President, International Coalition for Religious Freedom
July 22, 2010 – U.S. Capitol, Washington, D.C.
Dear Falun Gong practitioners and Friends of Religious Freedom,
We are gathered again this year at the US Capitol to express our concern for the outrageous violation of human rights against Falun Gong practitioners by the Chinese government.
The treatment of Falun Gong by China is clearly one of the worst human rights violations in the world today. Even though Congress has spoken almost unanimously on this issue, the Obama Administration, like previous Administrations, has failed to press the government of China strongly enough to cause them to change their policy of using the most brutal means to suppress and destroy Falun Gong.
Mr. Dan Fefferman
My organization, the International Coalition for Religious Freedom, is supported largely by the worldwide Unification Church community, founded by the Reverend Sun Myung Moon. Reverend Moon himself faced a situation similar to what your members face today in China. Because his preaching rejected the evil, materialistic worldview of Marxism-Leninism, he was arrested during his ministry in North Korea just before the Korean War. He was brutally tortured in an effort to break his faith, just as your members are today.
Yet, he refused to stop his personal spiritual practices and continued to spread his message. As a result, he was arrested again and spent several years in a Communist death camp. He would have died there, but was liberated by UN Forces led by the United States. Ever since that time, he has strongly sympathized with all spiritual movements persecuted by Communist governments.
He also believes that the United States has a special mission from Heaven to lead the world in matters of religious freedom.
Because of this, I and my co-religionists are passionate in our support of Falun Gong. Throughout the world, Unificationists are praying in sympathy with you and your persecuted brothers and sisters in China. We believe they are today’s saints and martyrs. We especially honor those who have given their lives for this cause.
I’d also like to draw your attention to the suffering of Unification Church members today in Japan. There, the persecution is not carried out by the government directly, but by private citizens who kidnap our members and hold them against their will in an effort to break their faith through what the Communists call "re-education," but what is commonly called "deprogramming" in the West.
More than 4,300 Unificationists have suffered in this way, but the Japanese government does nothing to stop these crimes.
So, Dear Falun Gong practitioners, I hope you sense the common suffering which our two communities are experiencing. Martin Luther King, Jr. taught that "suffering for a righteous cause is redemptive."
Even though sometimes it seems like the night will never end, the sun always rises in the morning. I believe that morning is coming for Falun Gong in China.
When it does, I will join with you in welcoming it. In the meantime, let us all redouble our efforts to work together for the religious freedom of all people, throughout the world, whatever their faith may be.
Thank you.
The Epoch Times report (in Chinese) is here and (in English) here.
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