Olympic Shames

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-From the online exhibit "Nazi Olympics: Berlin 1936," on the United States Holocaust Memorial Museum website (www.ushmm.org)

For somebody heading to a softball doubleheader, George Xu and company are likely a unique sight. But on this recent unusually brisk fall Sunday morning, the nearby diamond at Syosset-Woodbury Community Park is a ghost town, the only interlopers consisting of a few SUVs taking the wrong fork in the road on the way to youth football.

Next to a fence separating the park from Jericho Turnpike, George is one of a dozen people standing in a circle on the grass while music plays that could have come right out of Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon. It's a diverse bunch: Half are native Chinese, and the American-born contingent is also a mixed bag. One guy in a "New York" sweatshirt and hoodie looks like a welterweight contender prepped for his morning road work. Another is built thick and solid, as if his pastime entails lifting the occasional engine block. Casually dressed women spice up their look with gargantuan shades, often the tack for a last-minute shopping run.

Their differences quickly turn into symmetry, as the practitioners of Falun Gong-an ancient self-cultivation practice combining meditation and exercises that was taught in private before teacher Li Hongzhi took it mainstream in China in 1992-begin. It is quite the juxtaposition, flowing movements of the arms around the body combined with stances held for minutes at a time. For one first-timer, after a minute the arms go numb and it's time to take a break. But for the rest, 7 minutes of holding their hands palms in, extended just above head level, is no sweat.

A 35 mile-per-hour wind gust sends leaves from a large tree slamming into the group, who are too engrossed to care. You'd need to pay one of those softball hacks
A-Rod bucks to be out in this.

Falun Gong is dedicated, disciplined.

But militant? Subversive? George Xu says that before he started practicing, he had a bad temper-hard to believe for this diminuitive soul, who seems like Mister Rogers on a mild sedative.

George gets word from his 14-year-old daughter, Lisa, that his other daughter,
4-year-old Helen, has started crying in a nearby car, where both girls are keeping warm. First George and then wife Sunny leave the circle-Sunny in classic Mom sprint-and a minute later the parents are spinning Helen around in the parking lot with glowing smiles that seemingly raise the temperature a good 10 degrees.   

Back at the circle, as the newbie enjoys the gentility of it all, another student hands him a pamphlet that briefly touches on the practice's principles, "Truthfulness-Compassion-Forbearance." But then you read the back.

� Over 1,600 tortured to death

� Over 100,000 detained

� More than 25,000 sent to labor camps

� Over 1,000 forced into mental hospitals

Just reading these statistics-which are growing, by the way-is shocking enough. But George-a former professor at the Huazhong University of Science and Technology in Wuhan, China-has for perspective the memories of June 27, 2001. Lying on a slab in the morgue was Changjun Li, a 33-year-old who had received his masters degree in computer science and practiced Falun Gong with George. Li wore only a T-shirt and shorts when George came into the room with Li's parents. There was blood under Li's nose and bruising on the left side of his face. His back and legs had black spots, as well. As his mother tried to stay strong, his father nearly collapsed in grief. Li had been held for 40 days, with Chinese officials not even bothering to offer an explanation for the incarceration or the death.

Sixteen days later, Beijing was awarded the Games of the XXIX Olympiad, with the slogan "One World, One Dream."

It seems like a reasonable request: Send an e-mail to the International Olympic Committee (IOC) asking for the contact information of the person(s) in charge of tracking China's historically spotty human rights record. There has to be someone, right?

Instead, a lengthy e-mail comes back, explaining how the Olympics is a "catalyst for good." But then the statement adds, "The IOC is not in a position to monitor human rights issues."

David Kilgour says he's received numerous similar e-mails. Kilgour, a lawyer who served in Canada's Parliament from 1979 to 2006, co-authored with David Matas the 2006 report "An Independent Investigation Into Allegations of Organ Harvesting of Falun Gong Practitioners in China." The title of the Jan. 31, 2007 revised report, "Bloody Harvest," (www.organharvestinvestigation.net), leaves little to the imagination.

