Wang Wenyi: the Falun Gong heckler

from Cursor:

Dana Milbank catalogs the 'Host of Indignities' that greeted China and its president, as charges are filed against the Falun Gong heckler, who faces up to six months in jail.

see also:
"feds lower boom on Hu's falun gong heckler:"

Wenyi Wang, 47, a devotee of the Falun Gong movement, was originally booked on a disorderly conduct charge after she crashed Thursday's White House ceremony. But the U.S. attorney's office later decided to charge her with harassing, intimidating and threatening a foreign official for yelling at Hu that his "days are numbered."

and:
"Falun Gong heckler leaves Bush red-faced"
Independent Online, [South Africa] - Apr 20, 2006

"President Hu, your days are numbered. President Bush, make him stop persecuting Falun Gong," the woman yelled. US officials later identified her as Wang Wenyi, 47, a reporter with The Epoch Times, an English-language publication strongly supportive of the meditation movement that is banned in China.

"Pro-Torture, Pro-Tyranny Media Rebukes Brave Falun Gong Protester"
Prison Planet.com-Alex Jones-Apr 23, 2006

After listening to talk radio in the hours after the incident, we were sickened to hear radio hosts and callers attacking the demonstrator for daring to interrupt President Bush, claiming that it sent the wrong message to China in that the US was not able to manage geopolitical events smoothly.

They were actually insinuating that it was an American virtue to silence free speech and dissent and that the demonstrator made the country look weak to the visiting Chinese despots.

This was echoed by news anchors across the nation. Watch the video and notice how the CNN presenters express relief when the secret service finally grabs and drags her away.

The Drudge Report[!] picked up stories about how not only Chinese TV but also CNN International had tried to censor the protester:

"On China TV: As Hu was speaking when yells of protesters became audible, the screen went black. When the feed came back the screen once again went black when woman was again heard. During CNN International's post-speech commentary, at mention of south lawn heckler, the screen also went black again. The CNN feed returned when the incident ended."

Derek Mitchell, a former Pentagon advisor told the Associated Press that the spectacle was an embarrassment because China, "must know that this Bush administration is good at controlling crowds for themselves, and the fact that they couldn't control this is going to play to their worse fears and suspicions about the United States, into mistrust about American intentions toward China."

The only embarrassment is Mitchell - he is an embarrassment to what it means to be an American. How dare this boot-licking pond scum piece of trash equate the image of America with crowd control and the wholesale abolition of free speech? The Bush administration's taste for staged-managed public town hall meetings and "free-speech zones" would sit perfectly with the Chinese dictatorship as shining examples of how to create the false perception that dissent is only confined to the fringes of society.

from Mykeru: "Falun Gonged":

Nothing will get you your ass handed to you in DC like fucking with one of the administration's photo ops. Since the Bushistas don't have much of a policy, or a plan, not to mention a clue already, and Bush himself is chalking up an approval rating of 33% which is, coincidentally the same amount by which federal spending has grown during his administration -- explaining why real conservatives aren't fond of Bush either -- while the war in Iraq is going about as well as one of Dick Cheney's hunting trips, just on a much more tragic scale, the only thing that Bush and company can do semi-competently is stand there and have their picture taken, trying to act all presidential and shit...

Mykeru also discusses the semantic grey areas regarding what Ms.Wenyi actually said, here.



For my part I am struck by the irony that this middle-aged Chinese lady who never hurt anybody will in all likelihood end up with a felony conviction that will hang on her shoulders for the rest of her life, while in all likelihood Bush has a sealed-record drug conviction from the 70s that we aren't allowed to talk about. And she'll go to federal prison for what? For heckling a totalitarian dictator, and therebye embarassing a mass murderer? Well, yes.

some additional links:

Chinalaborwatch.org

tianamen vigil


from FreeChina.net


cross-posted at Hugo Zoom