(Clearwisdom.net) On September 11, the Edmonton Sun, a newspaper in Canada, reported on local Falun Gong practitioners' anti-torture exhibit, which was held during Hu Jintao's visit to Canada. Practitioners called for an end to the persecution of Falun Gong.

According to the report, Falun Gong practitioners - including a man once jailed in China - staged a mock torture exhibit in Edmonton yesterday to highlight human rights abuses in China as the country's president visits Canada.

The demonstrators have a message for Chinese President Hu Jintao, who took supreme power of the Communist state two years ago.

"It's an opportunity for him to stop the persecution," explained participant Chunyan Huang.

Falun Gong, also known as Falun Dafa, is a [spiritual] movement that was banned in China in 1999.

Thousands of practitioners have been imprisoned and 3,000 have been tortured to death, Huang said.

During the demonstration outside the Old Strathcona Farmers' Market, Falun Gong practitioners were shown tied sitting upright on a bench and either sitting in a cage or standing with their hands tied above their heads as police with batons looked on.

They claim government officials force victims to hold these positions for hours, even days at a time.

"We cannot really demonstrate the severity of the torture here," Huang said.

Among the demonstrators was Wenyu Liu, who spent nearly three years in a Chinese jail for distributing leaflets on the persecution of Falun Gong practitioners.

His wife, Yue Yao, is still imprisoned. She was given a 12-year sentence.

Liu, now a doctoral student in mechanical engineering at the University of Calgary, said the mental torture he endured was worse than the physical abuse.

"It's terrible to remember it," Liu said.

At one point Liu spent eight months in solitary confinement, utterly deprived of human contact.

When Hu met with Prime Minister Paul Martin on Friday, he dismissed talk of human rights abuses, telling Martin his country has improved its record on that front.