News Release: Hunger Strike Ends in Ottawa As Vigil and Courage Continue

September 7, 2001

Ottawa - Falun Gong practitioners will attempt to deliver an urgent appeal letter to the Chinese Ambassador as they end their 18-day Hunger Strike relay in front of the Chinese Embassy on Friday, September 7, 2001. The round-the-clock vigil, which began on July 6th, will continue.

They appeal for the immediate release of 130 practitioners suffering the 5th week of a hunger strike in Masanjia Labour Camp in China. All previous appeal letters have been refused. Meanwhile, 8 more torture-death cases of Falun Gong practitioners have been reported during the hunger strike. What kind of government would answer its people's peaceful appeal with this kind of cruelty?

Local Ottawa residents have been showing strong support for the practitioners' courage and perseverance. Passersby take leaflets and sign their petition to the House of Commons. Drivers honk their horns and wave as they drive by. More Canadians, including MPs and Senators, are expressing their support and their concerns about the Falun Gong suppression in China.

One passer-by said, "I have been following this. Many people support you. I have also written to the Ambassador and our Minister of Foreign Affairs". Some kind people brought water to those on hunger strike and food to those on vigil. One English teacher kindly offered to help the practitioners polish the English on the leaflets and other materials.

Mr. Christopher Levenson and Ms. Oonagh Berry, who pass by the vigil often, wrote to the Chinese Ambassador: "We are writing as people who in other circumstances would be only too glad to visit your country, to express our support for those members of the Falun Gong movement ... most individual Canadians find your government's policies in this respect totally abhorrent and an all too vivid reminder of the brutal suppression of peaceful dissent at Tianamen Square."

In her letter to Prime Minister Chretien, Chairperson of the Human Rights Committee of Senate, Senator Raynell Andreychuk wrote: "The recent hunger strikes initiated by Falun Gong practitioners in Canada shows the desperation felt by them, having exhausted all other legitimate means. ... I am appealing to you to support the Falun Gong practitioners by using your upcoming trip to China ...to encourage the Chinese officials to stop their unwarranted actions against these people."

MP Lynne Yelich wrote to the Prime Minister: "I am writing you today to urge you in taking a stance towards the Chinese authorities; letting them know they must stop persecuting Falun Gong, and to release all the practitioners from incarceration immediately. ...We have a responsibility, as a nation of peace, to stand up for individual rights, such as the right to practice Falun Gong."

Jasmine Gao, a Nortel Networks software engineer now on the last day of her 4-day hunger strike, expressed why she felt a need to be there: "Being a Falun Gong practitioner, in my seven-year cultivation, I greatly enjoy the health, happiness and peace that Falun Dafa has brought to me. However, such a great law of the universe has been subjected to the most brutal persecution and most evil defamation. There is an expression in Chinese: 'Being given a drop of water, I will reward the giver with a spring of water.' It is our duty to appeal for Falun Gong and clarify the truth from our own experience. .... My hearts calls me to be here."