Wen Jiabao is in New York City for the General Assembly convention. He will speak at the U.N. Millennium Goals conference and meet with U.S. President Obama.
"We urge the international community to pay attention to the severe persecution in China since 1999," said Rong Yi, one of the organizers of a rally that held in Dag Hammarskjold Plaza on Tuesday morning. The rally was composed of dozens of Falun Gong practitioners who were practicing the Falun Gong exercises, while several others held up banners, and distributed informational pamphlets about the persecution to passersby.
"We urge the premier to bring to justice those who started the persecution…and we urge the international community not only to pay attention to China's economic role, but also push the Chinese government and pay attention to the human rights disaster in China," said Rong Yi.
Some of the Falun Gong practitioners at the rally were direct victims of the persecution and managed to escape from China and obtain refugee status. Ms. Zhang, an elderly Chinese woman is one of those victims. She used to work for the Ministry of Commerce in the Chinese regime. In 2001, she was sent to a forced labor camp for one year and four months for practicing Falun Gong. Since she refused to give up the practice she was kept in the labor camp for another year. Later she managed to cross the border to Thailand, alone, where she stayed for a year. She now has asylum status from the U.N.
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