United States: Washington DC Dafa Practitioners Hold Press Conference to Protest Jiang Regime's Imprisonment of Charles Li

Falun Gong practitioners from Washington DC and friends of Charles Li held a press conference across the street in front of the Chinese Embassy at 1:00 pm on May 16, 2003.

Falun Dafa, Truthfulness-Compassion-Forbearance. Nearly 100 million people have improved their health and spirit	Truthfulness-Compassion-Forbearance can make the world peaceful. Persecuting Falun Gong violates heaven's principle.

During the press conference, Mr. Huang read a statement. The statement said that Jiang's regime sentenced Dr. Charles Li to three years of imprisonment, rejected his appeal, and imprisoned him in a Nanjing prison. Because the WHO has designated Jiangsu Province as one of the five SARS epidemic areas, travellers from other areas are not allowed to travel to Nanjing. Therefore, Dr. Li's family members and officials in the US Consulate in Shanghai cannot visit him. As friends of Dr. Li, we are very worried about his safety. Chinese jails are notoriously brutal in abusing Falun Gong practitioners. The statement strongly calls on everyone, including the U.S. government, to help rescue Dr. Li.

Dr. Li was arrested on January 22 of this year immediately after he got off a plane in the Guangzhou Airport. He has been imprisoned since then. His friends and family overseas are not allowed to call him, and the U.S. Consulate official is only allowed 30 minutes to visit him every month. Beijing denied that his arrest was related to his belief in Falun Gong, but his Falun Gong books were taken away and he does not have freedom to practise Falun Gong, even though he is a U.S. citizen.

Last October, Jiang was accused in a U.S. District Court for genocide and torture in persecuting Falun Gong. During the past seven months, the persecution has continued and over one hundred Falun Gong practitioners have been verified to have died from police torture, although the real figure is likely to be much higher due to the strict information blockade put in place by the Jiang regime. Jiang has ordered the government to spend one fourth of the country's resources to maintain the brutal persecution against Falun Gong, even now.

The statement said that the situation in China is critical. The atrocities are still escalating, and so is the hateful propaganda against Falun Gong. SARS can harm people's physical bodies, but the Jiang regime's slander against "Truthfulness-Compassion-Forbearance" harms the people's minds and morality.

In the press conference, a letter from Dr. Li's fiancée was read. She said in the letter, "Charles Li's action was upright, he was trying to help Chinese people find out the truth." She called everyone to help rescue Dr. Li so that he can come back to the U.S. as soon as possible.