Queensland Police commended Dafa practitioners for their peacefulness and discipline during the recent SOS parade at the Brisbane Asia-Pacific Conference on Friday, 5th of October 2001. They commented that Falun Gong's demeanour during the march should be the role model for all future parades in Brisbane. The police also said they had never seen such a peaceful, moving, yet powerful way of demonstrating.
A contingent of police officers specially travelled down to the Gold Coast to take pictures of our formation displaying the map of China and the SOS appeal, so that they can put this photo on their next police magazine cover. During the formation, a car full of youths began yelling and jeering at the spectacle. To our surprise, the police officer in charge told the youngsters to take a flyer from a practitioner saying, "Take this and read it; you could learn something good."
The Brisbane police were so impressed with the Falun Dafa practitioner's behaviour that we were given additional permits on the spot. When we asked if we could move our outdoor photo exhibit from in front of the Brisbane Convention and Exhibition Centre to King George Square in the city, where there would be far more people, the Superintendent of police approved a walking procession for us with the photos, banners and posters without any hesitation because of our exemplary behaviour, stating that this would not ordinarily be done. He even cleared our exhibiting the photos in front of City Hall at the Square, which we would have been unable to do with such short notice. We would like to thank the Queensland Police for their co-operation and goodwill towards us during our three days of events.
During the parade, a practitioner was attending a launch conducted by Austcare to commemorate refugee week. Some of the people attending the conference told her that they were overwhelmed by the awesome peace and solemn beauty of the Dafa SOS March.