Editor's note: The following letter is shared by a member of the public who has seen practitioners protesting outside the New Zealand Chinese Embassy. He was so moved by what we were doing that he wrote the attached letter.

LETTER TO THE EDITOR

In our English-Western-European culture, we have an extremely important principle which is embodied in the following adage, or saying, which states that.... "For evil to flourish requires only that good people do nothing." In other words, when we as right thinking people encounter evil in this world we must oppose the evil lest it grow and prosper to eventually overwhelm us.

Since my early childhood I have been taught that Communism is an evil ideology and Chinese Communism is the most evil and heinous ideology of them all.

So when I see the Falun Gong people protesting against the evil doings of the Chinese Communist Party (CCP) - my heart and soul immediately empathizes with their protest, the very core of my being sympathizes with them.

As a European New Zealander I am in awe of the courage, the tenacity and the commitment, the rightness of the Falun Gong practitioners.

I stand in admiration and respect of the Falun Gong people because having recognized the evil of the CCP, these Falun Gong practitioners now peacefully oppose and resist that evil, risking their liberty and their lives.

Observing the Falun Gong protests reminds me how, in 1940, England also stood alone against a great evil, the evil of Hitler's German Nazism. And how the English people suffered at the hands of the evil Adolf Hitler and his devilish henchmen.

Today in 2008, I see a direct parallel between that situation and the sad plight of the Falun Gong people in China. I see these incredibly brave and staunch people standing against the evils of the Chinese Communism; I am in awe of their courage and commitment to their principles and ideals.

My heart goes out to them in their time of suffering. There is another vitally important democratic principle which is involved in their struggle, the participle of Human Rights and Freedom of Speech.

There was a famous English statesman, I think it was Benjamin Disraelli, who once said while defending a fellow politician who was being vilified in the Parliament for his political beliefs and opinions. Disraelli said, "I may not agree with what you are saying, but I will fight to the death for your right to say it!" We see how, even then, Freedom of Speech was considered a fundamental human right worth fighting for.

We in the West are fully aware that Freedom of Speech has been denied the Chinese people by the CCP regime in Beijing. Freedom of Thought, Freedom of Religious Belief, Freedom of Movement, Freedom of Speech, all these basic and fundamental Human Rights have been withheld from the Chinese people by the dictatorship of the CCP.

And so we understand quite clearly the persecution, imprisonment, torture and rape of the Falun Gong practitioners is in fact the machinations of an extremely evil, brutal, inhuman regime aimed at perpetuating the status quo whereby the CCP continues to strangle and smother the Chinese people under a blanket of cruel and sadistic oppression.

The struggle of Falun Gong serves as a valuable lesson to the peoples of the Western world because we can see what lies in store for us should the unthinkable occur and we too fall under the heel of the CCP. So you see this is why I personally support and sympathize with you Falun Gong folk, because I am a free man, no-one tells me what I can or cannot think or say or do. I am a free spirit, my soul lives free.

As such, as a free man, as a free spirit, I pray to God that all the people of this earth can also enjoy the freedoms I enjoy as my inherent, undeniable Human Right. I pray too for the release and freedom of all innocent Falun Gong people currently incarcerated in China by the Great Satan, the Chinese Communist Party.

I remain,

Yours sincerely,