 When Falun Gong was banned in mainland China in 1999 , re @-@ education through labor became a common punishment for practitioners . Some human rights groups claim that as many as 10 @,@ 000 Falun Gong members were detained in between 1999 and 2002 , with as many as 5 @,@ 000 detained in 2001 alone . More recent estimates suggest that hundreds of thousands of Falun Gong adherents are imprisoned in China , with some sources estimating up to half of the official reeducation through labor camp population is Falun Gong practitioners . In some labor camps , Falun Gong practitioners make up the majority population . 
