Members of Congress, Falun Gong Rally to Condemn Jiang’s Five Years of Systematic Torture, Killing
Speakers Honour Courage and Non-violence of Practitioners in China
WASHINGTON (FDI) – The man who helped organize the historic 1986 summit in Geneva between U.S. President Ronald Reagan
and his Russian counterpart Mikhail Gorbachev had a message for the large rally that assembled on Capitol Hill
yesterday: seemingly insurmountable odds are surmountable. “[Former Chinese leader] Jiang Zemin has terrorized the
Chinese people for so long, [and] he must go,” said Ambassador Mark Palmer, a 26-veteran of the U.S. State Department
and Vice-chairman of the Board for Freedom House. “It will happen,” Palmer told a crowd of over 1,000 practitioners and
supporters of Falun Gong who had travelled from more than 20 different countries to attend a series of events to be held
in Washington DC over the next several days, beginning with the rally on Thursday. The rally began with the introduction
of over 120 children and young adults who had biked to Washington DC from as far away as Canada as part of the “Save the
Kids Ride” project. Inspired by an Australian toddler whose father was tortured to death in China because he practiced
Falun Gong (report), “Save the Kids Ride” aims to raise awareness about how the persecution against Falun Gong in China
also targets children by breaking families apart, forcing children to undergo state-run indoctrination or even
subjecting them to physical abuse and torture.
Among the speakers at the rally were Congresswoman Ileana Ros-Lehtinen (R-FL) and Congressman Joseph M. Hoeffel III
(D-PA) who have played active roles in condemning the persecution of Falun Gong in China and calling for action to stop
Chinese government officials from exporting persecution tactics against Falun Gong to the U.S. and other countries.
(special report / news) Ros-Lehtinen has introduced several bills in the U.S. House of Representatives addressing the
systematic “eradication” of Falun Gong carried out by Jiang and his faction of allies within the Chinese Government.
(news)