I will be spending the week before Thanksgiving in Beijing, China. I will do some sightseeing and try to learn a little Chinese while I'm there, but the main purpose of going is to gather one afternoon with several other Falun Gong practitioners from a number of Western nations. We will assemble and silently hold up a banner that reads, in English and Chinese, "Truth-Compassion-Tolerance."

The persecution campaign in China against Falun Gong is one of the most comprehensive and brutal such campaigns organized by a government against its own people in world history. Before this campaign began in 1999, the government estimated that 70-90 million people from all segments of society practiced Falun Gong. The government's propaganda, punishments, and torture since July 1999, have directly affected those tens of millions of people. They have indirectly touched the lives of most people in society, whether they are family members, co-workers, and friends of practitioners, or just people who watch TV or read newspapers and are subject to the barrage of distortions and lies that the state-controlled media publishes about Falun Gong.

At least 307 people are verified to have died as a result of torture while in custody, but a source there in the government says it's actually well over 1,000 who have died. These are people who are uniformly non-violent and courageous in maintaining their principles.

This campaign has also spread to the US and other countries. I was at a speech by the Chinese ambassador last year when he disparaged Falun Gong here in Minneapolis. Practitioners in San Francisco and Chicago have been beaten up in public places. The mother of a graduate student at the University of Minnesota is serving time in a labor camp in China because she had flyers in their family home, and his phone conversations with his father are monitored. There is plenty of poisonous propaganda in the Chinese-language media in the US, and some of it spills over into the English-language media.

Beyond these effects, the government of the most populous nation in the world is taking a high-profile stand against the universal principles of Truth-Compassion-Tolerance. This is bad for everyone in China, and bad for everyone everywhere.

This journey to Beijing is undertaken by a number of responsible individuals of conscience. Each of us has to ask ourselves: Why are we doing it, why are we traveling to the heart of China to make this quiet, peaceful statement that we hope will spark some change?

Here are some of the reasons I'm doing this:

* For the millions of practitioners in China who have endured much, to encourage and support them, to give them hope

* For all the people of China, to let them know that Falun Gong practitioners are good people from many countries and that the international community recognizes Falun Gong as good

* For the good people in the government of China, and for the good part inside every person in the government, to help them to wake up to the peacefulness and the righteousness of Falun Gong, and to give them the opportunity to change their hearts

* For all the people of the world, to let them know that Truth-Compassion-Tolerance is the highest, noblest, and most unshakable principle of the universe

All of us who are going understand clearly the situation in China and what some people there might think about our event--some will not welcome it.

My reply to any concerns is that I fully expect to be back home for Thanksgiving. I believe that we are taking a message of goodness to China, a message that is necessary to be seen there, and that what is in our hearts will be the most important thing during our visit there.