His Excellency:

I am writing to you regarding the treatment of Falun Gong prisoners in China.

First, let me say that I am not a Falun Gong practitioner. I am a retired university professor, a Canadian citizen born in Canada. I have been a friend of China for 25 years. Since 1980, I have lived in China on many occasions for a total of 5 years. My business in China was to work as a foreign specialist at Xinhua News Agency (1980-82), and then as a lecturer and researcher at Beijing University (since 1980). I have witnessed with joy the tremendous socio-economic progress made by China since the periods of the Four Modernizations and the Reform and Opening. For the past nine years, I have been leading a Sino-Canadian research project (with a colleague from Beijing University) on "The Regional Development of Education in China." Our subsidized study centers on the problems of educational development in rural China, in relation with economic development, and with an emphasis on the least-developed counties of China.

For the past two years, and especially since last year, I have been saddened by the increasingly numerous reports from reliable sources that reveal a widespread mistreatment of Falun Gong practitioners in Chinese prisons: so many cases of torture and death. I am appalled that human beings act so cruelly towards other human beings.

I appeal strongly to the Chinese authorities: immediately cease to mistreat the Falun Gong practitioners in Chinese prisons. To repeat: I am not a Falun Gong practitioner. I make this plea in the name of compassion, human dignity and basic human rights.

I hope that in the 21st century China will become a great and advanced civilization, liberated from this kind of barbaric brutality.

Sincerely,

Jacques Lamontagne

Honorary Professor