British activists joined a growing international tide of protest against human rights abuses in China by launching a relay hunger strike on Monday, February 13. The strike was announced at a press conference in front of the Chinese Embassy in London and was attended by Epoch Times staff, local activists and Falun Gong practitioners.
The protest in the UK takes place against the background of a relay hunger strike in Mainland China launched on February 4 by human rights attorney Gao Zhisheng and other activists. Each day, a number of participants go on hunger strike for 24 hours and then "pass the torch" to their colleagues. Similar actions have been announced in places as diverse as Los Angeles, Singapore and Melbourne.
Zek Helu, CEO of the UK Epoch Times said at the press conference explained, "What we hope to do is to show them [the leadership of the Chinese Communist Party] our unshakeable determination to continue to report on China and to evoke the sympathy of people who care about human rights and freedom."
According to Helu, the choice of relay hunger strikes was to generate momentum and support for human rights in China. "Anyone can put themselves down to join the relay for a day," he said.
Also speaking at the press conference was Peter Jauhal, head of the UK Falun Dafa Association, as well as several people who had personally experienced persecution in China.
The participants also sought to call attention to CCP assaults on freedom outside of China. In particular, they emphasized a recent incident in Atlanta, where Yuan Li, Chief Technical Officer of the Epoch Times, was attacked in his home.
Last Wednesday, a group of Asian men, of whom at least one spoke Mandarin Chinese, entered Yuan Li's house. They held him at gun-point, beat him, bound and gagged him and then left with two of his laptop computers. The CCP's growing hostility towards the Epoch Times for its reports on abuses in China and its publication of the Nine Commentaries on the Communist Party have lead many to believe that the men were agents of the communist regime.
"Such attacks quite rightly shock and appall us," said Brian Coleman, Deputy Chairman of the Greater London Assembly, in a statement read on his behalf at the press conference. "They also demonstrate the increasing desperation of a crumbling anachronistic regime."
Coleman, a long time advocate for freedom of belief in China, also expressed strong support for the hunger strike.
"My thoughts are with the victims of CCP violence, and I am also humbled, as ever, by the continuing courage of Falun Gong activists and others, in their attempts to expose the truth of Mr. Hu Jintao's regime," he said in his statement.
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