On Thursday April 20th 2006 in Washington (USA), the leaders of the world’s two main terrorist states held meetings.
China was a superpower on the way up; the USA was a superpower on the way down.
A welcome ceremony for the Chinese President Hu Jintao was hosted by the American President George W. Bush on the White House lawn in front of the international press.
Dr Wenyi Wang, aged 47, a female reporter with The Epoch Times was on a camera stand in the press section, directly in front of Hu and Bush.
As the Chinese President began speaking, Dr Wang shouted out in Chinese: "Evil people die early …. Hu, your days are numbered …. no more time for China’s ruling party."
Then she changed to English: “President Bush, stop him from persecuting the Falun Gong! Stop him from killing! Stop the torture and killings! Falun Dafa is good."
As Dr Wang was shouting, she unfurled a red and yellow banner bearing Chinese characters and Falun Gong logos.
Hu stopped speaking briefly until Bush lent over and reassured him.
Dr Wang continued heckling the leaders loudly for over two minutes until she was escorted away by uniformed American security guards.
In China, television screens were blanked out when the protests became audible. The American television channel, CNN, said that its signal to China was interrupted twice: first when Dr Wang was shouting and later when the network reported the incident.
The incident took place immediately after Bush had urged Hu to allow the Chinese to “speak freely”.
President Bush later apologised to President Hu. "This was unfortunate and I'm sorry it happened,” he said.
The Epoch Times (New York, USA) said: “Dr. Wang attended this event on Epoch Times press credentials. However, her actions this morning were her own. In protesting in this manner, she did not act on behalf of The Epoch Times. Moreover, she had not consulted any of her Epoch Times colleagues beforehand about her staging this protest.”
Falun Gong practitioners make it their business to protest whenever and wherever senior Chinese leaders travel abroad. Five years ago, in 2001, when President Jiang Zemin visited Malta, Dr Wang was there to heckle him.
The Falun Gong is a peaceful meditation movement which is banned in China. Hundreds of thousands of Falun Gong meditators have been tortured, sexually abused or murdered in labour camps by agents of the Chinese Communist regime.
At the time of Dr Wang’s White House protest there were tens of thousands of missing Falun Gong practitioners in China. Their families were searching for them, but had no clue as to their whereabouts.
At the same time, in April 2006, The Epoch Times reported that, based on the statements of doctors performing organ transplants in China, in the following eleven days thousands of Falun Gong practitioners would be terminated in China by having their organs harvested while they were still alive. More details here.
One of the Chinese labour camps where Falun Gong meditators are held is referred to, in the West, as the Sujiatun concentration camp. It is a secret underground facility in Shenyang, the capital of Liaoning province.
On the 20th April 2006, U.S. Newswire (Washington) reported that the key witness who exposed the Sujiatun concentration camp and organ harvesting from live Falun Gong meditators would testify in public for the first time.
The Sujiatun concentration camp was exposed in early March 2006. The witness, a former employee of the Sujiatun facility, decided to come forward despite the danger that such a disclosure would put her in. Initially she had hoped that the international community would carry out a full investigation after she revealed the information in March. But to her outrage, within three weeks of the news leak, the Falun Gong meditators held in Sujiatun had been relocated and the facility was sanitized. This done, Chinese officials were instructed to address the media and invite international observers to the site.
On Friday 21st April 2006, the White House heckler, Dr Wenyi Wang, was charged with harassing a foreign official - a federal misdemeanour punishable upon conviction by up to six months in prison and a fine of $5,000. She appeared before Magistrate Judge Deborah Robinson in Washington. A preliminary hearing in the case was set for the 3rd May. Dr Wang was freed on her own recognizance, but ordered to stay away from the White House.
After her court appearance, Dr Wang, a Falun Gong meditator, said she had not committed a crime, but an act of civil disobedience. The real crime, she said, is being committed by China's Communist government, which harvests organs from living Falun Gong meditators in hospitals, labour camps and detention centres before throwing their bodies into incinerators.
Falun Gong was initiated by a Chinese Buddhist spiritual teacher, Li Hongzhi, in 1992. He gave a series of nine widely distributed lectures collectively referred to as Zhuan Falun.
Falun Gong is neither a religion nor a sect. It is a peaceful self-development spirituality which through meditation and yoga-like physical exercises seeks to improve the body, mind and spirit.
On the 25th April 1999, in central Beijing, the Chinese capital, tens of thousands of Falun Gong practitioners held a peaceful human rights protest outside the main Chinese Communist Party offices.
Thereafter, the Chinese government sought to repress the Falun Gong and on the 21st July 1999 declared it an illegal “evil cult” based on outdated “superstitions”.
