In his office at the University of South Carolina-Aiken, Frank Xie folds his legs into a sitting lotus to meditate.

In his native China, fellow practitioners of Falun Gong are persecuted for the same practice, said Xie, an assistant professor of marketing,

He will speak Wednesday about religious persecution of Falun Gong at a meeting of the CSRA Peace Alliance.

Falun Gong, a meditation practice centered on the principles of truthfulness, compassion and tolerance, came to be seen as a threat to the ruling Chinese Communist Party.

Amnesty International has recorded nearly 1,600 cases of detention, arrest or sentencing of Falun Gong practitioners since China outlawed the belief system in 1999. The human …