Teri Leahy said that atrocities against Falun Gong practitioners in China, including the harvesting of live people's organs, have to stop.
Leahy, a University of Kansas professor and Falun Gong practitioner, said many people didn't know about the crimes committed by the Chinese Communist Party (CCP).
"You try to talk to some people, and they just don't believe what you say," Leahy said. "It just sounds so horrible. [...]"
That's why Leahy decided to do something. Traveling with a Buick car load of Kansas Falun Gong practitioners on an SOS car tour, the group is circling the state to educate the public, hitting 16 cities in four days. The group stopped by Pittsburg Wednesday afternoon.
C. Felice Boewe, Kansas Falun Gong practitioner, said the conflict between the CCP and Falun Gong started seven years ago, when it was revealed that the 100 million Falun Gong practitioners in China outnumbered the CCP members.
"Any time that anybody gets more people than the CCP, they feel threatened," Leahy said. "We're not about politics or government. We aren't going to overthrow the CCP. That's not what Falun Gong do. But they felt threatened."
Falun Gong, also known as Falun Dafa, is a way to improve the body and mind, consisting of exercise, meditation and teachings that are rooted in ancient Chinese culture. Three major tenets of the Falun Gong are truthfulness, compassion and tolerance. Boewe said there are between 10,000 to 20,000 Falun Gong practitioners in the United States, and about two dozen in Kansas.
Boewe said the CCP started persecution seven years ago, but that it escalated six months ago. That's when CCP members began locking up Falun Gong practitioners in 36 concentration camps through the country. [CW Editor's note: Reportedly, the CCP regime started to seize organs from Falun Gong practitioners as early as 2000.] Also, according to a report filed by David Kilgour, former Canadian secretary of state for Asia-Pacific and David Matas, human rights lawyer, CCP members began harvesting organs of Falun Gong practitioners and selling them for profit.
"There are concentration camps with people just waiting for them to come in and say, 'you're a match, you die today,'" Boewe said.
Boewe said that the group traveled around to cities, asking for proclamations and spreading word of what was happening.
"It's really very effective," Boewe said. "(The media) will cover a story and then the community will know what's going on."
"In these circumstances, a lot of time, the public feels powerless," Leahy said. "They don't think they can do anything because it's an international conflict. But they actually have a lot of power if they can just let their voice be heard."
Leahy said the group was urging people to call the White House hotline to bring attention to the issue. Boewe said it was important to make a stand.
"We have a soft life, and we shouldn't take that for granted," Boewe said. "A lot of people in the world have nothing. It's sad. Injustice somewhere is injustice everywhere."
Category: Falun Dafa in the Media
