Presidents Obama and Lee arrived at the General Motors Orion Assembly Plant on Friday in two helicopters. As the big choppers settled to earth, the passengers inside looked down with their faces clearly visible through the windows, looking up at them from across the street were dozens of people holding placards with statements such as “Korea: Don’t Deport Falun Gong Practitioners; Don’t Be the Chinese Communist Party’s Accomplice.”
The protest in Detroit was one of the latest efforts by Falun Gong practitioners and their supporters to stop a policy they say threatens with repatriation to communist China two practitioners who are in imminent danger of deportation, and 56 others whose claims to refugee status have been denied.
Adherents of the spiritual practice of Falun Gong have been at risk in China since July 1999. The practice, which involves doing meditative exercises and living according to the principles of truthfulness, compassion, and tolerance, scared the then head of the CCP, Jiang Zemin.
Jiang feared Falun Gong’s rapid growth in popularity in China and the possibility that the Chinese people would find the teachings of Falun Gong more persuasive than CCP doctrine; he ordered a campaign to “eradicate” the practice.
In a letter to President Lee on Sept. 15, Congressman Dana Rohrabacher (R-CA) spelled out what the deportations from South Korea could mean. “If sent back, their lives will be at grave risk because the Beijing dictatorship has declared its intention to utterly destroy the Falun Gong movement,” the congressman’s letter said. Rep. Rohrabacher is senior member of the House Committee on Foreign Affairs and Chairman of the Subcommittee on Oversight and Investigations.
“When the North Korean refugees went to South Korea, you were kind to them. So we can see the Korean nation is a kind nation. But I don’t understand why you repatriate Falun Gong practitioners who are also suffering from persecution,” said Tommy Xu, Ph.D., the spokesman of Michigan Falun Dafa Association, explaining what he would like to say directly to President Lee.
Xu said that since the Korean government has signed the United Nations Convention Against Torture and the Convention Relating to the Status of Refugees, it has obligations it must fulfill, obligations the deportations violate. He thinks that the South Korean government’s repatriation of Falun Gong practitioners has “harmed the dignity of the Korean nation.”
Falun Gong practitioners say that as President Lee’s limousine pulled out of the plant’s gate, he could be seen inside the car pointing directly at one of their signs.
More protesters with signs greeted President Lee as he arrived that evening at the Chicago Cultural Center for dinner with Mayor Rahm Emanuel. As his car pulled in at around 7:00 p.m., protesters holding signs were less than ten feet from his car window.
Former U.S. Military Policeman Dale Veatch, Jr. happened to pass by. Veatch had served in South Korea and felt immediate sympathy for the Falun Gong practitioners’ cause. Saying that everyone had a right to freedom of belief, he joined the protests and took up a sign saying “Korean Government: Stop Sending Falun Gong practitioners back to China.”
On Saturday, President Lee met with local Koreans at the Fairmont Hotel in downtown Chicago. Protesters were on hand outside the hotel.
A South Korean man expressed his sympathy. He knew there was no freedom of belief under the rule of the Chinese Communist Party. “Mainland China and North Korea are the same. If you protest, you might even be killed,” he said.
Read the original Chinese article.
chinareports@epochtimes.com
