(Clearwisdom.net) Canada's Prime Minister, Jean Chretien, is about to attend the APEC meeting in Mexico. Members of Parliament planned to hold a joint press conference with practitioners on October 23. The purpose was to call on Prime Minister Jean Chretien to directly ask the Chinese head of state to release 12 Canadian residents' family members who are currently detained in China, and further to immediately stop persecuting Falun Gong. On the same day, thousands of Falun Gong practitioners were to hold large-scale group exercises in Houston to appeal.
This press conference was the idea of the former leader of the Alliance Party, Stockwell Day and Mr. Scott Reid. Other dignitaries to attend the press conference include Liberal MP Irwin Cotler, MP Libby Davies of the New Democratic Party, a representative from "Bloc Quebecois," Falun Gong practitioner representative Ms. Zhang Li and others.
Toronto practitioner Zhang Li's husband is an outstanding civil engineer who was presented with a National Golden Award in China and was sentenced to three-and-half years in prison for practicing Falun Gong. With the appeal from Zhang Li and many other practitioners, Amnesty International has launched a global action to rescue "prisoner of conscience" He Lizhi, Zhang Li's husband. A least 12 additional family members of Canadian residents are still being detained in China for practicing Falun Gong.
After July 20th, 1999, Jiang used a policy named "Ruin their reputation, destroy them financially and annihilate them physically" as a slogan in his relentless persecution against Falun Gong in Mainland China. Up until the end of October 2001, internal data from the Chinese government show that more than 1,600 Falun Gong practitioners have been tortured to death, and information about 503 of these practitioners has been confirmed abroad. Hundreds of thousands of practitioners' homes were ransacked. The Dafa practitioners were illegally detained, sent to forced labor camps and prisons where they were brutally tortured. Some female practitioners were raped and thousands of practitioners were forcibly sent into mental institutions.
Jiang's atrocities have met with strong criticism and condemnation from segments of the Canadian government, Congressmen, non-governmental organizations, the media and citizenry. At the same time, the compassion, peacefulness, purity and indomitable perseverance and determination displayed by Falun Gong practitioners moved the Canadian people and has brought high praise from the Canadian community.