NPR.org: As Bush and Hu Discuss Issues, a Protest Erupts

When it was President Hu’s turn to speak, a woman standing on the top level of a viewing stand set up for the press began to shout loudly, yelling in Chinese that, “President Hu, your days are numbered”. In English, she shouted, “President Bush, stop him from persecuting the Falun Gong,” referring to the spiritual movement banned by the Chinese government.

Hu stopped briefly but continued his remarks. In several minutes, uniformed Secret Service agents removed the woman, still screaming, from the South Lawn. The protester was later identified as a reporter with credentials issued for a Falun Gong newspaper.

FoxNews: Bush, Hu Make Little Progress on Trade, Iran

Hu’s visit began with an official welcoming ceremony on the White House South Lawn, which was interrupted by a protester in the press pool who began yelling about China’s repression of religion before being escorted away by Secret Service agents.

NY Times: Bush and Hu Vow New Cooperation

The occasion was disrupted when a member of the Falun Gong spiritual sect, accredited as a reporter for a sect-run publication to cover the ceremony at the White House, interrupted Mr. Hu’s address and upset the elaborate choreography the Chinese delegation had regarded as the most important trophy of Mr. Hu’s visit. Screaming, “President Bush, make him stop persecuting Falun Gong,” the ethnic Chinese woman, Wenyi Wang, partly drowned out Mr. Hu. She continued shouting for more than a minute before security officers removed her.

Mr. Bush later apologized to Mr. Hu for the incident, White House officials said. But Chinese Foreign Ministry officials traveling with Mr. Hu canceled an afternoon briefing. One delegation member, speaking on condition of anonymity because he was not authorized to discuss the subject publicly, described his superiors as outraged by the breach. . .

On human rights, Mr. Hu refused to make concessions on any cases on a list that Mr. Bush presented to him last September, when they met during a session at the United Nations. Dennis Wilder, the acting senior director for East Asian affairs at the National Security Council, said Mr. Bush presented the same list to Mr. Hu again this time.

I’m so proud to see Wenyi Wang tell it like it and speak truth to power. President Bush should not be giving the tyanical leader of China a tour of the White House, but rather should be calling him on the carpet for his country’s suppression of religious, cultural and political freedoms. And why the heck is Bush appologizing? Ms. Wang courageously did what Bush should be doing, speaking out for the cause of freedom.

In fact this is what really gets my goat. President Bush tells us that the US fighting the war in Iraq to give freedom to the Iraqi people, yet Bush does JACK SQUAT for the freedom of the Chinese people and the Tibetan people. It just doesn’t make sense and certainly makes it hard to take him at his word.