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Students view the work by Falun Gong-practicing artists in an exhibit at the Kerckhoff Art Galler

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Falun Gong Club President JoJo Yang (left) practices Falun Gong with statistics Assistant Profess

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Professor Donald Neuen leads the UCLA Chorale in a rehearsal for its holiday concert Saturday, De

Of the 18, mostly Chinese, artists whose work is being featured this week in a Kerckhoff Art Gallery exhibit titled “Truthfulness, Compassion, Forbearance,” only one currently resides in China.

But eerily, the artist’s exact whereabouts are unknown. A biographical description of the artist on a Web site reads, “Sadly, there is no information regarding the whereabouts or the current situation of the artist.” It’s almost as if this person no longer exists.

The artist’s name is Zhong De, and like all the artists in the exhibit, Zhong is a follower of the Chinese spiritual movement known as Falun Gong or “Practice of the Wheel of the Law,” which the Chinese government considers a supreme threat to its power and has brutally suppressed since July 1999, when it outlawed the movement.

Zhong may be one of the tens of thousands of Falun Gong practitioners in China who Amnesty International says have been detained, imprisoned, tortured or sent to forced labor camps without fair trial. Several artists featured in the exhibit, which is being hosted at UCLA by the Falun Gong club, have been detained and tortured, yet have escaped.

But what could possibly make the Communist Chinese government so fearful of a peace-loving people who practice meditation and Tai Chi-like movements? Falun Gong practitioners live by the Confucian, Taoist and Buddhist virtues of the Zhen, Shan and Ren – truthfulness, compassion and tolerance.

John Kerin of The Australian, Australia’s national daily newspaper, pointed to the fact that numerous political uprisings in Chinese history have been sparked by spiritual movements.

For example, in the mid-1800s, a Chinese man who believed he was Jesus’ brother led a revolt in a civil war that killed millions. And in 1900, the bloody Boxer rebellion, which pitted native Chinese against foreigners, was initiated by a group that believed its Qigong exercises made its members immune to bullets. So, it is possible that the Chinese government may be fearful that Falun Gong followers might cause a similar uprising.

The decisive event that ignited the government’s campaign against Falun Gong was in April 1999 when 10,000 Falun Gong practitioners stood quietly in a day-long demonstration against the harassment and detainment of practitioners outside a Communist Party compound in Beijing. This protest likely brought back memories of the 1989 Tiananmen Square massacre. It was shortly thereafter, in July of that year, that the government banned the practice of Falun Gong.

Although Falun Gong practitioners claim to be apolitical, they continue to hold exercise sessions in public, usually as a form of silent protest in historically political places like Tiananmen Square in Beijing.

In July 1999, Falun Gong practitioners went so far as to intercept cable and satellite television to broadcast pro-Falun Gong messages.

Whether Falun Gong practitioners know it or not, the Chinese government seems to be as fearful of them as they are fearful of the government.

The government, the Kerckhoff exhibit organizer Lisa Li said, has forced citizens to sign papers saying they will not practice Falun Gong.

A Falun Gong practitioner-run Web site, clearwisdom.net, also reported surveys being distributed in elementary schools asking schoolchildren to report any Falun Gong practitioners.

“In the United States,” Li said, “nobody forces you to sign papers saying you are not going to practice Christianity. That’s ridiculous. This is persecution of a whole nation.”

Li, along with the Falun Gong Club, has brought the exhibit to UCLA to shine light on the persecution of Falun Gong practitioners. The exhibit has also been to Tel Aviv, Israel, New Zealand and Montreal.

“(The persecution) has been going on for six years,” Li said, “but not many people really know about the situation in China because of the media. In China, the media is state-controlled by the Communist Party of China. There’s no second voice and the persecution happens in detention centers. The Communists are trying to cover the truth.”

But efforts at spreading awareness in America have been further thwarted by language barriers.

“It’s definitely not something that’s out there,” Falun Gong Club president and first-year English student JoJo Yang said. “And even though we try, it’s difficult because our community is largely founded by those in the Asian community. There’s a cultural and language barrier.”

Yang and Li hope that the artwork, which depicts both the teachings of Falun Gong as well as the persecution practitioners have faced in China, will break that barrier.

But in spite of all their efforts for awareness, Li says Falun Gong practitioners abroad, like herself, are not immune from the fear of Chinese government’s influence and propaganda.

“In Chinese history, during periods of persecution, (the government) can even turn family members into enemies,” Li said.

“They ask you to turn over your husband or your wife. It’s really horrible to generate that much hatred. You don’t have anyone to trust. It’s very sad. It’s a real twist of human nature.”