Many family members of killed Falun Gong practitioners have found their deceased loved ones mutilated in ways consistent with organ harvesting. And until it was taken down in April 2006, a website from an organization calling itself the China International Transplantation Network Assistance Center listed exorbitant prices for organs available to foreigners, including:

� Kidney: $62,000

� Liver: $98,000-$130,000

� Liver-kidney: $160,000-$180,000

� Kidney-pancreas: $150,000

� Lung: $150,000-$170,000

� Heart: $130,000-$160,000

� Cornea: $30,000

Kilgour says that the IOC's assertion that it isn't in the human rights monitoring business doesn't jibe with the selection process, during which China agreed to clean up its act.

"The Chinese Olympic Committee made a number of commitments to the IOC before they got the Games, and one of them was that they would improve human rights," Kilgour tells the Press. "And I think every independent observer, whether it be Amnesty International or Human Rights Watch, or Human Rights in China, or anybody who watches carefully knows, human rights have gotten significantly worse since they got the Games."

Chinese officials, Kilgour maintains, generally spin critics as people trying to politicize the Games. But he adds that there is a level of hypocrisy to that, considering that China boycotted the 1980 Summer Games in Moscow.

"Falun Gong has falsely fabricated [the story] about organ harvesting," says Wang Bao Dong, press counselor and spokesperson for the Chinese Embassy in Washington, D.C. "It is strictly prohibited by Chinese law to do such operations without inmate consent," he later adds.

But Kilgour's research convinces him of both Chinese culpability and IOC apathy.

"Frankly, the IOC made a colossal error in giving the Games to Beijing....But having given them the Games, you'd think they'd have enough, dare I say, backbone for the IOC to maybe stand up for the principles that they're supposed to be founded upon," Kilgour maintains.

"Or are they just another greedy business, to put it very bluntly?"

If the IOC's problem is greed, it apparently isn't the only one with its hand in the till. Head to YouTube and you can still see a Visa commercial featuring NBA star Yao Ming and Yogi Berra. When Yao, of the Houston Rockets, faced off against Milwaukee Bucks rookie center Yi Jianlian on Nov. 9 in Houston, an estimated 250,000,000 Chinese watched the game, and the NBA threw a viewing party in Beijing.

Top NASCAR officials traveled to Beijing and Shanghai last April to discuss potential sponsorship initiatives and television distribution. An unknowing observer could easily get the impression that with all the business and entertainment synergy between East and West, Western freedoms would be a natural progression.

Lama Surya Das would be quick to dispel that notion.

Born Jeffrey Miller in Valley Stream, he is considered one of the foremost Western Tibetan Buddhist scholars. He's a personal friend of the Dalai Lama and says that the Chinese government's restrictions of religious and other freedoms are alive and well.

But even for someone seeing the repression close up, it may be difficult to understand. The government has since 1951 recognized a Catholic Church, albeit state-sponsored, and appointed bishops not recognized by the Vatican. In a similar vein, Surya says that Tibetan reincarnate lamas can only be recognized if the Chinese government approves them.

It's an issue that has been very much in flux recently. Earlier this month, the Chinese Catholic Patriotic Association appointed a bishop, the Rev. Joseph Gan Junqiu, who received Vatican approval because he expressed his loyalty to the Pope. But just weeks earlier, the Rev. Wang Zhong was given a three-year prison sentence for his participation in an underground church.

"This is not just a Buddhist issue, this [state-sponsored religion] shows that it's really a political ploy," says Surya. "But they're not really more religious. They're not really doing it in the way of the religions themselves. It's a total Communist thing to coerce a religion into the Communist Party and under their power. It's not a recognition of anything even vaguely close to separation of church and state or anything vaguely close to less restrictions. It's more restrictive, and it's totally autocratic."

Chinese law has long arms.

What He Saw

Korean-born Steven Kim, 59, broke the law in China when he helped North Korean refugees gain their freedom. For his crimes, he spent four years in China's prisons. He was recently released, on Sept. 25. The experience is still raw for Kim, who came to this country in 1975, became an American citizen in 1987 and moved to Huntington in 2001. Before that, he lived in Glen Cove.

