In Birmingham, friends and colleagues of Lin, who is a lab researcher for UAB's Center of AIDs Research, have started circulating petitions that they plan to send to the Chinese Embassy, to Alabama Sens. Richard Shelby and Jeff Sessions and to U.S. Rep. Spencer Bachus, whose 6th District includes much of Jefferson County. In Baltimore, Zhou said he has contacted his congressman, Republican Roscoe Bartlett. Lin has been in the United States about seven years. His wife, an engineer whom he married in February, works for Siemens Corp. in Atlanta. Falun Gong, a system of meditation and exercise drawn from Buddhist and Taoist teachings, has been banned in China, where authorities consider it a cult and a threat to security.
Practitioners say it is simply a way for people to improve their spiritual and physical health.
In its annual report on international religious freedom, released last week, the State Department cited a Chinese government anti-cult law that has been applied to many Falun Gong practitioners. If they were U.S. citizens, obviously it would be a bit easier to get them out of there. The Sept. 5 report, part of an annual survey of religious freedoms worldwide, came at a sensitive time as Congress considers granting permanent low tariffs for Chinese imports. This bad habit should be addressed,'' an unidentified spokesman for the State Administration of Religious Affairs said in remarks carried by the official Xinhua News Agency. Religious and human rights groups say Catholic clergy have been arrested, Tibetan monks and nuns required to attend political classes and independent-minded scholars dismissed from government posts.