Religion in china related to 法轮功（Fa lun gong）

‘Fa lun gong’ is a recent religious movement in china. It was created by Li hong zhi in 1992. It is the combination of the practice of meditation and qi-gong. It also combines the dogmas such as morality and the cultivation of virtue in its central tenets of Truthfulness, compassion and Forbearance. Fa lun gong was originated from ‘qigong’. Qigong is the exercise that activates Qi in human body. Qi is Asian concept which means human’s innate power. People can feel Qi by themselves and also other people can feel another people’s Qi. Qi is measured by strength. A person who has strong Qi is healthy. Therefore, Qigong is kind of a martial art that makes human more active and powerful. This is beneficial for the people who sick but don’t know how to cure or originally born weak.
Qi gong and Fa lun gong are both really good for mental health. However, Chinese government considers Fa lun gong as a cult and made very strict laws to oppress them. Chinese government even made a documentary about the false of the Fa lun gong and broadcast into whole china. Yet Fa lun gong is still really a big movement in china and the other countries like Korea or some western countries.
There are 2 points that are arguable about the Fa lun gong. The first question is that whether Fa lun gong is really a religion or not. What is religion? Perhaps no one can give proper answer to this question. According to some socialists, people made religion because they need it to integrate people together. Therefore, religion has a role in the society. In another perspective, Religion can be a cultural thing. Religion explains how people think, live and act. Then, is Fa lun gong a religion? In my opinion, It can’t be the religion. Religion must be connected with human itself. Usually, department of religious studies is located in faculty of humanities. The reason is that religion explains human. However, Fa lun gong don’t have proper theology to explain human. For example, Hinduism has a concept of ‘samsara’ which means the eternal cycle of birth, death and re-birth. This concept shows that people need shelter to hide from the real life agonies. From the view of Hinduism, when people suffer from poverty or illness, they can make reasons themselves such as “I did wrong things in past lives, I will live better than before so that I can live happily in after-birth.” Does Fa lun gong have this kind of explanation or deep concerns about human? It might be not.
The second question is that can the government oppress people’s free right to have a religion. Chinese communist government suppress Fa lun gong so heavily. According to a Marx, religion is a drug for people. He said that religion creates unrealistic fantasy. It can be true. However, people who want to have a fantasy in their life, they can have. Government cannot keep them from believing religion. In the Chinese history, china repeated separating from each other and became one together. Because of this, Chinese government has a fear if fa lun gong or other religious movements create social division. Perhaps Chinese government have a hypothesis that Fa lun gong has some kind of political connection with opposite party. I don’t have any idea of this hypothesis but even it is true, government should not do oppress people because of the religion. I think Government should be a protector that protects individuals from everything. If religion member do very harmful act to other people, government must stop them. However, if it is not, they should give people freedom of belief.
I have never lived in communist country so that I can’t imagine Chinese government’s strict laws. I thought that china now is really opened. But in terms of religion, I realized they are still quite conservative country.