Friends of Falun Gong is an organization of supporters of practitioners of Falun Gong. The purpose of today's conference is to make clear to the International Olympic Committee, the serious concerns that Friends of Falun Gong has towards the current human rights situation in Chinaí for the purpose of both upholding and defending the most basic human rights of Falun Gong practitioners and for the preservation of the fundamental principles of the Olympic Movement.

Since July 20, 1999, Jiang Zemin's illegal persecution of Falun Gong has not only deprived over seventy million people the right to practice a peaceful system of gentle physical exercises and to read books which advocate Truthfulness-Compassion-Tolerance, it has also resulted in the mental and physical torture of countless Falun Gong practitioners. Over 50,000 people are detained and tortured in labor camps. Hundreds of people are illegally sentenced to jail terms. Hundreds of people are held in mental hospitals and destroyed with drugs. To date over 163 peaceful people have died due to torture in police custody.

Friends of Falun Gong is deeply concerned to learn that all of this is because innocent people choose to practice gentle exercises and strive to conduct themselves by Truthfulness-Compassion-Tolerance. Friends of Falun Gong chooses to support Falun Gong practitioners publicly because we feel a deep respect for these kind people who continue to live true to their peaceful beliefs despite the Beijing governments' vicious and illegal crackdown. Countless human rights groups and governments around the world have spoken out to condemn Beijing's actions against Falun Gong.

This illegal crackdown is in defiance of international treatise on human rights and China's own constitution, and is also a blatant violation to the fundamental principles of the Olympic Movement which states:

"The goal of Olympism is to place everywhere sport at the service of the harmonious development of man, with a view to encouraging the establishment of a peaceful society concerned with the preservation of human dignity."

Amnesty International in London released a report last month telling us that torture has become "widespread and systematic in China? The treatments of Falun Gong practitioners include beatings, forced feedings, electric tortures, rape, public humiliations, burnings, forced labour, use of medieval torture devices such as the tiger-stool and "prison in hell", as well as forced abortions and the incarceration and forced drugging of mentally healthy people in psychiatric hospitals.

The Associated French Press reports a western diplomat as saying," It's like a Russian pogrom...they are going after Falun Gong followers in an unabated and methodical fashion."

Ms. Chen Zixiu was a retired woman. The Wall Street Journal recounts the fate she received for refusing to renounce her belief in Falun Gong,

"The day before Chen Zixiu died, her captors again demanded that she renounce her faith in Falun Dafa. Barely conscious after repeated jolts from a cattle prod, the 58-year-old stubbornly shook her head.

"Enraged, the local officials ordered Ms. Chen to run barefoot in the snow. Two days of torture had left her legs bruised and her short black hair matted with pus and blood, said cellmates and other prisoners who witnessed the incident. She crawled outside, vomited and collapsed. She never regained consciousness, and died on Feb. 21."

Canadian citizen and professor, Kunlun Zhang, was tortured mentally and physically and sent to labour camp in China for his practice of Falun Gong. In detention he was told, "We can do whatever to you without taking any responsibilities. If you were beaten to death, we could simply bury you and tell the outside world that you had committed suicide."

Canadian citizen Jinyu Li's husband, Shenli Lin, was arrested and has remained in Chinese labour camp for 14 months. Jinyu is very concerned for his safety as no one has been permitted to see him no one knows his current condition. The violent arrests of four other of her family members brings us a vivid example of what millions of families are now facing--being completely torn apart by the Chinese government's relentless persecution of Falun Gong.

We cannot let history repeat the 1936 Olympic Games held in Germany.

In 1933, three years before the Olympic Games, a boycott was purposed due to Germany's treatment of Jews. However, western countries rejected the boycott of the 1936 Olympics. Avery Brundage, president of the American Olympic Committee, stated that American athletes should not become involved in "the present Jew-Nazi altercation," and that the Games should go on, as planned.

For two weeks in August 1936, Adolf Hitler glorified his Nazi dictatorship while hosting the Summer Olympics and camouflaged his evil, racist character. With the conclusion of the Games, Germany's expansionist policies and the persecution of Jews and other "enemies of the state" accelerated, culminating in World War II and the Holocaust.

Today, in China, over 70 million Falun Gong practitioners are now being persecuted for their basic fundamental human rights. Innocent people are not even safe in their own communities or their own homes.

In anticipation of the IOC visit in Beijing last month, CNN reported Chinese President Jiang Zemin as stating, "If we can't exterminate Falun Gong soon this will be seen as a major weakness of the communist party...the authority and prestige of the party is at stake." Beijing has ordered provincial leaders to "take speedy and effective measures to crush Falun Gong."

What we are witnessing is an issue of basic fundamental human rights which are being brutally pillaged by a dictator government. This is not an issue of "mixing politics with the Olympic Games."

We must not allow Jiang Zemin to rape the Spirit of the Olympic Games as Hitler did in 1936. We must not allow Jiang Zemin to paint over his crimes just as he painted the grass green in Tiananmen Square. We must not allow the deadly lessons of 1936 to repeat themselves!

We appeal to the International Olympic Committee to uphold the Fundamental Principles of the Olympic Charter and call on China to stop the brutal persecution of Falun Gong.