While Jiang Stayed at the Intercontinental Hotel, Falun Gong Practitioners Sent Forth Righteous Thoughts Overnight

-- Morning Report from the Intercontinental Hotel, Houston, October 24, 2002

(Clearwisdom.net) Jiang spent the night inside the Intercontinental Hotel. Outside the hotel, Falun Gong practitioners held a candlelight vigil and sent forth righteous thoughts throughout the night.

Early this morning, several hundred Falun Gong practitioners continued their peaceful appeal outside the hotel where Jiang was staying. According to local information, at about 9:15 a.m. Jiang left by a side-door to go to the George Bush Library at Texas A&M University. At that time, the practitioners who had been patiently waiting outside the hotel shouted, "Falun Dafa is Good!" toward the group of departing vehicles. Led by motorcycles, there were black limousines, buses, and ambulances in the group. In the echo of "Falun Dafa is Good," the vehicles disappeared from sight at the end of the street.

Based on an estimate obtained this morning, over 1000 Falun Gong practitioners had gone to Texas A&M University to hold a peaceful protest. Jiang had planned to finish his activity at the university by two o'clock this afternoon, and then return to his hotel. At that time, a large number of Falun Gong practitioners would also return to the hotel from different locations to continue their peaceful protest and send forth righteous thoughts (using pure and positive thoughts to cleanse one's mind and improve the surrounding environment.)

According to our information, Jiang did not leave the Intercontinental Hotel last night. Across the street from the hotel and on the lawn outside the front entrance, about 200 practitioners stayed overnight practicing the Falun Gong exercises and sending righteous thoughts. They also held a candlelight vigil for the more than 1600 practitioners who have died from the persecution in China. In the Houston area, over 2000 Falun Gong practitioners from all over the world have come to participate in this peaceful protest.

Early in the morning, a Falun Gong practitioner, who is also a reporter, walked past the front entrance of the Intercontinental Hotel and was greeted by a police officer with a big smile. "Good morning, how are you doing!" the police officer asked cheerfully. At the scene, the reporter interviewed Mr. Lai, who works for a university in Washington, DC. According to Mr. Lai, "The on-going efforts of Falun Gong practitioners and their kind and warm behavior have touched the police officers on duty. A police captain stated that working with Falun Gong practitioners is very pleasant, and he feels very much at ease." It was reported that the police left the scene after 9:00 p.m., leaving approximately two hundred Falun Gong practitioners to continue their activities on their own.

Falun Gong, also known as Falun Dafa, is a cultivation practice with "Truthfulness, Compassion, and Tolerance" as the guiding principles. Falun Dafa teaches a person to cultivate one's heart to become a better person. It also brings the practitioner a healthy body. Since its introduction in May of 1992, Falun Gong has spread all over the world and over 100 million people have come to learn and enjoy the practice. Driven by his jealousy, Jiang initiated the campaign against Falun Gong in 1999.

Jiang is directly responsible for the campaign and continuing persecution of Falun Gong in China. Since July 20th, 1999, Jiang's policy of "damaging their reputations, ruining their financial capabilities, and destroying their physical bodies" has been used against tens of millions of Falun Gong practitioners. In the past three years, several hundreds of thousands of practitioners have been illegally arrested; many have been sent to labor camps, jailed and tortured, and their homes have been ransacked. Some female practitioners have been raped. Thousands of practitioners have been illegally locked up in mental institutions. By October 2001, internal statistics from the Chinese government have shown that over 1,600 Falun Gong practitioners have been killed in the persecution. As of October 23, 2002, 505 cases of practitioners being killed at the hands of Chinese authorities have been confirmed.