Ames, Ia. - Chinese students at Iowa State University say they fear reprisals over membership in a sect that is viewed as an anti-communist cult in their homeland.
Yongyi Julia Jiang, 28, and about 10 Chinese students practice Falun Gong, a controversial spiritual movement that tops the Chinese government's list of security concerns.
Falun Gong's popularity has spread worIdwide, despite a ban in China nearly two years ago.
The ISU group shed oppression at home but found new opposition in Ames - Chinese peers.
"I don't like any people who practice Falun Gong," said Bing-Bing Wang, a graduate student who heads the Chinese students and scholars program. "It's ridiculous to many people who have some common sense about it. Anything that's against my country is a bad thing."
Jiang and other Falun Gong followers at ISU say it is a nonpolitical movement that promotes meditation, truth and compassion. The Chinese government calls it an evil cult with one mission: to overthrow the Communist Party.
The ISU students, believed to be the first organized Falun Gong group at an Iowa college or university, meet once a week. Members practice yoga-like exercises, meditate, share beliefs and read from a book by Falun Gong leader Li Hongzhi, who has been labeled a criminal in Beijing.
Most of the 600 Chinese students at ISU condemn Falun Gong, founded in 1992, because they don't understand it, Jiang says. Letters and e-mail messages from the group to their Chinese peers provoke angry feedback or none at all, she said.
The Chinese government "tells a lot of fabricated stories about how bad this system is," said Jiang, who believes she will be arrested if she returns to China. "For some Chinese people, they still believe the government is not likely to lie. They're afraid of getting in trouble because they may go back to China someday."
Jiang hasn't been to China since 1996. Her beliefs aren't dangerous in the United States, but she worries the Chinese government will punish her parents and family members, who don't follow Falun Gong.
Followers believe Falun Gong has the power to heal illness and inspire inner peace, Jiang said. The group's mission includes discouraging lawbreakers who, for example, cheat the government to pay less taxes.
Many Chinese students come to ISU on graduate school fellowships and receive aid from the Chinese consulate in Chicago, Jiang said. Falun Gong members receive no money from the Chinese government, she said.
Members believe the Communist government manipulates Chinese media to make false reports about Falun Gong, including an alleged mass suicide attempt by followers in January.
Landlords in China are threatened with fines if they don't report tenants who practice Falun Gong, Jiang said. Children whose parents belong to the movement are thrown out of schools, she added.
Practitioners from all parts of China still protest in Beijing, despite police dragnets and beatings. Hundreds of followers are believed to have been killed.
Wang and other critics defend the government.
"Thousands of people died by practicing Falun Gong because it's a bad thing," he said. "It seems if you begin to practice it, you can't get out."
The movement has gained momentum through the Internet, said Richard Mansbach, an ISU political scientist who studies Falun Gong.
"Nobody knows whether it's 3 million or 30 million members because of how it's organized," Mansbach said. "As a result there's no way of penetrating the cells. The more the Chinese government uses oppression, the less successful they are.
"When you begin to open your society in any way, you're going to have opposition. They watched the Soviet regime collapse, and they're petrified."