(Clearwisdom.net)
January 19, 2004
Dear Charles:
A year has gone by and your birthday is coming up soon. This year, on January 22, the Lunar Spring Festival and your birthday happen to coincide. I miss you very much. I wish you a happy Spring Festival and a happy birthday! I will pass along your holiday greetings to our Teacher and to everyone else. I am so proud to know that your commitment to Dafa is rock solid.
January 22 of this year is also the first anniversary of your arrest. Recently, I learned some information about you from the officials at the American Consulate in Shanghai. One of the staff members there told me that she visited you in Nanjing prison on December 17, 2003. She found out that in addition to brainwashing you, the prison also forces you to work. Prison officials were still instructing inmates to beat you and confiscated your reading materials. The inmates were still watching you around the clock and reported your actions to prison officials.
More than one hundred Chinese currently living overseas have family members back home being detained by Jiang's regime for practicing Falun Gong. I myself have participated in global activities to rescue family members of overseas Falun Gong practitioners. In California, local newspapers and TV stations have reported on what happened to you. In this manner, many people heard about the torments you have suffered in China. People have often told me: "Please, tell Charles Li to remain firm in his beliefs," "What can I do to help you?" and "We hope that you will be reunited soon." Last year, on December 14, we held an activity in Union Square, San Francisco to send postcards appealing for the rescue of family members of overseas Falun Gong practitioners in China. Many people came to support us. A westerner wrote on the postcard: "Dr. Li, you brought compassion to us. You must remain steadfast. We thank you."
On December 9, the Mayor of Irvine, California, Larry Agaron, wrote a letter to the American ambassador in China, Mr. Randt, to appeal for his help to end the Chinese government's transgressions against human rights, and to demand your release and that of all other prisoners of conscience. He said: "Standing together with millions of Americans, I request [that the Chinese government] release Dr. Charles Li and all other prisoners of conscience immediately." The student body of the famous University of California at Los Angeles voted 11 to 0 to pass a co-signed letter to President Bush urging him to pay close attention to the persecution you have suffered at the hands of Jiang's regime, and appealed to the American government to help you regain your freedom. Many senators and congressmen wrote letters to President Bush and the State Department urging the American government to intervene and demanding that the Chinese government end the persecution immediately.
Many Falun Gong practitioners all over the world constantly hold rallies in front of their local Chinese Consulates, demanding that the Chinese Government release you immediately and unconditionally. In the middle of November, when the practitioners in the San Francisco Bay Area learned that you were being brainwashed three hours a day by Jiang's regime to force you to admit guilt, and that you were beaten by drug abusers and criminal offenders in prison, they held a press conference in front of the Chinese Consulate the next day to expose the Jiang regime's increasing persecution. Falun Gong spokesman Huang Zuwei in Washington DC held a press conference in front of the Chinese Embassy. He said, "We are gathering here to support our friend and fellow-Falun Gong practitioner, the American citizen Dr. Charles Li. Mr. Charles Li is now in a Chinese prison bearing the torture of being brainwashed all by himself." On the evening of Friday, November 21 candles lit up the main sports field of the American University in Washington DC. It was a candlelight vigil organized by the Falun Dafa Club of American University. Many students, professors, and alumni from various backgrounds made speeches in English, Chinese, Korean, and Japanese, urging the Chinese government to release you from your unjust detention.
I have been traveling to many places to appeal for your release. Early in December, together with other practitioners, I made a speech before the City Council of San Diego to expose the treatment of Jiang's regime on you by forced brainwashing. On the same day, we attended a rally of the new governor of California downtown. We explained the truth to over 4,000 people from all walks of life asking them to help you return to America soon and to end the persecution. I told them that to force you to give up his belief, Jiang's regime mobilized one prison guard, one policeman, and six inmates to watch his every activity, including bathroom use and sleep. They also forced you to read materials slandering Falun Dafa. If you tried to explain the truth to them, you were attacked and brutally tortured.
As long as the Chinese regime will not release you, we will continue to expose all those who torment you, and their evil deeds. At the same time, we will tell more and more people about the glory of Falun Dafa and the truth of the persecution. We are all looking forward to the day when we welcome you back home with fresh flowers. I firmly believe that the day is not too far away.
Yeong-Ching
California
Category: Rallies & Protests
