(Clearwisdom.net) The Asia-Pacific Economic Cooperation (APEC) Summit was held on September 2, 2007 in Sydney, Australia. Mr. Wang Zhiwen's daughter, Wang Xiaodan, who works in the United States, made a special trip to Australia to attend a press conference entitled, "The Courage of Wang Zhiwen." Wang Zhiwen was a member of the former Falun Dafa Research Institute in China. Because he remains steadfast in his belief in Falun Gong, the Chinese Communist Party (CCP) sentenced him to 16 years in prison. He is still imprisoned. Wang Xiaodan wanted to tell the Australian people about her father and other Falun Dafa practitioners, and call on all people of justice to work together to stop the CCP's persecution of Falun Gong.
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
On September 2, 2007, Wang Xiaodan introduced her father's situation at a press conference calling attention to the suffering of Falun Gong practitioners, initiated by the Chinese Liberal Culture Movement. She said that her father is widely recognized as a good person. After her father was sentenced to imprisonment, she was so sad that she lost her eyesight temporarily. Over the eight years since her father was imprisoned, she was not allowed to visit her father. She only received two or three letters from him. It took her several years to overcome her grief and to start telling her father's story to the outside world.
Australian Broadcasting Radio station, The Australian and other media interviewed Wang Xiaodan after the press conference.
On September 3, 2007, Wang Xiaodan arrived in Melbourne from Sydney to attend another press conference hosted by the Melbourne Falun Dafa Association. She protested the CCP authorities for persecuting her father and other Falun Dafa practitioners in mainland China. She called on the Australian government and citizens to lend a helping hand to stop the CCP's atrocities.
Wang Xiaodan talked about how she was extremely saddened after learning that her father was given such a heavy sentence. However, a letter from her father in 2001 encouraged her and she ultimately stood up to expose the persecution.
She said that her father's letter was very simple due to a lack of privacy in prison. He said in the letter, "In fact, life is rich and wonderful, there is joy, happiness, and also hardships. Being able to face all this, but not be overwhelmed by them, such a person is the master of life. A superior man is calm and at ease, an inferior man is always worried and full of distress."
She said that her father's letter helped her to realize that she should step forward, because keeping silent is tantamount aiding the evil. From then on, she started traveling around to tell people that many people in China are like her, having had their happy families torn apart and their loved ones are subjected to torture.
Ms. Wang ended by saying that she believed that with the efforts of Falun Dafa practitioners worldwide, and with help of government officials and righteous people who have learned facts, the day is not far for her father and tens of thousands of other persecuted Falun Dafa practitioners in China to practice their belief nobly and uprightly.
An audience member who once lived in Romania when it was under communist dictatorship said that Wang Xiaodan and her father's stories reminded her of her own similar experience. Her father was sentenced to nine years in prison by the authorities for speaking out. She immigrated to Australia with her family and escaped from the nightmare.
She was very sympathetic to Falun Dafa practitioners and hoped that the governments and people of the world will help the Chinese people. She hopes that the universal value of respect for human rights will be dominant throughout Chinese society.
Speakers at the press conference also included Ms. Xia Auhua, who personally experienced the persecution, and whose son is still detained in a forced labor camp for practicing Falun Gong in China, and Mr. Sun Hanyu, whose five family members were arrested for remaining steadfast in practicing Falun Gong in China.
Category: Rallies & Protests
