As the gold-medal tally for China soars in Beijing, Linda Wang’s heart fills
with pain.
"This is not the Olympics of humanity," the somber Kansas City woman said.
"This is the Olympics of hypocrisy."
Wang and other Falun Gong practitioners in the region held a news conference
Friday at the Johnson County Library to urge the Chinese government to live up
to the humanitarian ideal of the Olympics and release the parents of a Missouri
college student they said were arrested last month.
Jin Pang, 25, a first-year master’s student at Missouri State University in
Springfield, said she has not heard from her parents since they were arrested
July 29 in a "Peaceful Olympics" sweep by Communist Party officials.
Earlier in the month, Pang said her parent’s apartment in Weifang City in
Shandong province was ransacked by police and their valuables and lifesavings
were taken as a way to intimidate Falun Gong practitioners and do it under the
guise of a pre-Olympic law-and-order sweep.
Her mother, Junping Cao, 51, a retired sales clerk, and her father, Xiaoqiang
Pang, 53, a detention center engineer, are being held at the Weifang City
Detention Center, she said.
"It’s very ridiculous," Pang said in an interview after the press conference.
"They have taken advantage of the Olympics to persecute their foes."
Falun Gong practitioners say they read and exercise to create an inner peace
that fosters competence, truthfulness, tolerance and good health.
Wang, who runs a nonprofit organization and is a freelance reporter for a
Chinese newspaper, said Friday’s press conference was designed to expose what
Falun Gong practitioners say is the Chinese government’s inhumane and bloody
persecution of those who only seek truth and inner peace.
As of Jan. 1, the Falun Dafa Information Center reports that at least 8,037
Falun Gong practitioners from 29 provinces have been arrested.
Scores of human rights organizations, Congress and even the City Council of
Kansas City have recognized the movement and condemned the Chinese government’s
crackdown on Falun Gong.