Honors Theses
Date of Award
1-1-2010
Document Type
Undergraduate Thesis
Department
Croft Institute for International Studies
First Advisor
Joshua Howard
Relational Format
Dissertation/Thesis
Abstract
In 1992, Li Hongzhi, an obscure man from the northern Chinese province of Jilin, introduced to the world a set of five Qigong exercises which would form the basis of the Falun Gong movement. In the years that followed, the Falun Gong quickly grew to an estimated 100 million practitioners worldwide that expeditiously spread from China to the rest of the world. Though the group was pacifistic in its ideology, the Chinese government was never quite comfortable with the Falun Gong's presence, and in 1999, the government began a widespread effort to discredit the Falun Gong, culminating in the arrest of thousands of Falun Gong members after a government protest held outside of the central government compound, Zhongnanhai in Beijing. Immediately following the arrests, the Falun Gong was officially labeled a seditious cult and its special brand of Qigong was deemed illegal to practice. Today, religion in China remains a tightly managed institution with strict legal controls placed on both its practice and its very existence.
Recommended Citation
Reves, Cooper, "The Mobilization of China’s Legal System and Religious Bureaucracy as a Means of Combating the Threat of the Falun Gong" (2010). Honors Theses. 2789.
https://egrove.olemiss.edu/hon_thesis/2789
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