World News
Falun Gong practitioners gathered in Flushing, New York to practice the exercises, and to later pass out truth-clarifying materials to local people. Following the pattern of recent weeks, Chinese Communist Party (CCP) instigators organized a few attacks of practitioners, but for the most part, local Chinese seemed supportive.
New York City police have arrested at least six members of a pro-Communist mob which attacked Falun Gong practitioners in the New York suburb of Flushing. Pro-communist mobs, numbering as many as 600, have been a consistent presence in intimidating Falun Gong adherents since May 17th. The attacks have frequently escalated to violence. The events are believed to have been orchestrated by the Chinese consulate in New York, as revealed by a telephone recording with the Chinese consul general in which he boasts of his involvement.
U.S. coverage of China has been weak and our policies inconsistent. Terribly so. But it doesn’t render us incapable of doing the right thing. Falun Gong has been getting little press in the torch relay fracas. That’s not surprising. As an indigenous Chinese movement, rather than a separatist one, Falun Gong has taken a neutral position on boycotting the Chinese Olympics, sensing correctly that it has become a matter of Chinese “face” that the Olympics continue.
Recently, under direct orders from Zhou Yongkang, secretary of the Political and Judiciary Committee of the Chinese Communist Party (CCP), the CCP continues to frame and slander Falun Gong in China and overseas by fabricating news to inspire hatred towards Falun Gong.
As part of its ongoing efforts to end the Chinese government’s brutal treatment of Falun Gong practitioners, the Coalition to Investigate the Persecution of Falun Gong (CIPFG) has begun a campaign to secure millions of signatures on a worldwide anti-persecution petition. The signatures will be gathered ahead of the 2008 Olympics in Beijing and will be presented to the International Olympics Committee, the United Nations Commission on Human Rights, international human rights organizations, and various governments and parliaments around the world.
Global
statistics of signatures
In order for the Chinese people to see a world with the same human rights, the Forum announced the launching of a plan to promote the Human Rights Torch Relay into China by the end of March, 2008 in response to the Chinese people’s call for human rights and against the Olympic Games.
On February 18, 2008, the “Human Rights Torch Relay” initiated by the Coalition to Investigate the Persecution of Falun Gong (CIPFG) arrived in Israel, and a torch relay ceremony was held in downtown Tel Aviv.
US Congressman Dana Rohrabacher pointed out that while the Chinese Communist Party persecutes peaceful Falun Gong practitioners, the United States should not participate in an Olympics hosted by such a criminal government.
On the morning of October 10, 2007, before the Europe-China human rights dialogue and the Chinese Communist Party’s (CCP) Seventeenth Conference, the European Parliament held a press conference on China’s human rights and freedom of belief.
On September 28, dozens of human rights and religious groups rallied outside the United Nations Headquarters urging world leaders attending the 62nd Session of the General Assembly of the United Nations, and all people of conscience, to take joint action to end the Chinese Communist Party’s (CCP) persecution of Falun Gong and other religious groups.
