Washington Post: Falun Gong [Practitioners] Receive Stiff Sentences (Excerpt)

BEIJING, Sept. 20 -- Fifteen [practitioners] of the [suppressed] Falun Gong spiritual movement were sentenced today to up to 20 years in prison for cutting into cable TV networks in northeastern China and transmitting films protesting the government's crackdown on the group.

The sentences, announced on state television and by the official New China News Agency, are among the stiffest meted out to Falun Gong practitioners in the three years since the government banned the organisation [editor – Falun Gong has no formal organisation, all activities are arranged voluntarily] […] and are comparable to the longest sentences given to political dissidents in China.

The sentences' severity appeared to reflect the ruling Communist Party's concern about an ongoing Falun Gong campaign that has challenged the government's control of the media by [interposing] television signals and broadcasting videos accusing authorities of torturing and killing hundreds of practitioners.

State media said the defendants convicted today were responsible for [tapping] into cable systems on March 5 in Changchun, about 560 miles northeast of Beijing, and nearby Songyuan -- the first time Falun Gong has done this, as far as is known. Since then, Falun Gong has interrupted TV programs in several other cities, and it managed to [tap] into a state satellite system in June and briefly beam its message to millions.

Falun Gong supporters have also risked arrest by [sending] residents fliers, videodiscs and automated phone calls that play recordings [exposing] the government’s (suppression).

State television showed the defendants, 11 men and four women, wearing prison uniforms and standing side by side before judges in Changchun. Some bowed their heads. Zhou Runjun, who allegedly organized the TV [transmission], and Liu Weiming, a former television engineer said to have provided technical information, received 20-year prison terms. Twelve other defendants were given sentences of 12 to 19 years, and one defendant was ordered to serve four years.

[...]

Falun Gong's information centre in New York condemned the sentences and defended the television-signal [transmitting]: 'By broadcasting programs that expose what is really happening in China, practitioners of Falun Gong are exercising their right to freedom of speech, using peaceful means that harm no one.'