The Falun Gong religious movement hails from China, a country that is not participating in the G-8 Sea Island Summit, but small groups staged quiet demonstrations Tuesday in Savannah and Brunswick.
About 15 Falun Gong members from Atlanta moved through Tai Chi and meditation practices in Savannah's Reynolds Square. They plan to meet there each day during the summit.
Posted around the group were 30 to 40 photographs of Falun Gong demonstrations around the world.
In Brunswick, about 40 yellow-shirted Falun Gong protesters lined U.S. 17 at Overlook Park. They held banners, acted out graphic displays and distributed literature accusing the Chinese government of routinely torturing and killing their members.
Gruesome photo displays depict people beaten to death, with frostbitten toes, broken limbs and burns, all from torture in labor camps, the followers said.
Giang Chen, 34, says he knows firsthand.
"The local police threw me in a labor camp. Just because we practice Falun Gong. No other reason was needed," he said.
Chen, now a U.S. citizen working in the import-export business, said his torture included being kept awake 15 hours straight and bound with his chin against his knees.
"I could not walk for two weeks after that torture," he said.
For all the protests against President Bush during G-8, he has a friend in Chen who credits Bush and eight House members with getting him out of China.
Yeong-ching Foo of Santa Clara is working for the release of her fiance, Dr. Charles Lee, an American citizen and member of Amnesty International. Lee traveled back to China where he was arrested at the airport as he tried to show a tape, she said.
Sentence to three years hard labor, Lee has been force fed and beaten, Foo said.
"Right now he's being forced to do slave labor. They're trying to get him to confess to a crime he didn't commit and to renounce his beliefs," she said.
Foo noted that the G-8 leaders will talk about terrorism.
"I want to tell them about terrorism," she said.
The demonstrators were quick to say Falun Gong is not a religion but is instead an ancient discipline that teaches self-improvement.
Foo acknowledged it is very unlikely their protest site, about 10 miles from Sea Island, will be seen by any G-8 leaders.
She said she will still try to get the word out for Lee.
"I'm able to talk to you," she told a reporter. "He is there. He may not be able to see the sun."