http://www.theepochtimes.com/n2/opinion/an-open-letter-to-president-obama-a-girls-wish-61330.html
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A Falun Gong practitioner passes out literature about the spiritual practice on the National Mall on July 23, 2004. ( Tim Sloan/AFP/Getty Images) |
Dear Mr. President,
As a proud dad, you have often mentioned your two lovely girls—Malia and Sasha—in your speeches. I’d like to tell you the story of a Chinese girl visiting Washington, D.C., from China.
One hot day this summer, Meilian, a Chinese lady in her ’70s, followed her daily routine and put up a banner on the National Mall. She was there to do what she calls “truth clarification” to the Chinese visitors—telling them the facts about the persecution of Falun Gong (also known as Falun Dafa).
A group of teenage kids had arrived in the United States from China for their summer camp and were touring Washington. Among them was a teenage girl who approached Meilian with tears in her eyes and whispered, “Grandma, you know what? My grandma also practices Falun Gong.”
The old lady, also with tears in her eyes, patted the girl’s back, “Please say ‘hi’ to your grandma and ask them to take good care of themselves. We know what they’ve been through.”
The old lady Meilian knows too well how much depression and sorrow lay behind the girl’s tears. A picture could instantly appear before her eyes. The Neighborhood Committee, controlled by the Communist Party, may have come to harass the girl’s grandma from time to time, warning her not to travel to Beijing.
The police may even have dragged the grandma to a police car, right in front of the girl’s eyes. At school, the girl may have been shouted at almost everyday, “Shame on you! Your grandma is Falun Gong. Shame on you!” The parents may have been hopelessly worried, “Can our only daughter still go to college?”
The old lady Meilian also knows how much relief and hopefulness is behind the girl’s tears. As soon as she saw words “Falun Gong” on the banner, the hope lit up in her heart, “It is not dark everywhere, as it is in China! People can freely practice Falun Gong on free soil like that of the United States! My grandma and I are not bad people!”
Mr. President, I bet the very first thing the girl will shout to her grandma upon returning home is, “Grandma, Grandma! People in America also practice Falun Gong! They do it right at the National Mall in the nation’s capital! No police kick them around and beat them up!”
Imagine, Mr. President, how much hope and encouragement this would give to the girl’s grandma and her friends, many of whom are also senior citizens and also live with the daily worry of whether their children will have to visit them in prison next week.
Yet, all of this happens not because the U.S. government has done a lot for them, but just because the United Stated does as little as allowing people to have the freedom to express their opinions in any public place like the National Mall.
Mr. President, imagine how much more hope and encouragement you can give to tens of millions of Chinese people living under the tyranny if you say to Hu Jintao, the chairman of the Chinese Communist Party, “Mr. Hu, give Falun Gong freedom!”
You will be remembered by people around the world, especially Chinese people, for generations to come, just as President Reagan has been for his famous statement, “Mr. Gorbachev, tear down this wall!”
Mr. President, in China, millions of Falun Gong parents love their children no less than you and Michelle do Malia and Sasha. They also want to take their kids to piano and tennis classes, and to do gardening with them and even teach them how to eat healthily.
But they know that all of these simple pleasures are luxuries beyond their reach. They’d be happy if they are not deprived of their jobs for their belief in Falun Gong and can still put food on the table for their children.
They’d be happy if their children can enter college without having to sign a declaration statement saying, “I don’t practice Falun Gong.”
They’d be happy if their children won’t be summoned to the police station only to be given their parents’ ashes.
In your letter to Malia and Sasha before your inauguration you wrote of what you want for them. You hoped they would take up the work of “righting the wrongs that you see and working to give others the chances you've had.”
Mr. President, as I’m writing, tens of millions of children in China just like that teenage girl visiting the National Mall, as well as their parents and grandparents, are waiting for you to tell Hu Jintao, “Give Falun Gong freedom!”
Sherry Chang is a Chinese American who has been living in the United States for 19 years.
About Falun Gong
Falun Gong is a spiritual practice that involves doing five sets of meditative exercises and living according to the principles of truthfulness, compassion, and tolerance. After it was first introduced to the public in 1992 by Mr. Li Hongzhi, Falun Gong spread rapidly by word of mouth among the Chinese people.
Practitioners reported extraordinary improvements in their health as well as in their character. They reported having less stress, becoming kinder, and more thoughtful people, enjoying more harmonious family lives, and having a deeper understanding of the meaning of life.
In early 1999 an official with the Chinese Sports Authority indicated that 100 million people were practicing Falun Gong in China, approximately 1 in every 12 people. Falun Gong is now practiced in more than 100 countries around the world.
The then-head of the Chinese Communist Party, feared that this spiritual practice, which counted among its practitioners high-ranking Communist Party members, members of the armed forces, and of the security agencies, could somehow be a threat to the ideological control the CCP held over the Chinese people.
Jiang ordered a campaign to “eradicate” Falun Gong in July 1999, which continues to this day. The Falun Dafa Information Center can confirm 3,400 deaths due to torture and abuse, but fears the actual death toll is in the tens of thousands. Hundreds of thousands are held in China’s brutal labor camps.
