2/14/2002

Personal Statement of Rosemary Katzen -- before her arrest yesterday in massive police raids in Beijing.

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My name is Rosemary Katzen, 42, and I am a Senior Tutor at LET Training Services Ltd, Leicester, a Training Centre for unemployed adults. I have been a Falun Gong practitioner for two and a half years and it has changed my life. Before practising I used to get very tired easily, slept poorly, my digestion was weak, I had chronic menstrual problems and I was asily stressed and highly strung. All these problems have gone away and I am in excellent health, full of energy, I need less sleep than I used to and my emotional state is calm. I can handle easily the challenges that life brings and I am a much kinder and tolerant person than before. I am very fortunate to have the freedom to practise Falun Gong in England. However my fellow practitioners in China are not so lucky.

I have joined many Western people from around the world in Tiananmen Square to make a peaceful appeal to the authorities in China to stop the brutal persecution of Falun Gong practitioners, to make the practice of Falun Gong legal again and to release all the thousands of practitioners unlawfully detained in forced labour camps, jails and mental institutions. The persecution has been unrelenting since July 1999 and has caused the deaths of at least 360 practitioners, although the unofficial figure is 2000. The death toll has been sharply on the increase recently.

I come to Tiananmen, to the "Gate of Heavenly Peace" where so many Chinese practitioners have risked their lives to peacefully appeal for the right to practise Falun Gong. At this "Gate of Heavenly Peace" they have been brutally beaten, arrested and hundreds have subsequently died upholding their faith in Truthfulness -- Compassion -- Tolerance. I also have come as a citizen of the West, where we value and uphold the right to speak out against injustice. As a Western practitioner. my participation in this peaceful appeal is in support of the persecuted Chinese practitioners and is aimed at putting the spotlight on the state terrorism, which cannot continue behind closed doors anymore. I come to show China and the World that peace is in my heart, that Falun Gong is good, that it is freely practised by people all over the World and to represent the millions of Falun Gong practitioners in China whose voices have been silenced, who have been stripped of their rights to peacefully assemble and practice Falun Gong. True power comes not from violence, which has to hide behind guilt and shame covering its tracks; true power is noble, compassionate and stands for Truth, giving strength to all those in its path, shining its light into the darkness. Falun Gong gives Chinese practitioners this true power, enabling them to withstand the torture and severe deprivation that would be unbearable otherwise, without retaliating and maintaining benevolence towards their torturers. The shameful crimes of the Chinese authorities, headed by the President Jiang Zemin must be exposed and the perpetrators receive their due punishment.

The struggle of the practitioners in China stands as a symbol for all of humanity: to have the right to live according to noble values and to peacefully practise one's beliefs. The Communist Party directly opposes Truthfulness -- Compassion -- Tolerance. If these values were wiped out from the face of the Earth then surely humankind would face its darkest hour.
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Rosemary was dragged from her hotel by the hair last night in a largescale pre-emptive raid by chinese police. She is expected to be deported later today.

For further information contact Mary Cann (Falun Gong UK) 0115 9141260 /  kubla.khan@ntlworld.com