The Montreal Falun Dafa Experience Sharing Conference was held on February 12 and 13 at Concordia University. As with all Falun Dafa activities, the conference was open to the public and free of charge. Many government officials and research scholars were invited to attend. We also sent invitations to the Chinese embassy in Ottawa. Over 250practitioners and interested people attended the conference. The conference was held in three languages, French, English and Chinese. But due to the under-estimation of the audience, the 60English and French seats were not enough to accommodate so many people so that many of them had to use the wireless receivers to listen to the translation.
Many people came to attend the conference from as far as New York and Toronto.
On the first day, about 20 practitioners from different places and of different cultural backgrounds presented their experiences of practicing Falun Dafa. Some of them displayed the health benefit that Falun Dafa has brought to them; some reported their spiritual purification; some talked about their deepened understanding of Falun Dafa. A few practitioners related their special experiences of being detained while they were in China. They told the audience how the practitioners were practicing Truthfulness-Compassion-Tolerance even when they were detained and tortured by police.
At 1:00pm in the afternoon, practitioners had a large group practice outside the building. The shining sun, blue sky, white snow and the serene music, together with the elegant exercises made such a harmonious scene that many people stopped by and took pictures. On the second morning session, practitioners from different cities had a free discussion in several classrooms.
A press conference was held from 1:00pm to 3:00pm. The journalists from the Xinhua News Agency and a local Chinese newspaper attended the conference. The journalists asked many questions and showed their misunderstandings on Falun Dafa due to the propaganda campaign in China. Then, a few practitioners told their personal experiences in China; some discussed how Falun Dafa has contributed to society; some pointed out the facts that contradicted the propaganda in China. The press conference in fact became a frank discussion. All the people felt the necessity of more communications.
At the same time as the press conference, the practitioners had an exercise-demonstration parade from Concordia to Chinatown along the St-Catherine Street. They stopped at several places to demonstrate the Falun Dafa exercises.
The CBC French TV came to cover the conference.
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Category: Experience Sharing Conferences
