News and Activities from Around the World -- December 7, 2005

Issued by Clearwisdom Net

At a Modern Studies Teachers' Conference in Glasgow, Scottish practitioners set up a stall to raise awareness of the persecution of Falun Gong. Many of the teachers were interested in human rights in China and were teaching this as part of the Modern Studies curriculum. So they were keen to invite practitioners to come and talk to classes in their schools.

Following up from this, two practitioners, one Western and the other Chinese, visited two schools to give a talk on Thursday, December 1st. The Chinese practitioner traveled up to Scotland from England to visit the schools.

A practitioner talks to students about Falun Gong

The first school they visited was a secondary school in Glasgow, where they spoke to a fifth-year class studying moral philosophy and how governments in other countries use punishment. The Western practitioner first introduced Falun Gong, explaining how it was a discipline of mind and body based on the principles of Truthfulness, Compassion and Forbearance. She talked about how following these principles in one's life and regularly doing the gentle Falun Gong exercises and meditation helps cure illness and improves interpersonal relationships dramatically. People who practice Falun Gong have felt more at peace within themselves and could achieve more in their lives. She spoke about one woman in China who had been bedridden for sixteen years and the doctors could not help her. She was introduced to the book, Zhuan Falun, and after reading it her energy improved. She could get out of bed and be pushed in her wheel chair to the park to meet others to practise the exercises. After some time she was able to walk there by herself, unaided, without a cane, because she followed the principles of Falun Gong. One boy in the class asked how many people have been cured of illness. The Chinese practitioner told them that a government survey had been done in China before the persecution started, and, 95 per cent of people had reported that their illnesses had been healed or improved through practicing.

The practitioner then told the class how Falun Gong had grown very popular in a short space of time in China. When the number of practitioners grew more than the membership of the Communist Party, Jiang Zemin, the former leader of China, banned Falun Gong in July 1999. He overrode the Chinese Constitution, which allows the Chinese people to freely practice their beliefs and to gather together peacefully, and made Falun Gong illegal. Jiang initiated, with the backing of the Chinese Communist Party (CCP), a vicious and systematic campaign against Falun Gong and Falun Gong practitioners. Their stated goal was to ruin their reputation, bankrupt them financially and destroy them physically. This has had the effect of severely harming the lives of the seventy to a hundred million practitioners of Falun Gong in China, and through a virulent anti-Falun Gong propaganda campaign, of turning the rest of the population against the practice.

The practitioners then showed a DVD called, "Rescue the Children of Falun Gong practitioners persecuted in China." The class was shocked and moved by the poignant stories of children orphaned because their parents had been tortured to death, with some children themselves dying from shock and fear.

Next, the Chinese practitioner spoke about how he had spent two years in a "re-education through forced labor" camp in China, where he was tortured with sleep deprivation and with beatings so as to break his spirit. He was forced to do hard labor making sweaters and cigarette lighters. Many times, he said the situation was so horrific that he felt like committing suicide, but he knew that he should not because he followed the principles of Truthfulness, Compassion and Forbearance, which prohibit killing of any kind. He also said one of the saddest consequences of his incarceration was that his three-year-old daughter, who was only one year old when he was imprisoned, did not know her father when he was released. Since he has been in the UK for the last year and a half, his daughter has not wanted to talk to him on the phone as she considers him a stranger.

After his talk, the pupils asked some questions such as: "Can they (practitioners) practice at home?" In answering this question, the practitioners said that even if people practice at home, often the neighbors know that they practice and could report them to the police, so it is still very dangerous. Another girl asked, "How do the police know that they practice Falun Gong in China?" The practitioners answered this by explaining that because practitioners felt that they had done nothing wrong and because Falun Gong has given them a new life, they openly appeal in Chinese towns and cities for the right to practice. They hand out leaflets to the Chinese people who have been deceived by the government propaganda, to tell them the facts of Falun Gong. This has meant that often the police arrest and beat practitioners.

The class all signed the petition to help rescue children orphaned in China and took leaflets and VCDs detailing the persecution. The teachers thanked the practitioners and said it had really given them a lot to think about and discuss.

Next, the practitioners went to an academy in Ayr to speak to a fourth-year Modern Studies class. The teacher had previously shown the class an article written in the Glasgow Herald about the Chinese practitioner's horrific experiences in a labor camp, so they had some background knowledge about the persecution.

The class listened very intently. One boy asked the Chinese practitioner how he got out of China. Another girl asked, "Will Falun Gong be banned in China forever?" The practitioners replied that as more people learned the truth and stood up for justice for Falun Gong in China and around the world, it was their belief that the CCP would not be able to sustain the persecution. Also, six million Chinese people have now renounced their membership in the CCP in the last year since they had found out about the history of its crimes after reading The Epoch Times publication, the Nine Commentaries on the Communist Party.

At the end of the class, the teacher said she had thoroughly enjoyed the presentation and would ask the class to write a letter to the practitioners giving their comments about it.

