September 13, 2001

A Cary man fasted for two days in front of the Chinese Embassy in Washington, D.C., this week to protest the Chinese government's treatment of Falun Gong practitioners.

"I hunger strike for the tens of thousands of illegally detained practitioners who are suffering in forced labor camps and prisons," Bill Xiu wrote, explaining his protest.

Xiu first started practicing Falun Gong in 1997, when he was a student at Ohio State University.

Falun Gong is a movement that teaches meditation, exercises [...]. It was banned by the Chinese government in 1999 after demonstrators in 30 cities protested the arrest of movement [coordinators]. The Chinese government has described it as an "[Jiang Zemin government's slanderous term omitted]".

Some Falun Gong members say that more than 50,000 of their fellow practitioners have been put in prisons, labor camps and mental hospitals in China. The Chinese Government puts the number detained at about 150.

Human rights groups say about 200 Falun Gong members have died from torture while in the custody of the Chinese government. The government has acknowledged several deaths, but said most were due to suicide or illness.

Xiu joined a protest that had begun on Aug. 17. Falun Gong practitioners from all over the United States came to D.C. to take turns fasting in front of the Chinese Embassy. The protests have a permit for their demonstration, which has gone peacefully.

"We get along very well with the policemen here", Xiu said from Washington. He said the embassy had not responded to the protesters at all.

"They just keep their door closed," he siad.

Last Thursday, the hunger strike ended. Falun Gong protesters turned instead to "S.O.S. walks," in which protesters walked through D.C. neighborhoods passing out information.

On Friday, Xiu returned to Cary -- he had a computer class he didn't want to miss. If he were in China, he wrote, he wouldn't have that option.

"I can eat again and go home," he wrote "That's not a choice that my fellow practitioners in China have."

Category: Falun Dafa in the Media