Vancouver Sun: Falun Gong vigil at Chinese embassy protests Chinese arrests, violence

Saturday 11 August 2001

OTTAWA (CP) - Buoyed by the kindness of friends and strangers, Jingyu Li has kept an often lonely vigil since July 25 across a busy street from the Chinese embassy here.

Her makeshift camp under a small green canopy is surrounded by red, gold and white banners decrying the persecution of Falun Gong followers in China. One of them, her husband Shenli Lin, has been held in a labour camp near Shanghai for more than 18 months.

He was detained without trial for supporting Falun Gong, a popular meditative exercise that was outlawed by China in 1999, Li said Saturday. "Falun Gong is powerful because it changes people's hearts. It makes them kind and peaceful."

The Chinese government calls it [Jiang Zemin government's slanderous terms omitted].

Li, a Canadian citizen, hasn't seen her husband since the couple was detained while trying to defend Falun Gong at a public appeals office in Beijing in December 1999. She was ordered out of the country, but he was arrested.

Amnesty International considers Lin, 45, to be a prisoner of conscience. He was to be released July 23 but his term was extended another six months without explanation, says Li, 41.

She began her almost 24-hour vigil two days later, relying on friends and sympathetic strangers for food, and using the washroom at a public swimming pool nearby.

She has slept in a car or in the open air during last week's stifling heat wave, always joined by at least one supporter for company, she said.

In Canada, Falun Gong supporters say at least 10,000 Chinese have been sent to labour camps without trial for defying the prohibition. A typical term is three years for "breach of social order," they say.

Citing reports from friends and relatives of the dead in China, they say at least 260 Falun Gong followers have been executed in China.

The crackdown came after the government estimated up to 100 million people were practising Falun Gong - exceeding [party's name omitted] membership, says Grace Wollensak, an Ottawa-based practitioner who came to Canada from China 11 years ago.

"I think the reason the Chinese government cracked down on Falun Gong is because it's like a mirror that reflects them and they can't tolerate this." Falun Gong enhances truth and kindness - a direct challenge to the lies and violence of government officials who rule through oppression, says Wollensak.

She dismisses the government's claim that Falun Gong is a [Jiang Zemin government's slanderous term omitted].

"They just want to justify their crackdown. Just like the Nazis." Li, of Montreal, will end her vigil Monday when a 12-year-old boy and his mother arrive from Montreal for two weeks to take her place.

But she will keep up the pressure along with hundreds of other volunteers collecting signatures across Canada this summer. They hope to present a petition this fall asking Parliament to urge the Chinese government to stop persecuting Falun Gong practitioners and lift the ban.

More than 80,000 names have been collected so far, said Lucy Zhou, another Ottawa-based volunteer.

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