On a Tokyo street, Mrs. Yoko Kaneko calls for the rescue of persecuted Falun Gong practitioners in China.

(Clearwisdom.net, March 8, 2004) Mrs. Yoko Kaneko, a Falun Gong practitioner from Japan, was imprisoned in a Chinese labor camp for one year and six months simply for practicing Falun Gong and exposing Jiang Zemin's persecution of Falun Gong to the Chinese people. With appeal and rescue efforts from the international communities, Yoko gained her freedom last November. Yoko visited the Shizuoka-ken council on March 2 and Japanese Members of Parliament on March 3 to gain support to rescue fellow Falun Gong practitioner still being persecuted in China. After that, Yoko held an activity on a busy street in Tokyo to express her gratitude to the Japanese people for their concern and continuous support. She also called upon the Japanese people to continue to pay attention to and help rescue those Falun Gong practitioners who are imprisoned in China.

Feeling deeply saddened towards Jiang group's inhuman persecution of Falun Gong, Ms. Yoko Kaneko went to Beijing and distributed Falun Gong truth-clarifying flyers to people to call for an end to the persecution. She was then arrested and imprisoned in a labor camp for one and a half years. During her detention, her husband, family members and fellow Falun Gong practitioners worked hard to rescue her. Governments from various countries, human rights organizations and individuals either wrote to the Japanese government to call for help to rescue her or directly wrote to the Chinese government to request her release. By the time when Yoko was released, more than 130,000 petition signatures were collected from many countries. The rescue effort also won support from more than 270 members of the Japanese Parliament and various city councils.