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Good morning/afternoon.

Two years ago this month, China's government, directed by Jiang Zemin, launched a campaign of violence to eliminate a segment of China's own citizens, people who practice Falun Gong.

On June 20th --just over two weeks ago -- this violence reached a tragic extreme. In hardly more than one day, at least 15 women died as a result of brutal persecution. They were beaten and tortured by guards in the Wanjia Labor Camp in Harbin City, Heilongjiang Province.

An unknown number of others who have been detained in the camp are still receiving emergency treatment for injuries they suffered.

Police and guards immediately tried to conceal this latest atrocity by cutting all phone lines to the labor camp, detaining all personnel, and by blocking all traffic to and from the labor camp.

We are here today, and are traveling the entire breadth of America, to send an SOS--to rescue the Falun Gong practitioners who are persecuted and tortured in China. Our journey begins in San Francisco and will not finish until we reach Washington D.C.

We are seeking every means-- diplomatic, legal and humanitarian-- to stop any further killing of innocent people in China.

Around the same time as the 15 deaths in Wanjia, four horrifying murders of Falun Gong practitioners occurred in Baiguo Township (Macheng City, Hubei Province). Local police beat one practitioner to death, chained two others to motorcycles and dragged them to their deaths at high speed, and dragged the body of another practitioner to the front of a local government building after beating him unconscious. They then set him on fire while he was still alive! Police declared to on-lookers that this practitioner died from self-immolation.

Such crimes of unimaginable and inhuman brutality must end immediately!

Chinese President Jiang Zemin is directly responsible for initiating and escalating the violence against people who practice Falun Gong. He has recently issued new laws making it legal to execute Falun Gong practitioners in China. He has stated that "no means are too excessive to exterminate Falun Gong," that "beating [Falun Gong practitioners] to death is counted as null, and considered a suicide." Jiang Zemin has indicated that if and when a Falun Gong practitioner is killed as a result of persecution, there is "no need to identify the bodies...just cremate [them]."

In June 2001 alone, at least 35 deaths of Falun Gong practitioners have been reported, while the actual number is impossible to determine. This is because information is blocked, because Chinese Public Security often detains or intimidates journalists who try to investigate, and because Jiang Zemin has mandated that reporting on this human rights crisis is a severely punishable crime called "revealing state secrets."

Meanwhile, Jiang Zemin has ordered that all deaths of Falun Gong practitioners in police custody--at least 250 to date--be attributed either to suicide or heart disease in order to mislabel these atrocities and to defame the practice of Falun Gong.

Falun Gong is a peaceful practice that teaches us to cultivate life and to protect our lives. It teaches us to practice principles of "Truthfulness, Compassion and Tolerance" and to try to be good people. We are not seeking help just for Falun Gong practitioners. We cannot accept killing under any circumstances, and we cannot ignore it when people suffer like this.

Many people inside China have literally risked their lives to send reports of the persecution. We hope that the media will have the courage to investigate further and that all good people will join our appeal.

This is a worldwide effort, beginning with individual people and organizations both large and small. We ask you to join us to stop the murder, to stop the torture and the rape, to seek the release of all imprisoned Falun Gong practitioners in China, including residents of Europe, Hong Kong and the United States. We ask you to help us stop the killing of China's innocent citizens.

Thank you for being with us today.