Editor's note: The following letter was sent to the authorities in Iceland near the end of June, 2002 in response to the government's use of a blacklist to deny Falun Gong practitioners entry into the country before and during the visit of the Chinese dictator, Jiang Zemin.
Your Excellency,
I am a 58-year-old Canadian who has practised Falun Gong for three and a half years. It restored my health after five years of suffering with kidney and cancer problems,áand enabled me to return to full-time work after only six months of practice. Like millions around the worldáI've benefited immeasurably by doing my best to live according toáthe philosophy based on the universal principles of truth, compassion and forbearance.
During the time, a couple of weeks ago, when your country was denying entry to people like myself, whose names are on a list compiledá- who knows how? -áby the government of China, I went to Toronto's Eaton Centre at lunchtime to do some shopping. My work at the Education Quality and Accountability Office had been so all-consuming that I'd forgotten that there would be a press conference outside the Icelandic Consulate there. I cannot tell you how shocked I was when one of my friends came up to me and said he was trying to find a bicycle courier to deliver their information package to the Consul General, because staff were not allowing any Falun Gong practitioners to enter the building. We are speaking of gentle, middle-aged people of Chinese descent, and also highly respected business people of both Western and Eastern origin who were being denied access to a public building simply because they wanted to deliver an envelope explaining the truth of a persecution in China that has been decried by every major nation in the world.
Iceland's citizens were extremely embarrassed by their government, as you know,áand fully supported Falun Gong practitioners' wishes to stand in front of the Chinese president at every opportunity to quietly remind him of his unjust persecution against innocent and peaceful people. To have Icelandic Consulate staff in Toronto behave as if practitioners here are terrorists is incredible to me.
As a fourth-generation Canadian, I am deeply and personallyáinsulted by your government's action. I sincerely hope that a publicáapology will be forthcoming to the practitioners of many Western countries who were initially denied access, forbidden to even board planes destined for Iceland, or who were detained for more than a day in a school near the airport in Iceland. Anything less than a public apology will only encourage the current president of China to continue the genocide in his country.
Yours sincerely,
á
Category: Perspective
