We are taking part in an SOS Rescue Walk from Amsterdam to Brussels and will arrive at your esteemed city tomorrow. It is an effort to call for all kindhearted people to: “Open up your hearts, reach out your helping hands, and urgently rescue the Falun Gong practitioners persecuted in China!” This is part of an SOS Global Rescue Walk.
The 11th of September 2001 is a date that shook the entire world. Because of the terrorist attack on America, all countries have focused their attention on the U.S., Afghan, and Pakistan…
However, the Chinese government is taking advantage of the situation that all countries’ attention is diverted to America, to persecute peaceful Falun Gong practitioners with greater severity. Since the Chinese Government banned Falun Gong in July 1999, tens of thousands of Falun Gong practitioners have been forced into labor camps, detention centers and jails where they are tortured and subjected to inhuman treatment. According to incomplete statistics, at least 304 practitioners are known to have been persecuted to death. Government officials revealed privately that there were at least 1000 Falun Gong practitioners persecuted to death throughout the entire country in just over two years.
This persecution is wide spread and has affected tens of millions of people. The following are three cases related to residents in Europe and the Netherlands.
1, Zhao Ming is a graduate student in Dublin of Ireland. He was arrested during his Christmas vacation in China in 1999, for appealing to the State Appeals Office against the ban of Falun Gong. He was later sent to a labour camp in Beijing for one year without trial and was severely tortured. Despite widespread calls for his release, including those from 50 M.E.P.s from 6 European countries, his sentence was extended earlier this year, after his original term expired. His story has received numerous headlines in Ireland and we hope to raise Zhao Ming’s plight with the EU leaders in Brussels.
2, Wang Xianghe and Wang Huahe are two sisters living in Amsterdam. Five of their family members who live in China were arrested in December last year simply because of practicing Falun Gong, including their 85 year old mother and 14 years old niece. Their mother and niece were detained for more than three months. Their sister in law and two brothers are still in jail and are constantly being subjected to inhuman torture. Wang Xianghe is one of the walkers.
3, My family is also suffering directly from this persecution. I graduated recently with a Ph.D. degree from Eindhoven University of Technology. My husband has been detained in a labour camp for 9 months simply because he is a student of Falun Gong. He was illegally sentenced for one and a half years. His family members do not know what had happened to him. I strongly appeal for the release of my husband, simply to reunite her family.
Why has the Chinese government cracked down on Falun Gong? Why have so many men, women, children been forced to suffer so much?
Firstly, the Chinese Government feels threatened, because the number of people practicing Falun Gong grew to over 70 million in under seven years, even exceeding the membership of the communist party. Secondly, Falun Gong teaches Truthfulness-Compassion-Forbearance, which the Chinese Government thinks is not consistent with communism. Thirdly, Falun Gong cannot be controlled, bullied, corrupted or bribed or made a source of profit.
Falun Gong practitioners simply wish to exercise their right to believe in Truthfulness-Compassion-Forbearance. They wish to meditate peacefully before going to work. They simply want to be free.
To expose the truth of the brutal persecution and crackdown by the Chinese government, to rescue our innocent fellow practitioners persecuted in China, and particularly, to help Zhao Ming to return to Ireland, we, Falun Gong practitioners from the Netherlands and Ireland, will walk from Amsterdam to Brussels, starting on the 8th October and finishing on the 17th. This walk is part of the SOS Global Rescue Walk. We wish to show the public, through our “SOS! Global Rescue Walk”, the distillation of courage and determination under such suffering and oppression, and the majesty of the values of Truthfulness, Compassion, and Forbearance.
Since the crackdown in July 1999, Falun Gong has gained world-wide support from many governments and international organisations including Amnesty International and Human Rights Watch. Your kind consideration of these facts, your help to bring to public notice and areas of political-social authority the shocking inhumane behaviour of the Chinese authorities would be most gratefully appreciated.
To all kind-hearted people in the world who value justice and freedom of conscience, we say: “SOS! Urgent: Rescue the Falun Gong practitioners persecuted in China!” Please offer any support and help that you can. Two years is too long…
Yours sincerely,
(On behalf of all four walkers)
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