(Clearwisdom.net) September 15 report:
 BBC picture: on July 21, 1999, Falun Gong practitioners reading Essentials for Further Advancement in People's Square, Shanghai |
1. Music Fountain in People's Square
Since early June 1999, Dafa practitioners throughout China have encountered intensified interference. On July 20, illegal arrests of Dafa practice site assistants were made throughout China.
On July 21, 1999 in the morning, in order to call for the Shanghai government to represent the people's interest and echo the people's voice to the central government, to appeal for release of abducted Dafa practitioners and to stop slandering Falun Dafa, some Dafa practitioners in Shanghai went to People's Square to appeal to the city government.
From early morning on, practitioners from different districts of Shanghai arrived in succession and gathered around the music fountain in the center of People's Square. The practitioners were very peaceful and harmonious. They were very quiet, sitting on the ground and studying the Fa. Some stood in front of the city government hoping their voice would be heard, and others exchanged their understandings of Dafa practice and of the current situation. Although a peaceful and harmonious atmosphere permeated the whole square, the practitioners also felt the evils' earth-encompassing pressure. A Westerner, perhaps a tourist, saw a young Dafa practitioner who was reading Essentials for Further Advancement sitting on a bench and asked if he could take a picture of the book. Several years later I stumbled upon this picture as shown at the beginning of the article. This is now a record of Shanghai Dafa practitioners' validation of Dafa on July 21, 1999.
Around 9:00 a.m., the police asked people to leave the square. They blocked entrances to the square to prevent tourists and practitioners from getting access. We didn't learn about the national arrest until a later time. Most of the Dafa practitioners who left home in the morning to come to the square were held back. The police left an opening, but only locals like me who were familiar with the area knew about it. The police requested the tourists to slowly leave the square. Only Dafa practitioners were left; about 2,000 of us.
Someone suggested that we sit in an organized manner, and we agreed. We sat in the shape of a square, facing the city government. Soon, another practitioner suggested that we should go back to sitting in small groups or as individuals. We thought it was a good idea, so we no longer sat in a square. These two apparently opposite suggestions were both based on upholding Dafa practitioners' image before the world. I felt Dafa practitioners' sincere desire to uphold the Fa.
Close to noon, the city government told us we could dispatch representatives for a talk. Several practitioners volunteered to go in. After a long time, the meeting ended. Soon, the police came over and, claiming to check ID's, took away the representative practitioners.
In the afternoon, the heads of different work units in Shanghai came to talk the practitioners. They tried to persuade us to leave the Music Fountain. We sat in several groups and were surrounded by three circles of people. The first circle consisted of work unit heads that tried to convince us to leave; the second circle was police officers. A fellow practitioner told me that there was a third circle made of roughnecks with tattoos on their arms.
I saw a practitioner, who had a Ph. D., sitting in the meditation posture right next to me. No matter how much the people from his school talked to him, he never moved. Later, several police officers carried him away. Even as he was being carried away, he still kept the meditation posture.
The vicious people first targeted practitioners from universities. To appear civilized, the police asked university officials to persuade the practitioners. After those practitioners were taken away, police officers closed in on us and beat and kicked us.
Dafa practitioners never fought back and quietly endured. A large number of police were dispatched and sent to the square. They seemed well trained and took away all Dafa practitioners around the Music Fountain within about three minutes. It was dark by the time they cleared the square. The next day, people noticed that cigarette butts and trash around the Music Fountain left by police and tourists were gone. The practitioners left the square cleaner than it had been before they were there.
2. Practitioners held in an 80,000 capacity sports stadium
On July 22, the lawless people started to suppress and slander Dafa on a national scale. They prohibited people from practicing Dafa. People could no longer see peaceful and harmonious scenes of practitioners doing the Dafa exercises in the mornings and evenings that were so familiar to them.
Some Shanghai practitioners did the Dafa exercises outside the 80,000 person capacity stadium during the morning of July 24, in order to resist the illegal persecution. Here I want to talk about a young Ph. D. student and his fianc e. This student had previously gone to the stadium on numerous weekends for Dafa practice. On July 24 , this determined young practitioner decided to still go to the stadium in the morning like he did in the past. He thought Dafa practitioners should not give in to this evil persecution. His fianc e was also a Dafa practitioner. They were very diligent together in Dafa practice.
They both knew about the extent of the fanatic persecution. She was deeply concerned for his safety. After he left for the stadium, she took a taxi and circled around the stadium, looking for him...
3. Ph. D. students from Fudan University in Tiananmen Square
I remember that around the National Day on October 1, 1999, several fellow practitioners who were Ph. D. students from Fudan University traveled to Beijing to validate the Fa at Tiananmen Square. At that time, Huang Ju, the secretary of Shanghai City Committee was attending a meeting in Beijing, and Dafa practitioners' magnificent feat [Ph.D. candidates from the renowned university courageously traveled to Beijing from Shanghai to validate Dafa at Tiananmen Square] greatly shocked and suppressed the evil.
4. Where is he?
In 2000, a high school student from the Baoshan District traveled to Beijing by himself to validate the Fa. The police found him, quickly surrounded him and were ready to arrest him. It seemed there was no way to escape. Suddenly, he sat in the meditation posture. Instantly, he calmed down and sat for two hours straight. When he first began the sitting meditation, he heard a police officer talking through his speaker, "Where is he?" When this high school student had completed the sitting meditation, no police were left in the area.