Kim, the father of three grown children and husband to wife Helen, has a furniture business that took him to China several times a year. A devout Christian, Kim became very involved in the local church in the town of Shen Zhen in the Quang Dong Province. Putting his Christian ideals to the test, Kim was moved to action after meeting more and more people seeking refuge from leader Kim Jong-il's nearby North Korea. The refugees spent their days in North Korea wondering if they would even be able to afford to eat under that country's rule. In other words, as sketchy as China has been, it was a welcome change from North Korea. It was not an easy road for Steve Kim or the refugees.

A modern-day Harriet Tubman, Kim made contacts in several neighboring countries to ferry the refugees to another life. Eventually, Kim helped blaze a trail that would bring these people first to Vietnam, then Cambodia, then Thailand and finally to South Korea.

"It was like the Underground Railroad," says Kim. "These people came to the church, and I had to help them."

His efforts grew, and eventually he rented apartments to house the refugees as they awaited their chance to travel the troubled route out of China. Once in the apartments, the people could not go out, lying low and avoiding trouble. Kim maintains that he did not know the ramifications of his actions.

On Sept. 26, 2003, he was surprised when Chinese police kicked in the doors of his makeshift shelter as he conducted a prayer meeting with the North Koreans. The group, which numbered nine and included a 12-year-old girl, was arrested. They were locked away in the Tumen Detention House until mid-April 2004, then repatriated to North Korea, as dictated by Chinese law. Being sent back is the worst fear of those fleeing North Korea. Many are locked away for years in political prisons, and because many had converted to Christianity after they met Kim, their fate could be much worse. Kim never saw any of them again.

Right after his arrest, Kim was brought to a local Chinese army barracks. He was cut off from his world.

"My wife and children were in New York," says Kim. "I was not allowed to contact them at all."

Kim managed to send word of his arrest back home when the Chinese police brought him to his office in China. As the officers searched the premises, he was able to tell one of his workers to let his family know that he was in deep trouble.

So began the journey, literally. Kim found himself traveling 2,000 miles north via a
36-hour train ride and eight different buses to the Yangi Detention Center in Quang Dong Province. He was not handcuffed during the time, unlike most of his fellow prisoners, who were bound for the entire trip. But complete silence was a must, and prisoners were required to sit up straight in their seats for the duration of the trip.

This is what Kim calls "a regular Chinese prison," where many of the abuses reported worldwide take place daily. With almost 4,000 prisoners, Kim was exposed to some of the more brutal conditions of his imprisonment. Each day, Kim and the other inmates were forced to sit perfectly straight, completely silent, for four hours. Only on Sundays was this not enforced. And Kim feels he got off light because of his U.S. citizen status.

"I was lucky. They did not abuse me because I am an American citizen," says Kim. "The others were not as fortunate."

The other prisoners were given no beds, had to sleep on filthy floors. They were under strict 24-hour surveillance, and their daily food consisted of a palm-sized piece of cornbread and one little bowl of seaweed soup which, he says, had only one piece of seaweed swimming in obnoxiously salty water. Inmates had no toilet paper, no toothpaste.

Kim spent 11 months at Yangi and was eventually sentenced to five years for his violation of Article 318 in Chinese law, which aims to severely punish those who aid and abet migrants from other countries. Kim saw the grim realities of Chinese capital punishment at Yangi. Everyone knew when certain inmates would take their last ride out. He saw two such days. On one, seven people, and on another, four climbed aboard the bus.

"On execution day, the prison was on very high alert," says Kim. "The buses would take them to a nearby execution [location]."

He was transferred in August 2004 to Tiebei Detention Center in Jilin Province and eventually was sent to Beijing Prison, a place where mostly foreigners are jailed. He heard more horror stories. One fellow inmate, a Nigerian man, had been arrested for a drug offense. At Quang Dong prison, the man spent two-and-a-half years chained to the floor, 24 hours a day, able to move only front to back.

