BEIJING - Twelve-year-old Guo Yuanming has learned his lesson. "Li Hongzhi should hang himself too!" the Beijing schoolboy declared Tuesday, in front of a gory photograph, larger than himself, that featured a corpse strung up from a tree.
As his mother nodded approvingly, Guo explained why he hates the Falun Gong founder: "Once people start believing in it, they sink deeper and deeper into it like a bog; you can't get out."
China claims followers of the mystical sect are responsible for over 1,600 deaths, including suicides by hanging, self-immolation, jumping from buildings, drowning in rivers, and the murder of innocent relatives. Their grisly ends are documented this week in video and photographs at China's largest ever anti-cult exhibition, "Oppose cults, uphold civilization."
Organizers deny that the imminent anniversary of the July 1999 ban against Falun Gong influenced the show's timing. State media boasts of daily crowds around 10,000, and claim tourists have swapped the regular sites for the exhibition to remind themselves of the power of "science over superstition."
But Guo and all other visitors actually come by invitation only. "It's not open to the public because we're worried that Falun Gong activists might come and make trouble," admitted Zhao Chongxin from the organizing committee.
Even after a bloody two-year assault on the sect, China's rulers cannot announce a complete victory in their nationwide war of attrition. Protests at Tiananmen Square have been greatly curtailed by the house-to-house campaign. But the gruesome footage of followers who burned themselves to death there in January highlights the extremes some Chinese feel driven to take to protest the ban.
"We should keep fighting against the cult which has stirred insecure elements," Vice Premier Li Lanqing warned.
Just two days after presiding over China's Olympic triumph in Moscow, Li, also the sports and culture czar, opened the new exhibition on Sunday.
"It is okay for people to have a belief, like communists who believe in communism, and Buddhists who believe in Buddhism," conceded 50 year-old Li. "But this is a tumor on society, and affects people with a low education who are easily tricked."
Li accused Falun Gong of "jeopardizing people's lives, trampling on human rights, undermining the legal system, endangering society, betraying the motherland, fabricating rumors to mislead the public, and gaining fame by deceiving people."
Some critics accuse China's ruling Communist Party of similar crimes. On Sunday, overseas Falun Gong groups alleged that some of the 10,000 followers they estimate are being held in Chinese labor camps have been raped, while at least 250 have been killed.
A spokesman for Falun Gong in Hong Kong Tuesday called on Beijing to keep its Olympic pledge. "We hope the Chinese government will live up to its promise to improve human rights and not see it as a license to kill," said Kan Hung-Cheung. "We worry that after winning the bid, the Jiang Zemin regime will still persecute and torture Falun Gong members."
At the Beijing exhibition, one hall displays infamous mass suicides -- such as Waco, Texas, and Jonestown, Guyana -- to bolster the government argument that the Falun Gong is part of a global problem. The exhibition also includes displays on other groups the Chinese government considers cults, including the Unification Church, Scientology and the Jehovah's Witnesses.