Screening of Free China: The Courage to Believe

(Thanks to the Group 342 organizer, Barbara Quintiliano, for writing up this event report!)

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On Monday evening, November 11, our group hosted a well-attended screening of Free China: The Courage to Believe at Tredyffrin Public Library. This 2012 award-winning film, directed by Michael Perlman and coproduced by NTD Television and World2Be Productions, addresses the Chinese government’s persecution of Falun Gong practitioners, which includes torture, imprisonment, and involuntary harvesting of their organs for wealthy patients. Free China tells the stories of Jennifer Zeng, a former Communist Party member who was imprisoned by the Chinese government for practicing Falun Gong, and Charles Lee, a Chinese-American doctor who was sentenced to three years in a Chinese labor camp for trying to expose the government’s persecution of the group.

Following the screening of Free China, Dr. Ann Corson, representing Doctors Against Forced Organ Harvesting (DAFOH), introduced a short feature presenting the viewpoint of members of the medical community on the unethical procurement of organs from Chinese prisoners, many of whom are prisoners of conscience.  The audience next heard testimony from two members of the Greater Philadelphia Area Falun Dafa who, speaking through an interpreter, told the heartrending stories of their own arrest, imprisonment, and eventual escape from China.

The evening concluded with Corson and Group 342 member Alex Luchansky answering questions from the audience and inviting all present to sign the petition addressed to the UN Human Rights High Commissioner calling for an immediate end of forced organ harvesting from Falun Gong practitioners in China.

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Want to learn more?

• Support this human rights effort by signing this petition to the United Nations.
• Listen to the song “The Courage to Believe,” movingly sung by Q’orianka Kilcher.
• Amnesty International was one of the first organizations to expose state-sanctioned violence against Falun Gong practitioners in China. Read the 2001 report from Amnesty International.