I am happy to take this chance to respond to Mr. Zhuo Chen’s comments about Falun Gong and clarify some facts.

Committing suicide is a serious sin prohibited in Falun Gong as clearly stated in our books. I am sorry the professor in Mr. Chen’s home city jumped from a six floor window, but this action is against Falun Gong’s teaching, as is describing one’s parents as devils.

Falun Gong tells people to be good under all circumstances, be kind and caring to one’s family and friends, be a diligent and responsible employee, be nice to everyone, etc.

One needs to improve morality to be a true practitioner, and this is the main teaching of Falun Gong.

I have many Falun Gong friends who are all nice, quite different from Mr. Chen’s impression.

Falun Gong is not the only spiritual movement persecuted in China. At least 14 Chinese Christian sects were branded evil cults and banned by Beijing. The suppression of home churches has long been known. The persecution of Tibetan Buddists even more so.

It is the brutality and frequency of attacks on Falun Gong that astonished the world.

Falun Gong never tells people to abstain from medical treatment. I don’t take medicine because I am healthy. Many people have come to know Falun Gong because of its health benefit.

If Falun Gong really threatens people’s lives, as the government stated, it is hard to imagine why so many people are so fond of it.

Recently, I met a lady from China who said rumors about Falun Gong are everywhere. She told me she knew a doctor who practices Falun Gong who divorced her husband so he would not be persecuted by the government. But in her community, the doctor was described as insane and tried to kill her husband with a knife.

Those rumors are created in favor of the government, while the eager and sincere voice of Falun Gong practitioners is suppressed and silenced.

I am glad to have this opportunity to speak a few words for Falun Gong and invite you to learn more about us at www.falundafa.org. Falun Gong is not so strange and hard to understand.

There may be aspects we are not doing so well. Please tell us, and we are willing to change.

Trying to conduct our daily life according to “Truthfulness Compassion Forbearance” is our sincere goal.

Yongyi Julia Jiang

Research associate

Food science and human nutrition