Shared at the 2002 European Fa Conference in Copenhagen
Greetings to the respected Master!
Greetings to all of you, fellow practitioners!
I am one of the 16 practitioners falsely accused in the Hong Kong trial. It is my honor to be able to attend this experience-sharing conference. I would like to take this opportunity to report to the Master and to all of you on the incident of the false charges as well as our actions as Dafa Disciples.
Early March this year, in an outrage Jiang ordered killing of Dafa disciples without pardon, putting the city of Changchun into an emergency situation. Four Swiss practitioners' visas were unreasonably invalidated by the Chinese Consulate; thus, they resorted to going to Hong Kong for a peaceful hunger strike appeal. About 8:30 a.m. in the morning on March 14 they unfurled a banner with the words "Stop Jiang's Order of Killing without Mercy, SOS Falun Dafa Practitioners" outside the People's Republic of China's Liaison Office.
The appeal activities had been calm and peaceful. However, under the great pressure from the Liaison Office, the police used violence to arrest us. Our peaceful appeal was stopped and nine practitioners were injured. I am one of them. My arms were bruised and my head bled. After the arrest, we refused any unreasonable demands from the police, including showing our IDs. The police asked for our signatures on various forms. The last signature was called signature for bail. Although after signing we could be released, we also refused to sign. We had not broken any law, why should we be on bail? Actually it was the police that had broken the law. After we were kept for about 30 hours, at 5 p.m. on March 15 the police accused us of blocking the street and causing inconvenience on the pavement etc, and brought us to court. Later, on March 22, the number of charges jumped to 7. We were accused of obstructing the police to carry out their duty, because after we were arrested the police asked us to leave the police van, but we refused. We were accused of assaulting police because some of us passively resisted being arrested when the police used force.
On June17, the hearing in court started. Two top prosecutors were working on the case. The police named 31 witnesses who are either security guards from the Liaison Office or police officers. There were no 3rd party witnesses who were inconvenienced by us during the appeal. Testimonies from the witnesses called by the prosecutors were full of lies. The judge was biased in favor of the prosecuting side under the pressure from the Liaison Office and personally insulted our defending solicitor. Five practitioners gave witness statements in the court. I was questioned by a solicitor from the prosecuting side for 3 days. What they asked was far away from the contents related to the case, such as whether Falun Gong is an organization and the financial resource of our activities, etc. This revealed the evil nature behind this false accusation. Practitioners who gave witness statements answered all the questions in an aboveboard and noble way, which effectively foiled the evil's malicious motives. Unfortunately, on August 15, the judge, under the pressure from the evil head, disregarded all our evidence and testimony and handed down a guilty verdict for all the 7 charges, even though some of the witnesses' testimony were contradictory.
This unfair verdict has drawn close attention from the HK public and international community. A survey by America's CNN, shows that 77% of the public think this unfair verdict was actually made under the pressure from Chinese dictator Jiang Zemin. It has proven that the persecution of Falun Gong has been spread to HK and outside China. Swiss practitioners' peaceful appeal outside the Liaison Office was magnificent, and HK practitioners' appeal was reasonable and legal. If such a small scale peaceful appeal which took only 7 square meters out of 140 square meters on a sidewalk has been charged for blocking the traffic, the Basic Law and "one country two systems" are nothing more than high-sounding words. Four or five well-trained police officers used force to arrest a female practitioner who did not hold any weapon, but was only passively resisting the wrongful arrest. It is unreasonable and laughable to accuse her of assaulting police.
Through Fa study, experience sharing and searching inside, our righteous thoughts and the righteous thoughts of other HK practitioners became stronger and stronger. We came to realize that even though we had omissions (loopholes) we would not allow the evil to take advantage of them. We followed our Teacher's words and strengthened our righteous thoughts. We firmly believed that to validate Dafa is the most righteous and best thing. From the everyday people's point of view, everything that we did completely complied in accordance the Basic Law in HK. Although, on the surface, what we did looked the same as what everyday people do, they do it for their own benefit while we did it for protecting Dafa and saving sentient beings. This is what Dafa Disciples during the Fa-rectification period should do.
On August 16, nine of us went to clarify the truth to the senior police officer, who asked to take our fingerprints. One of us acted as the main spokesperson, another backed up and the rest of us sent forth righteous thoughts. We clarified the truth that China's dictator is persecuting Falun Gong, that the false accusation was the result of persecution spreading the persecution to HK, why we came to appeal in front of the Liaison Office, and that what we did was the most honorable action. How could we be treated as other prisoners? We also told them that we were not cooperative with their requests solely because we had not committed any crimes whatsoever. After listening, they all nodded and said they admired us very much. We also asked them to pass truth-clarification materials to their supervisors. Something that had been considered as impossible happened: after an officer reported to his supervisors, we were told that we did not need to have our finger-prints taken or have our pictures taken. We also met one of the female officers who had given false witness in the courtroom. We were very clear that it is Teacher who is compassionate to her and let us clarify the truth to her to save her life. When she realized that we were sincerely clarifying the truth to her, she listened very seriously. She showed us the way out with tears in her eyes when we left.
Another tribulation was the fines. Sixteen practitioners were asked to pay HK$29,300. We are Dafa disciples. What we did was the most righteous. How could we to pay the fines? We let the judge, media and the whole society know that we would not pay the fines. This was neither because we were ignoring the court nor because we had financial problems. It was because our peaceful appeal had not broken any laws. People in various professions passed their support to us via the media. One of the largest newspapers did not take our advertisement during the trial period but later used a whole page to publish, to the whole society, statements of apology. We have understood the importance of strengthening our righteous thoughts, truth-clarification, mutual understanding and mutual forgiveness among Dafa Disciples and group improvement. We will carry on truth-clarification more systematically and follow what Master says: "Lose no time and save them, hurry up and tell them"(from the poem "Hurry Up and Tell Them").
We also truly came to realize that all Dafa Disciples are close to each other like brothers and sisters. In whatever circumstances, we will follow Teacher, do our best in Fa-study, truth-clarification and sending forth righteous thoughts. Keep up with the pace of Teacher's Fa-rectification, assist Teacher to rectify the Fa, and establish the great virtue of Dafa disciples.
Finally let us encourage each other with Teacher's poem "A Righteous God":
With righteous thoughts and righteous actions
He is diligent without letting up
Eliminating demons that damage the Fa
He is good to all beings
Thank you.