The Dangerous Pilgrimage.(a Falun Gong conference)(Brief Article)

You ask me why I'm crying," says Wang Meihong. After wiping her eyes, the slender young woman from mainland China--sitting in a Falun Gong conference in Hong Kong--tells her story. She is too frightened to publicly reveal her occupation, hometown or age. (Her name is fictitious.) But she will explain why she's a Falun Gong follower, and why she's made a dangerous pilgrimage. Her account is impossible to corroborate, but it is consistent with those of other Falun Gong followers who've been jailed by Chinese police.

Wang says that when her father fell ill from a stroke 15 years ago, she resigned herself to paying his medical bills and to caring for him at home. By 1997, she was in a deep depression. A friend introduced her to Falun Gong, and she found the movement's message of self-abasement brought her spiritual strength. She taught her father the slow-motion breathing and arm movements that are said to promote good health. When Beijing abruptly banned the movement the following year, Wang went directly to the provincial government, her father's medical records in hand, to complain. She and the many others were dispersed by the police.

A sense of deep injustice welled up in her. She began to make journeys to Beijing to petition the central government. She was arrested several times. Her husband and mother berated her for getting into trouble with the government. Wang's husband feared losing his job. Outraged by reports of torture and killings, she traveled to Beijing. In Tiananmen Square, she joined other believers living fearfully in a farmer's hut. They persuaded her to travel to remote parts of China to encourage practitioners. She left with them, feeling guilty. "I discovered my own selfishness," Wang says.

Her sacrifice would come soon enough. She spent two months in Sichuan and Hubei, rousing discouraged followers. Last April she went again to Beijing. Standing in Tiananmen, she unfurled a yellow banner in praise of Falun Gong. She was grabbed by undercover policemen and shoved into a van. When she ...