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"Clarify the truth thoroughly, eliminate the evil with righteous thoughts, save all beings, and safeguard the Fa with determination" (Dafa is Indestructible) AP: Falun Gong supporters start two-week trip to Washington [Excerpt] Danny Pollock Saturday, July 7, 2001 00:01 PDT Mingjing Xue says she spent more than 100 days in a Chinese labor camp,
where she and other practitioners of the Falun Gong spiritual movement were
not allowed to speak, meditate or even close their eyes. At one point, she and another person were handcuffed together to the window
of their cell. "This position made us unable to squat or use the toilet," she said. "For
three days and two nights, we were not given any food or water, nor were we
allowed to sleep." The 53-year-old Chinese resident was one of 11 people who boarded vans in
Los Angeles on Friday for a cross-country trip to protest persecution in
China that they claim took the lives of 15 women in a labor camp last month. Others left San Francisco, with their first stop set for Sacramento. During send-off rallies outside the Chinese consulate in Los Angeles and
City Hall in San Francisco, speakers gave personal accounts of mistreatment
in China while blaming the June 20 deaths of the Falun Gong practitioners on
beatings by guards at the Laogai labor camp in Heilongjiang Province. "We are traveling the entire breadth of America to send an SOS," said Gina
Sanchez, an organizer of the trip in Los Angeles. "We are seeking every
means diplomatic, legal and humanitarian to stop any further killing of
innocent people in China." [...] During the government's two-year crackdown on the spiritual movement,
thousands of followers have been sent to labor camps. [...] Falun Gong followers deny those allegations and say 250 followers have died
from police brutality since July 1999. Sanchez expected as many as 3,000 people from throughout the country to
converge on Washington on July 17 for rallies and meetings with lawmakers. http://www.inlandempireonline.com/news/ap/20010707/CA_Banned_Sect_Journey_32
172N.shtml
Posting date: 7/8/2001 |