No, the protesters are not after some human rights or freedom, and they haven't been jailed, to the disappointment of lots of ppl on this board.

This one in Chengdu, in the Southwest, over a proposed petrochemical plant.
China Petrochemical Project Opposed - New York Times

This is a bit earlier, over a railway line in Shanghai.
FT.com / Asia-Pacific / China - Protests suspend work on Shanghai maglev

Good for them

Out of interest, can anyone in China explain why the government is so against Falun Gong? What is Falun Gong doing that makes it unacceptable? Serious question.

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No Fear No Hate No Pain No Broken Hearts

even my grandfather, hes a retired high school principal, used to believe that is just a kind of qi gong and practised it. but it became quite notorious after they sent its followers to burn themselves on Tian An Men square. my grandfather has quitted it since then and dont like to talk about it because it was kind of embarrasing.

In short Falun Gong is a cult. Qigong is not the problem, the leader of the Falun Gong, Li Hongzhi, is. Here's a link from Human Rights Watch about a case study of 4 people of this cult. Human Rights Watch is not a pro-china site, as if you look in their website about lots of other human rights cases in China.

Dangerous Minds

The worse thing is that the West covers up that Falun Gong as a Religion or a way of life.

Thanks GoChina and pug_ster for replying. I've heard Falun Gong described as a cult, but i know very little about it. I read a while back that the authorities originally tolerated Falun Gong, but turned against it when Falun Gong started mobilising large numbers of people to protest certain issues. The implication of course is that the CCP could not tolerate any challenge to their authority. This was the view of an Anerican journalist who spent many years in Beijing - perhaps your view would be different?

Anyway, that was an interesting article you linked to pug_star. If I understand it right, the HRW article was not criticising Falun Gong, it was criticising the Chinese authorities, in particular psychiatrists empoyed by the state to assess perceived troublemakers. The suggestion was that the psychiatrists only consider two options - "guilty" or "insane" - and did not consider the possibility that the person was both sane and acting reasonably. Here's the Introduction to the report:

Dangerous Minds

The report paints a rather sinister picture of a state where mental health provisions are used to lock up perceived troublemakers. Still, as you said, HRW is far from "pro-China".

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No Fear No Hate No Pain No Broken Hearts

Yes I think you are right. I didn't read the other pages in the article.

I believe that there's a problem with a church which is getting too powerful where the church can control someone's life as much as those people in the article. I believe what happened is that the leader Li Hongzhi with his political connections and he wants to make some recommendations on changes to the government. Much like the Dalai Lama, he is considered persona no grata.

If you look at Friends of Falun Gong Website about their advisory board.

Friends of Falun Gong USA- About Us

One of them is Annette Lantos, wife of Congressmen Tom Lantos. Another is Mark Palmer, who is VP of Freedom House. Freedom House is US funded based NGO. Makes you wonder why China decided to ban the Falon Gong.

Yes FLG is a cult. But they did not get into trouble because of their wacky belief as they'd been around for a while. Somebody did an expose on a paper saying how wacky they were, and they retaliated by encircling the ZhongNanHai (that's White House and Capitol Hill rolled into one). So they were seen as a political challenge to the rule of the CCP.

Contrary to popular belief, China doesn't persecute religion. But the Chinese state has always persecuted religious organizations mercilessly since antiquity. And throughout our history, these organizations eventually were not content with simply leading the flock and mounted political rebellions. So the CCP was basically trying to take care of the risk at the onset.

i dont give a damn about wheather Li Hongzhi wants to challenge the government. my dislike for Falun Gong is based on a simply fact: they ask its followers to burn themselves.

Thanks Cindy, GoChina and pug_ster

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No Fear No Hate No Pain No Broken Hearts

Sometimes these Companies just want to make a quick buck while disregarding the environment. I think it is good for outsiders like the NY Times to post stories like this without getting too political. Stuff like this has to happen to keep the companies and government honest.