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Canada: Members of Parliament and Practitioners To Hold Joint Press Conference Calling on Prime Minister to Ask Jiang to Stop Persecuting Falun Gong at APEC
(Clearwisdom.net) Canada's Prime Minister, Jean Chretien, is about to
attend the APEC meeting in Mexico. Members of Parliament planned to hold a joint
press conference with practitioners on October 23. The purpose was to call on
Prime Minister Jean Chretien to directly ask the Chinese head of state to
release 12 Canadian residents' family members who are currently detained in
China, and further to immediately stop persecuting Falun Gong. On the same day,
thousands of Falun Gong practitioners were to hold large-scale group exercises
in Houston to appeal.
This press conference was the idea of the former leader of the Alliance
Party, Stockwell Day and Mr. Scott Reid. Other dignitaries to attend the press
conference include Liberal MP Irwin Cotler, MP Libby Davies of the New
Democratic Party, a representative from "Bloc Quebecois," Falun Gong
practitioner representative Ms. Zhang Li and others.
Toronto practitioner Zhang Li's husband is an outstanding civil engineer who
was presented with a National Golden Award in China and was sentenced to
three-and-half years in prison for practicing Falun Gong. With the appeal from
Zhang Li and many other practitioners, Amnesty International has launched a
global action to rescue "prisoner of conscience" He Lizhi, Zhang Li's
husband. A least 12 additional family members of Canadian residents are still
being detained in China for practicing Falun Gong.
After July 20th, 1999, Jiang used a policy named "Ruin their
reputation, destroy them financially and annihilate them physically" as a
slogan in his relentless persecution against Falun Gong in Mainland China. Up
until the end of October 2001, internal data from the Chinese government show
that more than 1,600 Falun Gong practitioners have been tortured to death, and
information about 503 of these practitioners has been confirmed abroad. Hundreds
of thousands of practitioners' homes were ransacked. The Dafa practitioners were
illegally detained, sent to forced labor camps and prisons where they were
brutally tortured. Some female practitioners were raped and thousands of
practitioners were forcibly sent into mental institutions.
Jiang's atrocities have met with strong criticism and condemnation from
segments of the Canadian government, Congressmen, non-governmental
organizations, the media and citizenry. At the same time, the compassion,
peacefulness, purity and indomitable perseverance and determination displayed by
Falun Gong practitioners moved the Canadian people and has brought high praise
from the Canadian community.
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