Friends of Falun Gong Representative Meets with South African Consulate Official in New York

A Falun Gong practitioner and a representative from the human rights organization, Friends of Falun Gong, met with officer Ivan Vosloo, the highest ranking current official of the South African Consulate in New York City, on Friday July 2. There had been communication for a couple of days prior to the meeting to inform him and keep him abreast of developments in the attempted murder of a Falun Gong practitioner in South Africa. He was provided with a folder containing:

1. A formal letter from Friends of Falun Gong to the South African Consulate detailing the crime and encouraging a thorough and transparent investigation.
2. Two Falun Dafa Information Center articles on the criminal history of Bo Xilai and Zeng Qinghong.
3. A current copy of Compassion Magazine
4. Two newspaper articles from South Africa: one indicating that the incident is being investigated as an attempted murder
5. A False Fire video
6. A FoFG blue "little girl" flyer

Each component of the packet was explained along with brief background information on the practice, the goodness of Dafa, as well as the history of the persecution. He listened patiently and seemed genuinely interested.

Mr. Vosloo was confident of a thorough investigation. We spoke about the pattern of the persecution and how violence, intimidation and worse has become normal procedure in China. We let him know that we were confident a full investigation would uncover that the shooters were thugs hired by the Jiang group and/or at the behest of the government officials mentioned above. Mr Vosloo was confident that, because of his country's political history and strong support of freedom of belief, etc., South African officials would not tolerate any interference in their investigation or tampering in the investigation, of any kind, and that there would be a thorough investigation. He mentioned that the information in the South African media indicated that the incident was being taken very seriously by the police.

He appeared sympathetic to the persecuted practitioners in China and to the situation of the practitioners in South Africa. As more information becomes available we will be able to keep him updated and as we clarify the truth more deeply we are optimistic he will become even more supportive.