On August 22, in the beautiful emerald city of Seattle, 15 Falun Dafa practitioners have taken their first steps in kicking off a historic, around-the-globe SOS! Earthwalk. The event is entirely self-motivated and is triggered by the recent hunger strike at Masanjia Labor camp by 130 Falun Dafa practitioners as well as the illegal sentence and imprisonment of the US permanent resident, Dr. Chunyan Teng. The mission is to increase public awareness of the severity of persecution of Falun Dafa in China, call for support and help to rescue the 130 Falun Dafa practitioners and Dr. Teng, and also offer the public an opportunity to know more about the profound teachings of Falun Dafa.

Walkers will embark from Seattle and proceed through Tacoma, Olympia, and Portland. The entire journey covers a total of 926 miles and it is estimated that it will take 47 days. The final destination will be at the Chinese Consulate in San Francisco. Hundreds of supporters are expected to join en route. The walkers plan to reach San Francisco at the end of September, prior to President Bush's scheduled October visit to China. They will ask the US President to send a clear message to Jiang Zemin to immediately stop the persecution of Falun Gong practitioners, release Dr. Teng and all those in China who are imprisoned or are being detained for practicing Falun Gong.

This Earthwalk will be concurrent with other hunger strikes and walks occurring globally, across North America, Europe and Asia, to raise public awareness of the urgency of this SOS campaign and reach out to the public for support, help and better understanding of Falun Dafa.

For this event, a press release was sent out on August 21. A Press Conference was held today in front of the Federal Building at downtown Seattle around 11:30 AM. Prior to the conference, the practitioners performed the five sets of peaceful exercises of Falun Gong in the rain. Some practitioners gracefully greeted the public and offered fliers. During the conference, five practitioners (a college student, a biophysicist, a biomedical researcher, and a retired teacher) each gave a short speech. Reporters from several newspapers including the World Journal and Reuters were present during the event. The walk began right after the Conference. The walkers offered fliers and stopped to address questions throughout their walk. Many people took the fliers and said: "We have already heard about the persecution and we support your actions; we wish you good luck." However, few people know exactly what Falun Dafa is, nor have they heard about the recent hunger strike event and the arrest of Dr. Teng. Based upon this, the practitioners are making new fliers and posters on these subjects. Around 6:00 PM, the practitioners reached Sea Tac, covering 12 miles after close to six hours of walking. Despite the rainy weather, the entire event went on with high spirits.