Seen and Heard While Protesting in front of the White House

By Lian Sheng

(Clearwisdom.net) On April 19 and 20, 2006, Falun Gong practitioners protested the CCP's persecution of Falun Gong in front of the White House, and I recorded some of the things I saw and heard.

A police officer asks for a banner to hang in his dormitory

On April 20, practitioners held up banners with the words, "Bring Jiang, Luo, Liu and Zhou to Justice" and others, and shouted, "Stop the persecution of Falun Gong" in English and Chinese for a whole day in front of the hotel Hu stayed. A little over 11 p.m., when practitioners gathered up banners at the end of protest, a police officer came over and asked for several banners. He was on duty and asked for the banners to hang up in his dormitory.

The banners were mostly already packed into a truck on the way to Yale University for the next day's protest. The practitioner found two poster boards. One had the English words "No more Chinese Communist Party" and the other was mounted with the photo of Zhao Xi and had the words, "Stop the persecution of Falun Gong."

The police officer thanked the practitioners and happily accepted those poster boards.

A passer-by volunteers to explain the facts

On April 20, many people came to visit the White House and learned about the persecution of Falun Gong. Across the street near the White House, there was a group of Chinese students with the CCP's flag walking back and forth. Practitioners played the Nine Commentaries to let them listen. A U.S. student listened to the broadcast and found a lot of common ground with the message, especially the idea of "loving China does not mean loving the Communist Party, and the CCP does not represent China." He said, "Let me go over there and help you explain."

He told police that he was a tourist, and went across the street and called the Chinese students together. He started talking to them, and it seemed as if they had an animated discussion. The police asked them to keep moving, as people were not allowed to stop in front of the barricades, so he kept walking with the Chinese students to explain the facts to them. It was indeed a touching scene.

A TV station used by the CCP

In the evening of April 19, Hu was to arrive in Washington DC and stay in the hotel in front of the White House. The sidewalks in front of the White House were crowded with people, including those that the CCP organized to welcome him and those who came to protest. Falun Gong practitioners explained the facts to those people and played the Nine Commentaries in a loudspeaker.

17^th Street in front of the White House was the most important place that CCP arranged to welcome Hu. Though it was the shortest route to the hotel, Hu's motorcade did not pass through it. The welcoming crew was a little discouraged and ready to leave.

At that point, several reporters of a Taiwanese TV station arrived. It was interesting that they only wanted to shoot footage for those there to welcome Hu, without any shots of Falun Gong's protest. Whenever some protesters passed by, the cameraman stopped shooting. I heard before that a TV station in Taiwan was in the CCP's pocket, but I was still surprised to see it in action.

A student holding the CCP's flag walked back and forth. The cameraman called to her and asked her to wave the flag back and forth. When protesters holding posters passed by, he stopped shooting footage.

One person said, "It is better for the CCP to pay off media outlets outside of Mainland China, and then use their footage to fool people in China. It's more effective that way."

Chinese version available at http://minghui.ca/mh/articles/2006/4/23/125862.html

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