We are students and faculty from 89 universities in the United States, united by our practice of Falun Gong and our concern for wellness and justice. We write to ask your help in an urgent matter.

On September 11, 2001, we saw in our own land the horrific, disturbing face of evil; an act of hatred by foreign terrorists wounded our nation and its people. Our deepest sympathy goes out to all who have been affected by these tragedies, but if there is one positive thing that might be drawn from this, it is that we have re-awakened as a people to the presence of evil in the world, and the need to actively eliminate it.

For two years now, we who practice Falun Gong in the free world have fought against something no less evil or horrific. We have fought against a state-run campaign of terror in China that targets 100 million peaceful, innocent citizens. These people are targeted simply for who they are—a people bonded together in a meditation practice that nurtures in oneself the principles of truth, compassion, and tolerance. China’s totalitarian regime perceives the popularity of this practice as a threat. These innocent people’s lives are now at great risk.

The communist regime’s rule of terror in China has stripped Falun Gong practitioners and many others of all human rights. According to rights groups, over 100,000 Falun Gong practitioners have been arrested; tens of thousands have been thrown into labor camps without trial; and at least 1,000 healthy practitioners have been put into mental hospitals for illegal psychiatric abuses. And while 283 are known to have died in police custody, inside government sources put the death toll at well over 1,000. Millions of practitioners have been pressured, threatened, and forced to go through brainwashing programs from which the only release lies in renouncing their beliefs.

Dr. Teng Chunyan, a U.S. permanent resident and well-known Manhattan acupuncturist, languishes under terrible conditions while illegally held captive in prison. On Thanksgiving Day, November 23, 2000, she was sentenced in a secret trial in Beijing to three years in prison. Her crime? She videotaped and released to western journalists footage documenting the torture and illegal detention of Falun Gong practitioners in China’s mental hospitals. For her courageous work, Dr. Teng is herself now held captive in China and subjected to the same torture and abuse she risked her life to end.

Yet the millions strong in China who practice Falun Gong have met this evil with fortitude, courage, and goodness. And despite two years of violent, brutal suppression, these people have not bowed before the oppressor. They have answered brutality with compassion, irrational fanaticism with calm reason, lies and deceit with honesty and plain dealing. In their heroic endurance and fidelity to Falun Gong’s principles of truth, compassion, and tolerance, they have demonstrated to the world how Falun Gong has made them persons of profound moral strength. They have resisted the largest totalitarian government in the world, and done so on their own, no less. Now these brave persons need your help.

As the American people unite behind President Bush, who has vowed to make no distinction between the terrorists who attacked America and "those who harbor them," let us show our elected officials how fervently we oppose China’s state-sanctioned terrorism against its own citizens. Let us show the Chinese regime that we are determined to remove all hidden shadows that give aid and shelter to acts of violence, hatred, and terrorism. We must prevent the evil forces, identified so poignantly by our president, from spilling over into the world at large.

Please write or call President Bush, who will visit China this October, or your congressional representatives. Please ask for:

—the immediate release of Dr. Teng Chunyan

—the immediate end to the brutal persecution of innocent Falun Gong practitioners

The world needs justice. All living beings need sincerity, compassion, and tolerance.

Thank you,