Student asks for help in abuse prevention

We are students and faculty from 89 universities in the United States, united by our practice of Falun Gong and our concern for wellness and justice. We write to ask your help in an urgent matter.

For two years, a state-run campaign of terror in China has targeted 100 million peaceful, innocent Falun Gong practitioners. China’s totalitarian regime perceives the popularity of this practice as a threat. Tens of thousands have been thrown into labor camps without trial; at least 1,000 healthy practitioners have been put into mental hospitals for illegal psychiatric abuses; 293 have died in police custody. On Thanksgiving Day 2000, Dr. Teng Chunyan, a U.S. permanent resident, was sentenced to three years in prison in a secret trial in Beijing because she videotaped and released to western journalists footage documenting torture and illegal detention of Falun Gong practitioners in China’s mental hospitals. For her courageous work, Dr. Teng is herself now held captive in China and subjected to the same torture and abuse she risked her life to end.

The millions strong in China who practice Falun Gong have answered brutality with compassion, irrational fanaticism with calm reason, lies and deceit with honesty and plain dealing. They have demonstrated to the world how Falun Gong has made them persons of profound moral strength. They have resisted the largest totalitarian government in the world, and done so on their own. Now these brave persons need your help.

We sincerely ask you to call or write to President Bush, who will visit China soon, or your congressional representatives. Please ask for:

* Immediate release of Dr. Teng Chunyan

* Immediate end to the brutal persecution of innocent Falun Gong practitioners

Jikun Wei

Graduate student

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Student asks for help in abuse prevention

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