Protester embarrasses China's leader and Bush

It was meant to be a day of pomp and ceremony for Chinese leader Hu Jintao: a 21-gun salute and an honor guard at the White House, obscuring the fact that this was not a full state visit. Instead, Hu was embarrassed by noisy protests on the streets of Washington, and a protester who managed to disrupt the high pageantry on Apr. 20 to heckle China's president, accusing him of persecution. Moments into Hu's speech, Dr. Wang Wenyi, perched on the top tier of the stands reserved for the press, began screaming in English and Chinese: "President Bush stop him. Stop this visit. Stop the killing and torture." She also managed to unfurl a banner in the yellow and red colors of the Falun Gong spiritual movement before being bundled away by White House security. Before the Secret Service escorted Wang from the media platform, a cameraman pulled the banner from her hands and tried to quiet her by placing his hands on her mouth. The Chinese leader, unaccustomed to such public protests, stopped speaking briefly until Bush leaned over and reassured him. Falun Gong is a Buddhist-based spiritual movement with millions of members in China and elsewhere. It became the focus of controversy when it was banned by the Chinese government in 1999 after followers staged a series of peaceful protests in Beijing. Founded by a Chinese soldier in 1992, Falun Gong in Chinese means "Practice of the Wheel of Law." It blends meditation and martial arts. Adherents say thousands of the group's followers have been imprisoned by the Chinese government. Her outburst–directly opposite Hu and Bush's podiums–was captured by CNN and other networks. The pathologist had obtained a press pass on behalf of the Epoch Times, a Falun Gong newspaper. In China, television screens were blanked out when the protests became audible. CNN said that its signal to China was interrupted twice: first when Wang was shouting and later when the network reported the incident. After prosecutors charged her with a federal crime punishable by up to six months in jail, Wang remained defiant. "It's not a crime but an act of civil disobedience," she declared after she emerged from a hearing in US District Court in Washington, drawing cheers from nearly three dozen fellow activists from Falun Gong.