San Francisco's Human Rights Commission Listens to Falun Gong

A few weeks ago, Falun Gong practitioners made a public speech at an informal meeting of San Francisco's Human Rights Commission. The speech was about how Jiang Zemin's regime had ordered the Chinese Embassy to extend the persecution of Falun Gong to the city of San Francisco. This led to the hindering of American practitioners' daily activities and severe threats against Falun Gong practitioners' personal safety.

The members of the Human Rights Commission expressed their sympathy and concerns about the violence against the Falun Gong practitioners and other hostile occurrences in San Francisco. On May 10, at the invitation of the Human Rights Commission, the Falun Gong practitioners attended the commission's public formal meeting regarding the issues of Falun Gong. The commission also invited a representative from the Chinese Embassy and said that both sides will have a given time to speak.

Before the discussion started, the coordinator asked the audience (about 30 people), "Please raise your hand if you support Falun Gong." Most of the people raised their hands. No one raised their hand when she asked, "Those against Falun Gong, please raise your hand."

While a Falun Gong practitioner was making his speech, the whole room was very calm and quiet. After the time limit was up, the members of the commission had a better understanding about Falun Gong, and they told the practitioners that they were deeply moved by the speech.

One of the commission members told the practitioners that a few days ago he received some material written by the Chinese Ambassador, Wang Yunxiang; Wang was very impolite and used smear words that slandered Falun Gong. The member said that he didn't know much about Falun Gong before; but the letter from the Chinese Ambassador made him feel that he was violated, and that he could now understand the harassing letters that were sent to other US officials. He repeated this twice and asked the coordinator to record what he had said.

Falun Gong practitioners expressed their appreciation to the Human Rights Commission for giving them the chance to publicly expose Jiang Zemin's regime's extended persecution to the Bay Area.

Before the end of the meeting, the coordinator asked the attendants again whether there was anyone against Falun Gong attending the meeting; there was none.

While promoting Dafa to US government organizations and mainstream society, we found out that we can get help from either the county or city's Human Rights Commissions (HRC). HRC may be a Human Rights Commission or a Human Relations Commission. The members of these commissions are appointed directly by the elected officers. They come from different social backgrounds and have many connections to community organizations and groups. They also have the responsibility and obligation to listen to the suggestions from their constituency and report to city or county government officials. Moreover, human rights issues are one of the key tasks for these organizations.

To contact your local HRC, you only need to request the phone number from a city or county government office and make an appointment with the person in charge to discuss your situation. For example, the following web site has contact phone numbers for the HRCs in California:

http://www.cahro.org/html/hrc_by_county.html

http://www.cahro.org/html/hrc_by_cities.html