(Minghui.org) On December 17, The Philadelphia Inquirer, the largest newspaper in the Philadelphia area, published a reader's letter that raised awareness of forced organ harvesting in China and urged citizens to sign a petition on the White House website. Below is the letter:

Letter to the Editor The Philadelphia Inquirer 12-17-12 The Persecution of Falun Gong Elected officials engaging with China to further economic prosperity should be aware of that government's self-serving agenda ("In China, Nutter works to raise city's profile," Dec. 6). At the heart of this agenda is the genocide of Falun Gong practitioners. With 70 million to 100 million practitioners, it is the largest persecuted group in China. Despite their peaceful adherence to truthfulness, compassion, and tolerance, these practitioners must endure 16- to 18-hour days in forced labor camps. Even worse, illegally incarcerated Falun Gong practitioners, as well as Tibetans, Uighurs, and Christians, are subject to the most abhorrent crime against humanity: systematically examined and tissue-typed, these innocent victims are killed on demand to fuel China's organ transplant industry. A petition calling on the White House to help bring an end to these atrocities can be found at http://wh.gov/5Jmn. We can end these atrocities if we just speak out.

Dr. Jessica D. Russo
Doctors Against Forced Organ Harvesting, Philadelphia Chapter

In an interview with the Epoch Times, Dr. Russo said: “As a professional, I am ethically bound to do no harm; as someone of Jewish descent, I feel I have a moral obligation to do whatever I can to help end another genocide of an innocent people. The harvesting of innocents' organs while they are still alive is the most abhorrent crime against humanity. The largest group of these victims, Falun Gong practitioners, in their cultivation of truthfulness, compassion and tolerance, show us the beauty of traditional Chinese culture. Yet they are vilified for showing us such goodness. The Western world should be ashamed that these crimes of the Chinese Communist Party have continued for the last 13 and a half years.”