On a corner in the crowd

When I went to Obama’s rally this weekend, I was enlightened by three little girls standing on the corner of 11th and Congress. The two youngest, around seven years old, were holding a banner, and the eldest, about 14, was handing out fliers. All three were very nervous as hundreds of people walked by, but they were delivering a powerful message.

They were raising awareness for the Human Rights Torch Relay, “an international grassroots campaign that seeks to bring an end to all human rights abuses against the people of China while highlighting the persecution of Falun Gong, the most severely persecuted group in China today.”

There is so much I didn’t know about this issue, and, as these little girls put it – the Olympics are a symbol of peace, but there is nothing peaceful about what’s going on in China.

From the pamphlet:

“As we approach the Beijing Olympics, I ask you to pay attention to the ongoing human rights disaster in China [and] seriously consider the extent to which the values of morality, justice, and humanity are undermines in China. ” -Gao Zhisheng, Sept. 20, 2007, from his letter to the U.S. Congress, two days before his disappearance.

Gao Zhisheng, Nobel peace prize nominee and recipient of the American Board of Trial and Advocacy’s 2007 Courage Award, was secretly detained by the CCP on Sept. 23 following his open letter to the U.S. Congress. As an outspoken critic of the Chinese regime, Gao, a Christian, and his family have been followed by scores of Chinese police every day for three years and have endured extreme persecution.