page_title: Falun Gong outside mainland China
section_title: Overseas responses to persecution in China
hierarchical_section_title: Falun Gong outside mainland China / Overseas responses to persecution in China
caption_attribution_description: Falun Gong protesters in front of General Post Office, Dublin
context_page_description: Falun Gong, a new religious movement that combines meditation with the moral philosophy articulated by founder Li Hongzhi, first began spreading widely in China in 1992. Li's first lectures outside mainland China took place in Paris in 1995. At the invitation of the Chinese ambassador to France, he lectured on his teachings and practice methods to the embassy staff and others. From that time on, Li gave lectures in other major cities in Europe, Asia, Oceania, and North America. He has resided permanently in the United States since 1998. Falun Gong is now practiced in some 70 countries worldwide, and the teachings have been translated to over 40 languages. The international Falun Gong community is estimated to number in the hundreds of thousands, though participation estimates are imprecise on account of a lack of formal membership.
  Since 1999, the Chinese Communist Party has persecuted Falun Gong in mainland China. In response, Falun Gong practitioners around the world have conducted activities aimed at raising awareness about related human rights issues.
context_section_description: In July 1999, the Communist Party initiated a campaign to persecute Falun Gong, including through the use of extralegal imprisonment, torture and other coercive measures, and propaganda. Falun Gong communities inside and outside China have adopted a variety of approaches to resist and mitigate the persecution in China. These tactics range from engagement with the media, lobbying of governments and NGOs, public protests and demonstrations, and attempts to seek legal redress. As the persecution in China progressed, overseas Falun Gong efforts increasingly tied their pleas for relief to Western human rights discourse, emphasizing the implications for freedom of speech, assembly, and conscience.
caption: Falun Gong protesters in front of General Post Office, Dublin.
exif: {"Image Make": "EASTMAN KODAK COMPANY", "Image Model": "KODAK DC280 ZOOM DIGITAL CAMERA", "Image Orientation": "Horizontal (normal)", "Image XResolution": "192", "Image YResolution": "192", "Image ResolutionUnit": "Pixels/Inch", "Image YCbCrPositioning": "Centered", "Image Copyright": "KODAK DC280 ZOOM DIGITAL CAMERA", "Image ExifOffset": "250", "Thumbnail Compression": "JPEG (old-style)", "Thumbnail Orientation": "Horizontal (normal)", "Thumbnail XResolution": "72", "Thumbnail YResolution": "72", "Thumbnail ResolutionUnit": "Pixels/Inch", "Thumbnail JPEGInterchangeFormat": "1488", "Thumbnail JPEGInterchangeFormatLength": "6391", "EXIF ExposureTime": "1/250", "EXIF FNumber": "28/5", "EXIF ExifVersion": "0210", "EXIF DateTimeOriginal": "2006:08:06 13:05:34", "EXIF DateTimeDigitized": "2006:08:06 13:05:34", "EXIF ComponentsConfiguration": "YCbCr", "EXIF ShutterSpeedValue": "8", "EXIF ApertureValue": "5", "EXIF ExposureBiasValue": "0", "EXIF MaxApertureValue": "31/10", "EXIF MeteringMode": "Average", "EXIF LightSource": "Unknown", "EXIF Flash": "Flash did not fire", "EXIF FocalLength": "63/10", "EXIF FlashPixVersion": "0100", "EXIF ColorSpace": "sRGB", "EXIF ExifImageWidth": "1760", "EXIF ExifImageLength": "1168", "Interoperability InteroperabilityIndex": "R98", "Interoperability InteroperabilityVersion": "[48, 49, 48, 48]", "EXIF InteroperabilityOffset": "1292", "EXIF ExposureIndex": "100", "EXIF SensingMethod": "One-chip color area", "EXIF FileSource": "Digital Camera", "EXIF SceneType": "Directly Photographed"}