"If the man had to go to the bathroom, he had to go right there. He could not move," says Kim.

Kim spent the last 22 months of his incarceration at Beijing Prison, what he calls "a showcase prison."

"It's the prison that they will take visitors to," he says.

Here, Kim says, the conditions were immeasurably better. And despite the facility's rules, he conducted prayer sessions daily. Kim saw his wife several times a year, and his daughter and younger son came with her once.

At Beijing Prison, Kim worked, making some of the objects found in home goods stores around the United States, including silk flowers and thousands of little plastic clips for tacking coaxial cable to a wall or floor. Some prisoners had to make thousands per day.

Steve Kim's daily quota was 2,000.

George Xu, who now resides in South Setauket and is the chief technology officer for Advanced Optowave Corporation, left China in 2001, following his friend Changjun Li's death. But a much more subtle incident in 2000 gave him a moment of pause.

He went with his wife and daughter on a bus trip to the countryside to visit his parents. Cramped in the back of the bus, Sunny crossed her legs in the way she would while doing the sitting exercises of Falun Gong. Lisa, a mere 7 at the time, freaked out and begged her mom to put her legs down. The little girl was afraid that they'd be recognized as practitioners.

George says that Lisa had seen the propaganda commercials on state television, as the government began cracking down on Falun Gong in 1999. And while he adds that messages had no specific threats, George says, "She is smart beyond her years. She knew what was going on."

Visiting one's parents shouldn't be that frightening. Neither should handing out literature legally on U.S. soil. But it was, in Hope Zhang's case.

Zhang, who came to America in 1991 and has lived on LI since 1998 (in Suffolk County, but doesn't wish to be more specific than that), is an acupuncturist who spent more than a decade in America before visiting her parents in Shanghai in February 2002.

She flew to Shanghai, then took a plane to Beijing to witness a protest. She never made it there. She was arrested by Chinese authorities, who subjected her to a several-week ordeal that included interrogations and a trip to a "brainwashing camp" for the purpose of denouncing Falun Gong. She and a group of practitioners had sent pro-Falun Gong CDs to Hong Kong for distribution in other parts of China. Her address did appear on the packaging, possibly putting her on the Communist "blacklist" that prompted her arrest. Her husband, a U.S. citizen, helped her gain her release. As with Steve Kim, she says that her ties to America prevented more cruel treatment.

It's one thing to be targeted in China. But in 2005, two days after she handed out anti-Communist material in Flushing, her parents called: "What are you doing? Friends told us to tell you, 'Don't do those kinds of things in the United States.'" It took Hope a few days to realize that she had never told her parents what she was doing. Hope says her parents later admitted that those "friends" were Chinese government officials, who somehow knew of her activities.

Practitioners remain baffled: How could such a peaceful practice that they say had no political agenda-until China cracked down and made it one-be attacked so viciously?

Zhang is thrilled at how Falun Gong helped ease the stress in her life. Falun Gong is so important that she practiced it between interrogation sessions during her initial imprisonment so she could stay calm, just when one would think it prudent to hide her connection.

The movement's rapid growth in the '90s may have led to the persecution, even with the lack of a political agenda, explains Warren Frisina, an associate professor of religion and dean of the Honors College at Hofstra University, and part of the Asian studies faculty. For Americans baffled by this crackdown, he explains that 50-plus years since the Communist revolution "is not even a nanosecond" to current Chinese rulers, considering the country's history. They still see their rule as new and tenuous, which can lead to overreaction.

"If there's something that threatens them about Falun Gong, it may not be directly in any claims that the individuals have made, but the idea that any kind of movement that's situated outside the party could tap into a popular sensibility that's just part of Chinese culture."

Regardless of the reasoning, ex-inmate Kim, for one, cannot believe that a country with such ideals was chosen to host the Olympics. He thinks the scrubbing that China has been giving Beijing is self-serving and a sham.

"No way Beijing should host the Olympics," he says.