Thousands of Chinese Americans gathered in San Francisco Saturday to protest against CNN commentator Jack Cafferty's controversial remarks about Chinese products and people, and the network's supposed distorted reports on the recent riots in Tibet.

Some 5,000 people from the Chinese community in San Francisco and surrounding areas participated in the two-hour mass rally in front of CNN's local office building, calling for the firing of Cafferty and a sincere apology by CNN to ethnic Chinese people all over the world.

Holding U.S. and Chinese flags and banners accusing the CNN commentator of making racist remarks and the network of biased Tibet coverage, the demonstrators chanted slogans like "CNN liar, Cafferty fire," and marched along a stretch of a downtown street after the rally.

"Chinese people tend to live peaceful and modest lives. The Chinese here in the United States are law-abiding and hard-working people," said Guobao Wu, a local Chinese community leader who helped organize the event.

"The CNN guy's comments really hurt the feelings of the Chinese American community, we strongly protest and condemn his remarks," he added.

Saturday's event was the latest in a series of protests by Chinese Americans across the United States after Cafferty said in a live show earlier this month that Chinese products were "junk" and the Chinese were "basically the same bunch of goons and thugs they've been for the last 50 years."

In a later statement he said his comments were about the Chinese government not the Chinese people.

Protests against CNN and Cafferty by Chinese Americans would not stop until they make acceptable apologies, said organizers of the San Francisco demonstration.

Cafferty's remarks infuriated Chinese people around the world, especially those living in the United States, where demonstrations against CNN had been staged earlier in major cities like Los Angeles, New York and Washington, D.C.

(Xinhua News Agency April 28, 2008)