Santee is a small city in a suburb east of San Diego, California, population 60,000. Santee's citizens are mostly nice, peaceful people. Its crime rate is the lowest in the whole county. In early December 2000, some local Falun Gong practitioners sent a letter to the mayor, introducing Falun Dafa to him and asking him to declare a Falun Dafa Week in Santee. For a while, the practitioners did not hear anything from the mayor. But last week, a reporter from The San Diego Union-Tribune called a local practitioner with the news that the mayor of Santee had decided to declare a Falun Dafa Week.
When the mayor first received our letter and material, he felt that he needed to learn more about Falun Gong and did not respond to our application right away. After several days, the mayor received a letter from the Chinese Consulate. In the letter the Chinese officials made a vicious attack against Falun Gong and its practitioners. They asked that no proclamation should be issued to promote Falun Gong. After reading the letter, the mayor gained a better understanding of Falun Dafa and decided to issue the declaration for a Falun Dafa Week. The mayor told the newspaper reporter: "I am a U.S. city mayor, how could I let them (the Chinese Consulate) tell me what I can and cannot do?"
The reporter from The San Diego Union-Tribune made an investigation, and found mayors from many other cities also received a similar letter. He is currently writing a follow-up report on this issue. The Roger Hedgecock Talk Show, the most popular local radio program, interviewed the mayor to discuss this incident. The reporter from The San Diego Union-Tribune also interviewed some practitioners at a beach practice site. This incident attracted attention from the local news media. Falun Dafa once again became a hot topic among the local people.
Looking at this incident, we feel it appropriate to quote Master's recent speech at the Western U.S. Falun Dafa Conference: "Moreover, all people with righteous thoughts--and I'm not referring to our students--all everyday people with righteous thoughts are standing up against this. This is because the evil was restraining people before, and after the evil was eliminated, people became clearheaded and now they're reconsidering and reevaluating all these. The lies and fabrications will all be exposed one by one."
