(Clearwisdom.net)
The White House
1600 Pennsylvania Avenue NW
Washington, DC 20500
Mr. President:
We are writing to you on behalf of our family members who are now detained in China for their practice of Falun Gong. Together, we are 22 citizens and residents of the United States. Among us are husbands, brothers, sons and daughters of those detained. Our common goal is to see our family members free and safe from the persecution that at this very moment has become the focus of all our lives.
Mr. President, after three and a half years the persecution of Falun Gong has affected everyone who lives in China and it now reaches across the ocean to affect us here in America. With over 487 people now confirmed tortured to death and estimates that are much higher, possibly thousands having been killed, we fear for our families' lives. The situation is often very severe for those practitioners who are detained. For example, a 22-year-old UT Austin student Danielle Wang last saw her father three years ago on CNN, as he was being illegally sentenced to 16 years of detention simply because he was a volunteer contact person for the Falun Dafa Association in Beijing.
Mr. President, imagine how difficult it must be to be separated from one's love ones not knowing what has happened to them?
As a father, and son who knows of the importance of strong family values and spiritual freedom we are calling on your support to protect these values. Our loved ones now suffer detention, forced labor, and torture all because of their desire to be good, decent people who wish to maintain their peaceful spiritual beliefs. We are embarking on this nation wide rescue effort so they may once again be free to follow those wishes. We are currently holding media events around the country to raise awareness to this issue. In addition, participants of this Family Rescue effort will drive across the country from places as far as Washington DC, California, and even Canada converging in Texas (where your are meeting with Chinese leader Jiang Zemin) to call for support from Americans to help bring our family members home.
We are respectfully requesting your help to call for the immediate release of our family members now detained in China. During your meeting with Jiang Zemin, we ask that you communicate to him that the further persecution of Falun Gong practitioners is completely unacceptable and will not be tolerated.
We cannot emphasize enough that a relationship with China should not come at the cost of violating basic human rights and the sacrificing of peaceful and law abiding Americans. We believe that after watching over three years of persecution by the Chinese regime against Falun Gong, this situation warrants your immediate attention and concern. Recently, the Canadian government has been able to achieve improved conditions, medical treatment and the release of several Canadian Falun Gong family members detained in China simply by directly engaging this issue. It is our hope that in your personal attention to this issue and strong emphasis on zero tolerance of the persecution of these innocent people, our family members will be safe.
Sincerely,
Twenty-two Family Rescue Members