Lewis & Chao/Enlightened Martyrdom, Introduction.

When it became evident that the People’s Republic of China (PRC) was on the verge of banning the Falun Gong movement, Li Hongzhi, the movement’s founder, and his family escaped China, relocating permanently in the United States. Subsequently, the dramatic crackdown on Falun Gong in 1999 made international headlines. From the safety of his new home, Master Li encouraged his followers left behind in the PRC to vigorously demonstrate against the Chinese government, even if it meant imprisonment or martyrdom. The present collection provides a comprehensive overview of Falun Gong: the movement’s background, history, beliefs and practices. But whereas prior treatments have generally tended to downplay Falun Gong’s ‘dark side,’ in the following pages we have made an effort to include treatments of the less palatable aspects of this movement. Enlightened Martyrdom will, in other words, provide a recap of what has been discussed in earlier scholarship, but will move forward to cover Falun Gong’s subsequent conflicts as well as the movement’s strident efforts to muzzle critical analyses of their ideas and their struggle.