[ T. Kumar also spoke at the July 20, 2000 press conference in Washington, DC.]

My name is T. Kumar from Amnesty International. First of all, I would like to thank you for inviting us to take part in this excellent documentary, as an educational material to the American public as well as the international community at large. As a human rights organization, we were appalled and taken aback when we got reliable information from China that people who practice Falun Gong exercises have been rounded up, tortured and imprisoned without any due process. As most of you are aware, we are not allowed to go into China to document abuses, so we were able to get some information from the members who left China and from other reliable sources to find out what happened. One thing that surprised us was why the Chinese government is so scared of this movement. This movement is not a political movement. This movement is not there to overthrow the government. As a matter of fact, Gail Rachlin even gave an open invitation to the Chinese government to have a dialogue with them to understand each other so they can move forward. This is primarily average citizens of China who are exercising their fundamental rights. As a human rights organization, we did not document even one single incident where a Falun Gong member has hurt even an average citizen in their practices. They've never done any harm to other people, so why do you round up these people and imprison them?

As the previous speakers mentioned, it's time the Chinese government opened up, take this as an issue that is fundamental to their country at large, and move forward with dignity. In that sense, as a human rights organization, we are demanding and urging the Chinese government to release all the prisoners who are imprisoned for the practice of Falun Gong.

Already we have documented at least 20 Falun Gong members who were killed in custody. No independent inquiry has taken place for those killings. More tortures, more threats, more arrests are continuing even after today; that is almost a year now. So as a human rights organization, we are demanding that all these people be released, and we will stand by you all during these difficult times. Thank you very much.