It is useless to sentence us to two or three years in jail, that's too short. They might as well give us a life sentence.\"
SUPER CAPTION: Mr Zhang Wen Long, Falun Gong Member and Former Construction Worker
Jiang Jing Fang explained her fervour by referring to China's Cultural Revolution, when ruler Mao Zedong sent the country into ten years of destruction and disorder.
This time, she said, those who think today's leaders are making a mistake must stand up and be heard.
SOUNDBITE: (Mandarin)
\"Even Mao Zedong, the founding father of the People's Republic of China, is only credited with being correct seventy per cent of the time. It was wrong for him to launch the Cultural Revolution. But at that time, everyone spoke with one voice and everyone followed one idea. That is why chaos and disaster came to the nation, and the whole country stopped developing. This time we know the decision is wrong. And we can no longer obey such decisions blindly.\"
SUPER CAPTION: Ms Jiang Jing Fang, Falun Gong Member and Retired Schoolteacher
The conflict is escalating in the run-up to a March 20 meeting in Geneva where the U-N will debate a U-S sponsored resolution criticising China's human rights record.
The resolution is based in large part on China's repression of Falun Gong.
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