By Eric M. Weiss
Washington Post Staff Writer
Thursday, June 22, 2006; A08

The protester who disrupted a White House ceremony for Chinese President Hu Jintao in April will have criminal charges against her dismissed if she stays out of trouble for a year, according to a deal with prosecutors announced yesterday.

Wenyi Wang, 47, a follower of Falun Gong, a religious sect suppressed in China, was arrested by the Secret Service after she began yelling from a media platform during the April 20 White House event. The outburst interrupted Hu's remarks at the ceremony, attended by President Bush and other leaders, and created an embarrassing situation for the White House.

Wang has characterized her actions as an act of civil disobedience, not a crime.

Under the agreement, prosecutors will postpone action on the case until April, a year from the time of the incident. At that point, they will dismiss the charges if Wang has not committed any crimes, said Channing Phillips, a spokesman for the U.S. attorney's office. The deal does not have to be approved by a judge.

Wang was charged with willfully intimidating, coercing, threatening and harassing a foreign official, a misdemeanor that carries a penalty of up to six months in jail and a $5,000 fine.

If she breaks the law before April, "Then we're back at square one, and we would have to go to trial," Phillips said.

The agreement offered to Wang is a standard way of resolving cases that involve minor crimes and first-time offenders, he said.

Her attorney did not return a phone call yesterday seeking comment.

Wang, a doctor who lives in New York, got on the White House lawn for the ceremony as a credentialed journalist for a newspaper associated with Falun Gong, a Buddhist-based spiritual movement with millions of members in China and elsewhere.

During the event, Wang unfurled a yellow protest banner and shouted at Hu, and then Bush, in Chinese and English. The Secret Service said that her comments included: "Stop oppressing the Falun Gong," "Your time is running out" and "Anything you have done will come back to you in this lifetime." She also exclaimed: "President Bush, stop him from killing! President Bush, stop him from persecuting Falun Gong!"

The White House had issued Wang a one-day media pass to cover the ceremony after she presented credentials as a reporter for Epoch Times. Many of the newspaper's staff members, like Wang, are Falun Gong practitioners, a newspaper spokeswoman said.

Chinese officials had warned the United States of the potential for protests during Hu's visit. And Wang had caused a commotion at least once before: She confronted former Chinese president Jiang Zemin in Malta nearly five years ago with complaints about the treatment of Falun Gong, according to media reports.

A spokesman for the Chinese Embassy who did not want to be identified said, "Today's result is not acceptable to the Chinese side." He described Falun Gong as "an evil cult, anti-humankind and anti-society, and an anti-China political organization" and noted that Bush had apologized to Hu for the incident.

Staff writer Glenn Kessler contributed to this report.