(Minghui.org) A rally was held in Belmore Park in downtown Sydney on August 4, 2012, to support the 120 million Chinese people who have quit the Chinese Communist Party (CCP) and its affiliated organizations. The Falun Dafa Divine Land Marching Band performed at the rally and drew the attention of many pedestrians, many of whom took photos and signed the petition to show their support as well.

David Shoebridge, a Greens member of the New South Wales Legislative Council, speaks at the rally

Tracy DeGeer, president of Women's Federation for World Peace Australia, speaks at the rally

Greens MP: Brutal History of the CCP

David Shoebridge, a Greens member of the New South Wales Legislative Council, spoke at the rally. He questioned the legitimacy of the CCP’s rule in China. He said “China is a one party dictatorship where the Chinese Communist party has absolute political control and they’ve exercised quite brutal and repressive practices on more than one billion members of our fellow citizens on this planet. The Chinese Communist Party has a brutal history, a history of repression and of essentially state sanctioned murder. It is involved in the deeply, deeply appalling practice of illegal organ harvesting, yet we find very few political leaders in the West or in the developed world willing to stand up to this brutal one party regime.”

MP Shoebridge believes that the movement of quitting the CCP and its affiliates is based on respect for human rights and is a non-violent protest against the autocracy. He said, “The Greens support non-violent approaches to political change, because what we’ve seen over the last decade in particular and really extending beyond that has been a loss of legitimacy of the Chinese Communist Party. The ordinary people on the streets of China know that the ruling one party elite don’t represent their interests, aren’t making the decisions in the long term environmental, social, or even the economic interests for China, and the fact that millions of people have quit the Chinese Communist Party is a statement about their loss of legitimacy. We join together to place pressure on this regime, to say, “Respect human rights, respect the right for religious practices, respect the right for religious freedom, respect the right for internal dissent, and cease the one party dictatorship in China.”

Spokesperson for the Women's Federation for World Peace Australia: Highly Respect Falun Gong Practitioners

Tracy DeGeer, spokesperson for the Women's Federation for World Peace Australia, congratulated those who quit the CCP and its affiliates and expressed admiration for their courage. She said, “China and the Chinese people are much bigger and broader than the Chinese Communist Party. The Chinese Communist Party, within our lifetime is going to go into the dust of the district. It must fall, it’s just a matter of when.”

DeGeer expressed her respect for the Falun Gong practitioners because they spread the values of Truthfulness-Compassion-Forbearance. “They are practicing non-violent demonstration, they are overcoming their feeling of pain and anger that their family members are being killed and that the whole issue of organs being taken from them and just the whole mistreatment and abuse--it’s terrible. They have been showing that they are going beyond that to reach out and to be a force for good within China.”

Representative of Service Center for Quitting the CCP: Dramatic Historical Turn is Approaching

Mr. Li Yuanhua is a representative of the Sydney Service Center for Quitting the CCP. Mr. Li believes that China is about to experience dramatic changes. He sees each time a person quits the CCP and its affiliates as an uprising and that the person has made a wise choice for a good future.

Historically, in any country where the people begin to pursue universal values, their progress is never stopped. The people who choose to abandon and disintegrate the CCP will not stop either.

Participants: The Persecution of Falun Gong is Evil

Bai Yun is from Guangdong Province. She came from afar to join the rally. She was previously very sick and had practiced qigong for over 20 years without seeing any improvement in her health. After she watched a program on NTD Television, she began reading the book Zhuan Falun. “When I was one-third through the book, I could feel the changes in my body. I felt light as I walked and I could read very small words that I could not before. A month later, my cheeks turned rosy, I felt warm even in freezing weather, my toothache was gone, the fracture wound in my arm stopped hurting me, and all my ailments gradually disappeared. It was a miracle. Now I believe in the existence of gods and Buddhas. It’s wrong that the CCP persecutes Falun Gong. I want to tell the world about the beauty of Falun Dafa so that more people can benefit from it like me,” Bai said.

Mr. Zhang from Beijing came to the rally hoping that every Chinese will see the evil nature of the CCP. He pointed at the scars on his nose, face and shoulders. “The CCP gave me these. It persecuted my mother, my grandparents, and everyone in my family. How could we be guilty simply because we owned houses and land? It stole our house from us and forced us to pay to remodel it! Like I said 30 years ago, the CCP skips no one when it comes to mistreatment, from the wealthy to the peasants. The Chinese people need to wake up!” Mr. Zhang said.