Messages for Hu Jintao

Hundreds of protesters gathered at Dag Hamarskjold Plaza near the U.N. building as Hu Jintao attends U.N. meeting.

Ms. Weidi Wang, a 20-year-old fashion design student (R), prepares to give a speech on behalf of her mother Shao Jie Qiu, 46, who is imprisoned in China for her spirtual belief in Falun Gong. Aloysio Santos/The Epoch Times

NEW YORK—As ambassadors and heads of state on Tuesday prepared for the next day’s General Assembly meeting at the United Nations, hundreds of protesters gathered at Dag Hamarskjold Plaza, near the U.N. building. At least a dozen groups appealed for their causes, but most were protesting the human rights abuses of the Chinese Communist regime.

In attendance at the U.N. meeting is Hu Jintao, the head of the Chinese Communist Party (CCP) and Chinese military, during one of his rare visits to the United States. Hu met with President Obama on the sidelines on Tuesday during a meeting regarding climate change.

The largest group in attendance were practitioners of Falun Gong, a spiritual practice that the CCP has been persecuting in China and abroad since July 1999. Several Falun Gong practitioners who have family members imprisoned in China spoke, including Ms. Weidi Wang, a 20-year-old fashion design student.

Wang spoke of her mother Shao Jie Qiu, 46, a middle school history teacher who was taken forcibly from her home in China last March by the Chinese authorities simply for practicing Falun Gong. First she endured a brainwashing center, and when she did not recant her beliefs, she was sent to the Shandong Province Female Prison, located in Jinan City, and the prison is known for its brutal methods.