The Chinese government fears the Falun Gong for five reasons. First, as a spiritual movement, the Falun Gong does not buy into the anti-spiritual, materialistic dogmas of the Chinese Communist Party.
Second, the Falun Gong, using the internet, is adept at getting huge numbers of people out onto the streets for what appear to be spontaneous protests – protests which are not foreseen by the government security organisations.
Third, there are well over a hundred million active Falun Gong practitioners in China. They hugely outnumber the membership of the Chinese Communist Party, which is diminishing steadily year by year.
Fourth, many members of the Chinese Communist Party, including scores of senior local and central politicians and security personnel are covert Falun Gong practitioners.
Fifth, because of their internet skills, the Falun Gong has linked into many international human rights groups. This has brought Chinese human rights violations to a wider public, including the United Nations. The Chinese Communist Party is facing a devastating public relations and public order disaster during the Beijing Olympics in August 2008. Demonstrations are expected by Western visitors, including leading athletes on the medals podium and at medal winner’s press conferences.
Li Hongzhi left China in 1998 and now lives in New York (USA) with his wife and daughter. He has twice been nominated for the Nobel Peace Prize. There are active Falun Gong meditation groups in every major Western country.
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What is Falun Gong?
An article by Human Rights Watch
Falun Dafa (Falun Gong)
Introduction by Altreligion.about.com
Introduction to Falun Gong & Falun Dafa
Background from the Ontario Consultants on Religious Tolerance
Falun Gong - an evil cult?
BBC h2g2 article
Dangerous meditation – China’s campaign against Falun Gong
A Human Rights Watch document dated January 2002
Fear for safety of Falun Gong practitioners in Changchun City
An Amnesty International document dated March 2002
Zhuan Falun
The foundation text of Falun Gong – nine lectures by Li Hongzhi
Who is Li Hongzhi?
BBC article dated May 2001
Glossary of technical terms
Vocabulary pertinent to an understanding of Zhuan Falun
China Cracking
Article by Frederick Stakelbeck in FrontPage magazine (Los Angeles, USA) dated December 2005
China - Time Bomb Walking
Symposium in FrontPage magazine (Los Angeles, USA) dated April 2006
Organs for sale
China accused of killing Falun Gong members – article in PureAwakening.net (Calgary, Canada) dated April 2006. PureAwakening.net is a Falun Gong website.
China’s enemy within: The Story of Falun Gong
Article by Paul Vallely and Clifford Coonan in The Independent newspaper (London) 22.04.06
A cry to awaken our conscience
Personal statement by Dr Wenyi Wang on why she protested at the White House – The Epoch Times (New York, USA) – 24.04.06
Essential Information on Organ Theft from Falun Gong Practitioners in China
Article in The Epoch Times (New York, USA) – 24.04.06
Fleeing a Tibetan monastery
Jan Willem den Besten interviews a young Buddhist monk describing Chinese religious persecution at the Ganden monastery in Lhasa. BBC (India) 27.04.06
Why Wang Wenyi was shouting
Comments by Makina on the Between Heaven and Earth blog (Canada) - 30.04.06
'Falun Gong, Keep up the Good Work!'
Interview with Attorney Gao Zhisheng in The Epoch Times (New York, USA) - 01.05.06
The Nine Commentaries on the Chinese Communist Party
An editorial series in The Epoch Times (New York, USA), describing the nature of the CCP, its control methodologies and its ongoing internal disintegration.
China bans reincarnation in Tibet
United Press International (Washington, USA) 03.08.07
China tells living Buddhas to obtain permission before they reincarnate
The Times (London, UK) 04.08.07
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You know Epoch's "Sujiatun concentration camp" claim has been discredited, right?
ReplyDeleteUS government announced finding of its investigation - no evidence of concentration camp:
http://news.yahoo.com/s/afp/20060415/pl_afp/uschinasectpolitics_060415004729
(Update: official link thanks to smalldeadanimals http://usinfo.state.gov/xarchives/display.html?p=washfile-english&y=2006&m=April&x=20060416141157uhyggep0.5443231&t=livefeeds/wf-latest.html)
"Officers and staff from our embassy in Beijing and consulate in Shenyang have visited the area and the specific site mentioned in these reports on two separate occasions," McCormack said.
"In these visits the officers were allowed to tour the entire facility and grounds and found no evidence that the site is being used for any function other than as a normal public hospital."
This finding was reported by The Australian weeks prior:
http://www.theaustralian.news.com.au/story/0,20867,18669046-7583,00.html
"It appears the claims by Falun Gong have been at least substantially exaggerated. Initial investigations by researchers for a US congressional committee have identified the site at Sujiatun as a hospital, where it is suspected organ harvesting occurs but on nowhere near the scale claimed"