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On the morning of June 5, more than 60 practitioners from the greater New York area gathered at the Chinese Consulate to appeal. The practitioners prepared an appeal letter to the general consulate calling for the immediate release of all those detained in China for practicing Falun Gong in the past two years and of the five overseas practitioners who are not Chinese residents but were illegally detained when they were in China.

After one practitioner read a statement at the press conference, four others went to the Chinese Consulate to deliver the letter. After speaking to the receptionist, they were told to wait while he asked for instructions. They waited for quite a while before the receptionist told them that the general consul could not accept the letter and that he would not ask for instructions again. The practitioners reiterated their purpose for being there and the fact that they were carrying out a Chinese citizen's responsibility by presenting their thinking, but the receptionist still repeatedly refused. When a reporter asked him whether it was his decision or the decision of the Chinese Consulate to refuse the appeal letter from Falun Gong practitioners, he said he was doing his job.

The practitioners outside the Consulate practiced the exercises, sent forth righteous thoughts, and read the appeal letter in Chinese.