20 July 2009

An exhibition on the Falun Gong Chinese spiritual movement was opened in Prague centre on Wenceslas Square Saturday within a series of events marking the 10th anniversary of the Falun Gong persecution in China.

The protest events will end on Monday, July 20, when ten years will have passed since the movement was banned by the Chinese communist regime.

People can light a candle on Wenceslas Square in memory of the Falun Gong victims of persecution and write a message that the organisers will later deliver to the Chinese Embassy in Prague.

Falun Gong movement with roots in Buddhism and Taoism, based on physical and spiritual exercises, emerged in the early 1990s and since then it has attracted millions of supporters all over the world.

In China, where it comes from, its followers are severely persecuted.

According to Falun Gong sources, up to 3000 supporters were beaten up or tortured to death and thousands of others were sent to labour camps.

The exhibition on Wenceslas Square tells several stories of the people who have died in repressions against Falun Gong.

Reports surfaced that organs for commercial transplants are being removed from the imprisoned Falun Gong followers against their will.

Czech supporters of Falun Gong say it is not entirely clear why Chinese communist representatives mind the movement so much.

"At the beginning even many communists practiced the Falun Gong exercises. Some of them thereby recovered from their long-term illnesses," one of the Czech movement members told CTK.

The movement attracted millions of followers in China in the 1990s, and consequently the communist rulers probably started to fear its influence.

Falun Gong was outlawed in China in 1999 after a peaceful demonstration of its 10,000 supporters in Beijing.

Since then its followers have been fired from work, arrested, imprisoned and tortured. The state authorities are trying to suppress the movement by any possible means, burning its books and CDs and blocking its website.

http://praguemonitor.com/2009/07/20/exhibition-falun-gong-chinese-movement-opens-prague