Toronto Practitioners Hunger Strike to Call for Urgent Help to Stop Massacre in Changchun, China

(Clearwisdom.net) March 25 2002 - Toronto- News has just been received and was released at a press conference inside the United Nations in Geneva that a large scale massacre of Falun Gong practitioners is underway in the northeast City of Changchun, Jilin Province, China and surrounding areas.

Toronto Falun Gong practitioners will hold a rotating round-the-clock hunger strike outside Canadian Foreign Affairs Minister, Bill Graham's constituency office in Toronto, calling on the Canadian government to urgently voice condemnation and call for an end to the massacre in Changchun and to help rescue Falun Gong practitioners in Changchun and throughout the rest of China.

Hunger Strike will begin 9:00am Monday March 25 for 7 days.

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Letter to the Minister of Foreign Affairs Mr. Bill Graham

March 25, 2002

Honourable Bill Graham, Minister of Foreign Affairs

Dear Mr. Graham,

Welcome home from the United Nations Human Rights Summit in Geneva.

We are writing to you in your capacity as Canada's Minister of Foreign Affairs in regards to an extremely urgent situation in China where there has been a severe escalation in the already brutal persecution of Falun Gong practitioners. For more details, please see below.

For the next week, Falun Gong practitioners in Toronto will be outside your constituency office 24 hours a day participating in a rotating hunger strike. Each practitioner will go for single periods of 24 hours without food. Our minor sacrifice is being undertaken to urge our Canadian government to take appropriate action in response to what can now accurately be called a massacre of innocent people currently taking place in Changchun, China.

It remains the hope of Falun Gong practitioners, human rights groups and millions of people worldwide that Canada's Foreign Affairs department will put forth a resolution at the ongoing United Nations Human Rights Summit in Geneva condemning China's severe, unlawful persecution of Falun Gong practitioners in China. It is obvious from this alarming escalation in violence that further measures need to be undertaken. Canada is the only country in a position to put forth such a resolution in 2002.

It is also hoped that our Canadian government will issue a statement condemning this recent escalation of violence and murder which has pushed this persecution to yet another level of atrocity.

Respectfully, Falun Gong Practitioners in Toronto, Canada