WASHINGTON - The Falun Gong follower who heckled Chinese President Hu Jintao at a White House ceremony has reached a deal with prosecutors under which all charges against her will be dropped, her attorney announced Wednesday.
Wang Wenyi faced a misdemeanor charge of intimidating, coercing, threatening and harassing a foreign official for interrupting the April 20 event in which President Bush welcomed Hu to the White House. She could have faced six months in jail and a $5,000 fine.
Heh. I don't think they have the actual statute Bush wanted her charged with - "Daring to Embarass the Monarch" - on the books yet, but I'm sure the White House is working to correct that.
Wang, 47, said she is prohibited from confronting any foreign officials over the next year. The case will be continued until then, and if she has not committed any felonies - including confronting foreign officials - the charges will be dropped, said Channing Phillips, a spokesman for the U.S. attorney's office.
While you may think the deal is an abrogation of her 1st Amendment rights, it's really not. The only cause she has is against the Chinese leadership for their horrid treatment of Falun Gong practitioners, and she won't get within a country mile of any of them in this country ever again. She made her point, and they let her slide on the phony charges. The real crime would have been to prosecute her and they knew it.
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