On November 30, 2005, the photo exhibit, "Falun Dafa Practitioners Validating the Fa" was held on the square in front of the Manukau District Hall in Auckland, New Zealand. During the lunch break, quite a number of government officials came to visit the exhibit. Some left message in the guestbook: "The government should give people the freedom of believing in "Truthfulness, Compassion, and Forbearance!" Some wrote, "End communism."

A government official listening to the practitioner's truth-clarification

A government official signing the guestbook

After viewing the photo exhibit, a tour guide for a Chinese tourist group said that he could not bear the evilness of the Chinese Communist Party (CCP). People in China all understand in their hearts that the CCP is not good and its government officials are really corrupt. He also said that some people who work for the Chinese public security to monitor the Internet just open one eye and shut the other because they know in their hearts that they need to accumulate some virtue so as to offer themselves a way of escape [from the evilness of the CCP and its inevitable end]. He also told the Mainland officials in his tour group that if they wanted to take the truth-clarification materials, they could go ahead and take them, and they should be able to bring them back to China.

A Maori woman exclaimed, "So beautiful!" after she saw the Faluns that appeared in the photos. She immediately told her two children to go over and listen to a practitioner explaining the facts about Falun Dafa. She told the practitioner, "Today, I was brought here by an unknown force and I saw such a beautiful photo exhibit."

A Maori woman exclaims, "So beautiful!" upon seeing the Faluns in the photographs

A visitor wants to help collect signatures to rescue orphans of Falun Gong practitioners

Another Maori woman listened to a practitioner telling the story of Ms. Gao Rongrong who was tortured to death simply because she practiced Falun Gong. When the practitioner showed her some photos of orphans of Falun Gong practitioners who had been persecuted to death, the lady sighed, "That's terrible! It's so evil! It can't happen any more!" She signed the petition to support the rescue of the orphans and also signed for her daughter. She also asked for some petition forms and said that she wanted to help collect petition signatures to help rescue the Falun Gong orphans.

On December 2, 2005, practitioners showed the photographic exhibit at Prince's Wharf, Auckland. Two young men who sold fruit juice gave the practitioners some free juice and asked them try it. The practitioners gave them Dafa truth-clarification materials and told them about Falun Dafa. The young men then came over and thanked the practitioners and left several cups of free juice for them when they left.

Photographic exhibit at Prince's Wharf

On December 3, 2005, the Falun Gong Practitioners Validating the Fa Photographic Exhibit was held at the Otara Shopping Center, in eastern Auckland.

Before the exhibit was fully set up, people already started looking at the photos

A large number of visitors came to view the exhibition

A practitioner told a young lady, "Do you know that the children in this photo have been orphaned simply because their parents practiced Falun Gong and believed in Truthfulness, Compassion and Tolerance?" The western young lady immediately signed the petition to support the orphan rescue.

On December 4, 2005, the photo exhibition was held on Queen Street in Auckland. Two young ladies from England had come to visit Auckland. One of them said that she had worked for six months in Xi'an, China where she took care of orphans. After the practitioners' explanation, they accepted the truth-clarification materials and signed the petition to support rescuing Falun Gong orphans. They also said that they would expose the persecution of Falun Gong in China over the Internet. They wanted to allow more people to learn about the CCP's persecution against Falun Gong and support bringing an end to the persecution as soon as possible.

Two English women expressed their willingness to help expose the persecution

The elderly couple left this message: "Calling for freedom! Ah, it's too terrible! Stop the persecution!"

On November 28-29, 2005, Professor Mary McKinney of Broward Community College invited Miami Falun Gong practitioners to introduce Falun Gong in the classroom of her religion course.

Falun Gong lecture in the classroom

In the spring of 2005, Falun Gong practitioners in Miami gave two Falun Gong workshops in Professor McKinney's classrooms. Her students learned about Falun Gong, its development in China and its spreading to the world, as well as the persecution in China. Ms. McKinney received positive feedback from the students. Some students often joined the group exercise practice.

Ms. McKinney mentioned one thing that happened to a student. The student had some problems with his leg so he couldn't walk smoothly. After 20 minutes of learning the exercises, he could run. So she believed these exercises are magical. She had her own religious faith but she is also reading the book Zhuan Falun and beginning to acquire a deeper understanding of Falun Gong. She wished that all her students could have some knowledge about it and be aware that such a pure belief is now persecuted at its origin by the Chinese Communist Party.

Students are learning the exercises on campus

In the fall of 2005, Professor McKinney taught four classes of about 30 students each in her religion course. All the students had a chance to learn the truth about Falun Gong. They asked all kinds of questions that showed they were serious and eager to learn the truth. They wanted to know how they could help to end the persecution. When the Falun Gong practitioners demonstrated the exercises, the students were excited and watched carefully. Many said it was beautiful and two students said they "felt the Falun spinning."

Professor McKinney has included the Falun Gong workshops in the long-term planning of her religion courses and discussed with Falun Gong practitioners about how to improve the teachings so that her students can learn the beauty of Falun Dafa.

Broward Community College awarded a certificate to the three practitioners who gave the workshop.