On August 3^rd, 2001, a Chinese newspaper announced that a Mainland Chinese Delegation of senior appeal officers would visit New York City to hold an open appeal day on Monday August 6^th. The purpose of their visit, as stated in the tiny announcement, was to "accept appeals and clarify Chinese governmental policies with overseas groups." Two Western practitioners living in the New York City area felt this was a precious opportunity that should not be missed since it was a rare chance for them to appeal for Falun Gong directly to Mainland officials.

On Monday, August 6^th, the Western practitioners attended the appeal day in order to bring the case of Dr. Chunyan Teng to the attention of the officials and appeal on her behalf. The senior officials attending were from China's appeal bureau, State Department Appeal Office, the Guandong Province Overseas Chinese Complaint Center, and the Fujian Province Overseas Chinese Office.

Senior appeal officers of the Chinese delegation

When asked, the officials refused to give out their names or official titles, claiming the excuse of "personal privacy" and therefore insisted upon remaining anonymous. This was not surprising since a member of the 610 office had already been served a warrant while visiting New York, for persecuting Falun Gong practitioners, not long before these officials arrived.

Several Chinese practitioners came to appeal as well. After taking a number and while waiting for their turn to appeal, all practitioners were actively involved in clarifying the true facts about the persecution in China to the overseas Chinese waiting in the room. Some talked to people one on one, others handed out flyers on the street in front of the building, some took photo's, some sat in the back sending forth righteous thoughts, children helped pass out information, and some just arrived to clarify the truth for a hour while on their lunch break. One practitioner had an excellent idea and brought a stack of an everyday person's newspaper that had a huge article about Mr. Tan Yongjie on the front cover. Since all the people waiting for their appeals were tired and bored from sitting for so many hours, almost every single person was happy to accept this paper. In this way an excellent opportunity to clarify the truth was not passed by.

When the Western practitioners' number was called, the staff vigorously tried to block them from appealing. A female staff member started yelling at them for no reason. Another staff member tried to block their appeal by citing all sorts of unpublished rules such as "no groups can appeal," then, "no Americans can appeal." However they just held firm to their right to appeal, sent out righteous thoughts and kept a calm and compassionate manner at all times. The staff members were young people and became very unsettled by the practitioners calm and kind nature. The female staff member was so upset and angry by their presence that she was shaking all over. They even asked another staff member to translate to her that they were concerned for her health and she should try to calm down. A short time later, she rudely resorted to pushing and shoving a female Chinese practitioner who was to be their translator.

Finally all of the staff's actions raised the interest of the Chinese reporters covering the event. When the staff saw they had created a bad effect against themselves, they decided to allow the Western practitioners to sit down with an officer and present their appeal, after some consultation with the officials inside. The staff tried to drag the Chinese reporters away but then allowed them when the reporters angrily demanded to stay.

The Western practitioners spoke calmly to the appeal officer and conveyed their deep concern about the condition of Dr. Teng. They also told him that she was very popular in New York and people are asking about her condition every day. When he heard that Dr. Teng was a Falun Gong practitioner he told them that he could not accept any Falun Gong cases. When they asked him to clarify the Government's specific law on why he could not accept Falun Gong cases, he could only say, "The Chinese Government is against Falun Gong so I cannot accept any appeal for Falun Gong". The Western practitioners tried to give him some materials clarifying the truth about Falun Gong but he refused to accept them and sent them away.

While their appeal was not accepted, at least they were able to bring attention to the issue of Dr. Teng and show that Falun Gong concerns Western practitioners too. This really surprised the staff and the appeals officers. Many other Chinese people in the room were also very interested to speak to the Western practitioners. We hope more Western practitioners can join the Chinese practitioners efforts and help clarify the truth about the persecution to overseas Chinese.