by Dr. Terri Marsh

(Clearwisdom.net) On July 19, 2007, Falun Gong practitioners from Europe, the United States, Asia and other places around the world held a rally at Capitol Hill in the United States to call for the disintegration of the Chinese Communist Party (CCP) and an end to the persecution. A number of US Congress members, officials from non-governmental organizations, human rights lawyers and victims of the persecution spoke at the rally. They urged the CCP to immediately stop the persecution of Falun Gong that has persisted for eight years. The following is the statement by Dr. Terri Marsh, Director of the Human Rights Law Foundation (HRLF) in Washington DC.

There has never been a more urgent need to preserve fundamental basic rights and freedoms than today, as the campaign of persecution of the principles Zhen-Shan-Ren (Truthfulness-Compassion-Tolerance) and the people who especially embrace them -- practitioners of Falun Gong - continues to spread its tentacles not only to Hong Kong, Singapore, Indonesia, Malaysia, but also to the United Kingdom, France, Belgium and the United States.

That thousands upon thousands of Falun Gong practitioners have been tortured to death by the Chinese Communist Party in China is a well known fact. That the harvesting of organs from practitioners of Falun Gong occurs in China as the final step in the torture process is an allegation that no one dares to take lightly in light of the Matas/Kilgour reports, the report of Manfred Nowak, the United Nations Special Rapporteur on Torture, several other respected third party reports, and the irrefutable array of evidence.

While people may turn a blind eye to the ongoing persecutory campaigns in China, few among us question their ongoing nature or the depths of depravity of the responsible parties.

Less well known to many is its reach beyond the shores of China to include and embrace those who practice Falun Gong here in the U.S. and everywhere else around the world. When Jiang Zemin told the elite core of the Chinese Communist Party in his famous June 7, 1999 speech that Falun Gong posed a threat to the security, stability and well-being of China and demanded its eradication, extermination and elimination by any means necessary, he did not limit his horizons to China. Indeed, he called the Falun Gong religion a political movement armed and set in motion by such hostile forces as the United States.

As a former high ranking member of the Chinese Communist Party and its infamous Gestapo-like Office 610, Chen Yonglin, has made clear, the war against Falun Gong is being waged on two fronts - within China and abroad. Run in part by the Ministry of Education, in part by the consulate offices here in the U.S. and elsewhere around the world, in part by Chinese Student University Associations, in part by the puppet regime of the once fully democratic Hong Kong, the intrusion of the Chinese Communist Party's tentacles into the domestic affairs of foreign nations like our own should cause all of us to pause and ask ourselves and our government - do we want to export to China a rule of law, an independent judicial branch and a respect for civil and human rights, or do we want to allow China to export to us unhealthy brands of toothpaste, pet food and toys, as well as its campaign of persecution of spirituality, independent thought, conscience and any other principles that threaten the survival of its hegemony.

There is not enough time to mention all of the particularities. But I will say that China's use of blacklists to deprive foreigners of their basic rights under the laws of foreign states, including their most recent persecutory campaign against thousands of Taiwan citizens who were refused entry into Hong Kong, brutally forced onto planes in violation of their rights under the Basic Law of Hong Kong, must be addressed by democratic governments everywhere. The basic rules of law and morality are not different in kind because they take place far away. By closing their borders to the moral and kind people of Taiwan, the Office of HK immigration excludes not only thousands of kind people, but shuts out kindness itself. By closing its borders to moral and righteous people, the HK immigration office shuts its doors to righteousness itself.

In closing I would like to take note of the recent threat that appeared on a Chinese Student Association website in a highly esteemed University in the United States. It warned that the war against Falun Gong is not only going on in China, that murder, and extra judicial killing await all who believe in the tenets of the Falun Gong faith anywhere and everywhere in the world.

As a lawyer and Director of the Human Rights Law Foundation, I ask all lawyers, public servants, educators, and members of the media to work together to stop the persecution of Falun Gong that is taking place not only in China, but in the United States and in most other nations around the world.