Finnish national television, channel two, carries a weekly program called "Eyewitness," a documentary style program focusing on a different topic every week. Three weeks after the Western practitioners appealed on Tiananmen Square in Beijing, the program concentrated on the incident and the persecution of Falun Dafa in China.
One of the 36 practitioners that went to Beijing was a Finnish citizen, and two others are from a Finnish family although Swedish citizens. After the event took place, it got a lot of attention in the Finnish media since a Finnish citizen was involved. Finland has two tabloid magazines, and both of them ran double-page articles on the issue. This was the first time Dafa was covered so extensively in Finland, and both articles were also very informative, and didn't present any false information. The Finnish Falun Dafa association was also mentioned in the articles, further bringing awareness to Dafa in Finland.
Three weeks later, on December 13th, the "Eyewitness" program on Falun Dafa was aired. The crew of the program had made a trip to Stockholm to interview two of the Finnish-speaking practitioners, which started the 30-minute program. The practitioners were interviewed during their visit to the East-Asian Department of the University of Stockholm, which held on open discussion on the persecution of the Falun Gong practitioners in China.
The rest of the program was a very comprehensive collection of material from different sources, concentrating on the persecution from different angles. Examples of the actions of the Chinese authorities were shown, but the truth behind them was all exposed by Chinese practitioners who had themselves witnessed the persecution. The famous Chinese artist, Zhang Kunlun, told of his firsthand experience with the brutal torture in China, and three other interviews of Chinese practitioners who had suffered the persecution were also interviewed. Their stories revealed the brutal violence, brainwashing, and extortion that have become a standard by the Chinese authorities. A Hong Kong human rights activist who has verified over a 100 deaths caused by the brutal torture was also interviewed, and he mentioned the case of Chen Xiziu as an example of death by torture. He also stated that Falun Gong cannot be crushed and in the end stated that the "Chinese government is digging its own grave".
From the program it was easy to distinguish the truth concerning the current situation in China. This was most likely a beginning of more comprehensive media attention on Falun Dafa in Finland. This also highly encouraged the Finnish practitioners to further increase their efforts in order to clarify the true facts to the Finnish people.
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Category: Rallies & Protests
