KITTERY, Maine -- They practice an ancient meditative technique focused on principles of truthfulness, benevolence and tolerance, but in China, Falun Gong practitioners are tortured and killed every day.

With brightly colored balloons symbolizing each of the recorded 260 Falun Gong practitioners tortured to death in China over the past two years, area residents gathered in John Paul Jones Park on Sunday to raise awareness of the persecution currently exercised under Jiang Zemin's [party name omitted] regime.

The SOS Walk, as the event was called, began with a news conference in the park to call attention to two mass killings of Falun Gong practitioners in China in the past week.

"It's a catastrophe waiting to happen," said Yvonne Marcotte, a Falun Gong practitioner from Brentwood, N.H., prior to the conference. Marcotte was one of about 30 practitioners from Maine, New Hampshire and Massachusetts who took part in the event.

Marcotte explained that the principles of truth, compassion and forbearance that are so central to Falun Gong are considered anti-[party name omitted] by the Chinese government. Since the regime began its attack on practitioners, more than 50,000 have been arrested -- with 10,000 sent to labor camps, 600 institutionalized and 260 dying from torture.

The more than 70 million Chinese practitioners of Falun Gong or Falun Dafa far outnumber the registered members of [party's name omitted] party, Marcotte noted.

Martin Fox of Kittery was the first to speak at the conference, describing Sunday's event as a local part of the International SOS Call for Help that will include a march in Washington, D.C., on Thursday.

"This is a critical situation. We are bringing it to public awareness so people can clearly understand what is going on and how to help end these evil actions. The Chinese government under Jiang Zemin has vowed to totally wipe out Falun Gong ... The situation is ominous, especially in light of the recent mass killings and the orders of Jiang Zemin to 'defame them, crush them financially and destroy them physically.' This madness cannot continue," Fox said.

Fox likened Zemin's regime to that of Adolf Hitler in Germany, describing Chinese "610" officers set with the task of abolishing Falun Gong as "beyond the law, beyond the rules, beyond the Chinese constitution."

Along the perimeter of John Paul Jones Park, the Falun Gong supporters set up billboard-size posters depicting graphic visual images of the atrocities committed against Falun Gong practitioners in China.

On one placard, a young mother named Wang Lixuan beams as she holds up her infant son, dressed in a yellow suit and cap. Beside the photograph, a narrative described how both mother and baby were tortured and killed in a Chinese labor camp after she was arrested for her defense of Falun Gong.

According to information gathered by U.S. congressional delegates, "women in particular have been the target of numerous forms of sexual violence, including rape, sexual assault, forced abortion" for their practice of Falun Gong.

Haiying He of Boston and Yufeng Liang of Peabody, Mass., shared the personal accounts of their family members who still live in China -- many of whom are currently imprisoned for their practice of Falun Gong.

"I appeal to all the kind-hearted people of the world. Please help me to get my sister and brother out and have my peaceful family back," Liang said.

Marcus Gale of Kittery read a resolution scheduled to be introduced in the U.S. House of Representatives today, urging China to stop the persecution of practitioners of this "peaceful and nonviolent form of personal belief and practice."

The resolution notes that the persecution has been generated by the Chinese government and carried out by officials and police against Chinese citizens and permanent U.S. residents alike.

The resolution calls for the end of all detention, torture and other "cruel, inhumane, and degrading treatment against them and other prisoners of conscious" and urges China to "abide by the International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights and the Universal Declaration of Human Rights by allowing Falun Gong practitioners to pursue their personal beliefs."

Practitioners from Maine and New Hampshire read letters of support from Sen. Olympia J. Snowe, R-Maine, Rep. John E. Baldacci, D-Maine, and Maine House of Representatives Majority Leader Patrick Colwell.

"I have supported efforts to call on China to release all prisoners of conscience, and immediately end the harassment, detention, physical abuse, and imprisonment of Chinese citizens exercising their legitimate rights to free belief, expression, and association ... This symbolic walk is a fitting expression of support for extending the freedoms that Americans hold dear to the people of China," Snowe wrote in her letter.

After taking a moment to practice the first of five Falun Gong exercises, the group gathered its balloons and then walked across Memorial Bridge to Market Square in Portsmouth, N.H. -- holding up banners and passing out fliers to motorists.

In Market Square, pedestrians stopped, watched and asked questions as the practitioners demonstrated the peaceful, meditative Falun Gong exercises in plain view on a busy street -- surrounded by the images of brutality suffered by their fellow practitioners on the opposite side of the world.

http://www.fosters.com/news2001c/july/16/po0716f.htm