The Courageous Act of Civil Disobedience

Ghandi pointed out three possible responses to oppression and injustice. One he described as the coward's way: "To accept the wrong or run away from it. The second option was to stand and fight by force of arms." Gandhi said, "This was better than acceptance or running away." But the third way, he said, "was best of all and required the most courage to stand and fight solely by non-violent means."

When a government violates its own laws - the rights guaranteed to the citizens by its Constitution, when a government violates international law, specifically violating international treaties and covenants it has signed and ratified and thereby agreed to uphold, the people themselves have the right, indeed the responsibility, to uphold the law themselves. The history of civil disobedience, as enshrined in the essays of Henry Thoreau and the leadership of Frederick Douglas, Mahatma Ghandi, Martin Luther King, and Nelson Mandela, instruct that when a nation violates the rule of law and tramples upon the rights of man, it is incumbent upon the people themselves to not accept the wrong and not fight by force of arms but to fight solely by non-violent means.

In this case, the regime of Jiang Zemin (former President and dictator of China) continues to violate Article 35 of the Constitution of the People's Republic of China which guarantees the citizens of China freedom of speech, press, assembly, association, and demonstration, as well as Articles 36 (freedom of religion), 37 (freedom from unlawful arrest and detention), 38 (the right to personal dignity and freedom from libel false charges, and frame-ups), 41 (freedom to openly criticise functionaries of the state for legal violations and dereliction of duty) in a campaign of terror and violence which openly has as its goal the physical elimination of all persons who refuse to relinquish their belief in the principles of Falun Gong. The regime of Jiang Zemin continues to violate Articles 16 (right to recognition as a person before the law), 18 (freedom of thought, religion, and conscience), 19 (incitement to discrimination based on religious or spiritual belief), 21 (right of peaceful assembly), 22 (freedom of association) of the Covenant on Civil and Political Rights, ratified by the People's Republic of China in 1998, a year after they ratified the Covenant of Economic, Social and Cultural Rights. The Jiang regime continues to violate police law, prison law, criminal and civil procedure - including the due process rights of practitioners of Falun Gong in China.

Falun Gong attorneys in the United States applaud the nobility of these courageous acts and ask the government of China to stop the persecution of Falun Gong.