Amnesty International Midwest Regional Conference Features Falun Gong

On the weekend of October 27 to 29, 2000, Amnesty International held a Midwest Regional Conference entitled "Spirituality, Religion and Human Rights: Uniting our hope and activism" in Kalamazoo, Michigan.

Hundreds of members of the Amnesty International Midwest chapter, scholars, journalists, and other human rights advocates attended the conference. Erping Zhang, US Spokesperson for the Falun Gong spiritual practice was among the invited panel speakers. Zhang delivered a speech on Saturday morning focusing on the continuously escalating brutal crackdown again Falun Gong in China in front of all attendees of the conference.

On Saturday afternoon, he hosted a breakout session for "Religious Freedom as a Human Right." The conference organizers gave Falun Gong the biggest exhibition space. The documentary "Falun Gong --- The Real Story" Parts I and II were shown throughout the conference time on Saturday. Almost all the conference attendees received handouts on the news from China and the appeal campaign.

Falun Gong practitioners from Michigan and Chicago were also there to address their concerns during the topic discussion on police brutality and campaign against torture. For many conference participants, this was the first time they had had a chance to learn about Falun Gong other than the news of persecution related to it. Many showed their interest in learning Falun Gong; the conference organizer even changed the Taichi session on Sunday morning to a Falun Gong session.

The comment we most heard from people at the conference regarding the current crisis in China was: "The decision to crack down [on Falun Gong] is ridiculous!"