A 19-year-old Falun Gong follower died early this month after setting himself on fire in Nanning, capital city of south China's Guangxi Zhuang Autonomous Region, local police announced here Monday.
Luo Guili, born in 1982, became a practitioner of Falun Gong in 1996 when he was a student at the Guangxi Light Industry School.
On July 1 this year, he went to the Nanning Minzu Square to sit and meditate. After a while, he pulled two plastic bottles containing alcohol from a bag, doused himself and then ignited before patrol guards and police could rush to stop him.
The young man was immediately sent to a hospital, where he admitted that he was a Falun Gong follower, claiming that he was trying to burn off the evil hidden in his body so as to reach a higher level in Falun Gong practice.
Doctors from the Nanning No.1 People's Hospital said that they tried all available means to save the young man, but he died the next morning as a result of severe extensive burns and consequent heart and lung failure.
(Xinhuanet, July 23, 2001)
