Falun Gong still worries China, despite efforts to crush the sect

TUCKED away in a corner on Gerrard Street, in the heart of London’s Chinatown, three middle-aged Chinese women sit on the ground, their legs tightly crossed, in silent meditation. A deafening loudspeaker behind them blasts out a stream of invective against the Chinese Communist Party. Before long, one of them gets up and starts handing out flyers to passers-by. But pedestrians from China who are approached by the woman grimace and dart away. Most do not even bother to glance at the meditators, who are adherents of Falun Gong, a spiritual practice which China banned in 1999 and calls an “evil cult”.