The plight of the Falun Gong

Alan Stone, a professor of law and psychiatry at Harvard, wrote a commentary in Psychiatric Times about the psychiatric abuse of Falun Gong members in China. Dr. Stone was appointed as a member of a task force organized by the World Psychiatric Association and responsible for investigating political misuse of psychiatry in China, including against Falun Gong practitioners. After initially agreeing to cooperate with the investigation, the Chinese Society of Psychiatrics later refused. apparently at the behest of authorities. In the article, Dr. Stone attempts to “describe the Falun Gong spiritual movement, review the allegations of abuse, and present my own personal views of China’s rejection of the task force investigation and the results of the joint meeting with the CSP held in New York. ”

Meanwhile, as Falun Gong members apparently hacked two Chinese tv stations over the weekend, practitioners in New York have taken to the streets in a renewed upsurge of protests against Chinese government persecution, according to this article in the IHT. ESWN has also blogged about Falun Gong protests in New York.

A new book, Falun Gong: The End of Days by Maria Hsia Chang, examines Falun Gong in the historical context of secret societies and millenarian movements. The book is reviewed here in Foreign Affairs and here in the Asian Review of Books.