(Minghui.org) The Falun Dafa Club at Columbia University held a week-long outdoor Falun Dafa poster exhibit on April 9-12, 2012 to raise awareness about the ongoing persecution
of Falun Dafa in China. The exhibit was set up in a busy area at the center of campus, drawing many students, professors, tourists, and nearby residents to stop by and learn the truth about Falun Dafa.
Professor at Columbia University: The persecution in China is horrendous and should be brought to an end
The university president and several professors stopped by the exhibit and had conversations with practitioners to express their opposition to the persecution. One notable scholar and professor specializing in globalization talked about the illegal organ harvesting from Falun Dafa practitioners' bodies, saying that the persecution was horrendous and should be brought to an end.
Another professor from Columbia's journalism school told a practitioner that he knew about Falun Dafa because it is a topic that Chinese journalists are banned from reporting on or even mentioning. The professor also disclosed that China's main news organizations once tried to pursue a partnership with Columbia's journalism school. But because there were several banned topics that journalists could not report on, including Falun Dafa, the school refused the partnership.
A professor of Chinese politics also asked several questions. Although he knew about Falun Dafa, he did not know about the organ harvesting, or the Nine Commentaries on the Communist Party and the movement to quit the Chinese Communist Party and its affiliated organizations. The practitioner told him about these events happening in China.
Columbia University Students Show Interest in Learning Falun Dafa
Many students who had never heard about Falun Dafa also stopped by the exhibit, curious to find out more about the persecution. One female student came up to the exhibit to find out what Falun Dafa is, and what was going on behind the poster images of the practitioners who had been persecuted and tortured. She asked in-depth questions about the principles of the Falun Dafa teachings, and said that she was thankful that the Falun Dafa Club held the exhibit on campus. Otherwise she would never have known about Falun Dafa and the persecution.
After a journalism student learned how practitioners were being tortured in labor camps, he then took the time to read every single poster on display, and asked for practice site details so he could learn the Falun Dafa exercises.
Many other students and passersby were interested in learning the exercises after finding out that Falun Dafa is a spiritual practice with many health benefits. Others who had already heard about Falun Dafa and the persecution expressed their support for the efforts to raise awareness about the atrocities in China. One student who stopped by informed practitioners that he had been studying abroad in Seoul during the previous semester and saw Falun Dafa practitioners there talking to people about the practice. One elderly man stopped by for a long chat about the persecution and the current situation in China. He said that he hopes that the people of China can one day enjoy the same freedoms that Americans do.
Chinese People Support Falun Gong and Quit the CCP Organizations
The practitioners in the Falun Dafa Club were also able to clarify the truth to many Chinese international students at Columbia, as well as Chinese tourists, officials visiting the university, and relatives of Chinese staff at the university. When the practitioners told them the truth about the self-immolation incident hoax, including about the plastic bottle supposedly filled with gasoline and the little girl who could sing just days after an alleged tracheotomy operation, they immediately understood what was going on. Some asked for more information.
Some Chinese tourists also stopped by to quietly read the posters. Many other Chinese said that they had heard about Falun Dafa before, and supported practitioners. A Chinese lawyer who had just come from China a month prior on vacation told a practitioner that he knew about Falun Dafa in China. He said he supported practitioners and he used Dong Tai Wang regularly to bypass the Internet firewall and access free uncensored information about the world.
A Chinese graduate student from Zhejiang Province said that he was in middle school when he saw the media vilifying Falun Gong and he understood that it was all false propaganda. A practitioner was able to tell him the truth behind the staged self-immolation and other propaganda fabricated by the Chinese Communist Party (CCP). The student was shocked by the organ harvesting, and said that the CCP was truly inhuman for committing such atrocities. At first, the student was reluctant to quit the Youth League (one of the CCP organizations) because the rules said he was not a member any longer after reaching the age of 25. However, the practitioner told him about the Nazis in WWII, who were elite young people just like he was. Now the U.S. and other governments are still trying to find and punish remaining Nazi members. The CCP atrocities are as bad as, if not even more terrible than, those of the Nazis, so it is important to renounce any connection to the Party. Thus, he agreed to announce his withdrawal publicly on the Epoch Times website using a pseudonym.
Several days later, practitioners held an introductory session for those who had left their contact information and wished to learn more about Falun Dafa.
