Van Tour in Southeastern US Draws Media Attention to Atrocities in China (Photos)
(Clearwisdom.net) To help the people in the southeastern United States know more facts of the persecution of Falun Gong, practitioners recently started a van tour to bring the news to them. On May 3, they held a press conference in front of Nashville City Hall and the city paper reported the event. The report said that Alabama resident Michael Chen spoke in front of city hall and the Falun Gong group is conducting a van-tour of southeastern states to draw public attention to the ongoing atrocities of harvesting organs from living Falun Gong practitioners in China.
 City Paper photo: Press conference in Nashville |
 Press conference in Chattanooga |
 Birmingham press conference |
 Chattanooga Channel 3 interviews a member of the van tour |
On May 4, the van tour visited Chattanooga, Tennessee and Birmingham, Alabama.
At 10 a.m., the van tour arrived at Chattanooga city hall, where reporters from Channels 3 and 12, Chattanooga Time Press and The Pulse were waiting for them. At the press conference, practitioner Mr. Wei told the reporters about the aims of the tour:
To support Dr. Wenyi Wang who appealed at the Whitehouse and seek for more support from the people to request the Bush administration to drop the charges against Dr. Wang.
Urge local people to contact their representatives to help "Investigate Genocide of Falun Gong" to go to China to investigate the persecution.
Call the Chinese Communist regime to stop the persecution of Falun Gong.
Reporters were very interested in Xiaomei Jia's experience in a Chinese labor camp, where she was detained and tortured. At one point, Jia was deprived of sleep for 32 consecutive days. She was also subjected to force-feeding of concentrated salt water and brainwashing.
After the 45-minute press conference, a reporter from the Pulse invited Xiaomei Jia, Helen and Mr. Wei to the Newspaper's office. Practitioners told the reporter the background of the persecution as well as how the Chinese Communist regime brutally persecutes practitioners. The reporter said that Chattanooga is a sister city of Wuxi in China and local businessmen often travel to China, The he asked practitioners' opinion. Mr. Wei said that practitioners are not against people going to China to do business. However, they should pay attention to human rights issues while doing business.
The Pulse is an influential weekly newspaper in Chattanooga. Its niche is in-depth reports. It has 270 distribution booths and has about 150,000 readers. In addition, about 50,000 read the newspaper online.
At 3p.m., the van tour arrived in Birmingham, Alabama. In Linn Park outside the City Hall, practitioners held another press conference. Many passers-by stopped to listen to practitioners' speeches and expressed their shock and indignation at the CCP's atrocities of harvesting organs from living Falun Gong practitioners. They expressed their support and goodwill to Falun Gong.
After the press conference, the van tour visited the largest local newspaper, Birmingham News and told reporters the cause of the van tour and the latest persecution news.