(Minghui.org) After being suspended for two years due to the pandemic, the St. Patrick’s Day Parade resumed on March 17, 2022 in Galway, a harbor city with a long history and rich culture. More than 30,000 people watched this year’s parade, making it the largest in the city’s history.

Falun Dafa practitioners were invited to participate, and their exercise demonstration and Tanggu drum performances delighted the crowd. Some people followed along with the exercise movements. Mayor Colette Connolly took a group photo with practitioners after the parade, and expressed her support.

Practitioners participate in St. Patrick’s Day Parade

Practitioners distribute flyers and paper lotus flowers.

As practitioners passed the stage, the host introduced them and said, “Falun Dafa is a traditional Chinese cultivation practice which follows the principles of Truthfulness-Compassion-Forbearance. Since its public introduction in 1992, Falun Dafa has benefited over 100 million people around the world. Falun Dafa is great!”

Mayor Colette Connolly (center) with practitioners.

Mayor Colette Connolly has supported Falun Dafa practitioners’ efforts to end the Chinese Communist Party’s (CCP) persecution. She said it would be a crime to remain silent about the CCP’s violence. With Mayor Connolly’s help, the Galway City Council passed a resolution in 2018, calling for the Irish government to ban illegal organ transplants based on the Council of Europe Convention Against Trafficking in Human Organs, and calling for an end to the CCP’s persecution and organ harvesting from Falun Dafa practitioners.

Background: What is Falun Dafa?

Falun Dafa (also known as Falun Gong) was first introduced to the public by Mr. Li Hongzhi in Changchun, China in 1992. The spiritual discipline is now practiced in over 100 countries and regions worldwide. Millions of people who have embraced the teachings, which are based on the principles of Truthfulness, Compassion, and Forbearance, and learned the five gentle exercises, have experienced uplifted health and well-being.

Jiang Zemin, former head of the Chinese Communist Party (CCP), perceived the spiritual discipline’s growing popularity as a threat to the CCP's atheistic ideology and on July 20, 1999, issued an order to ban the practice.

Minghui.org has confirmed the deaths of thousands of practitioners as a result of the persecution over the past 22 years. The actual number is believed to be much higher. More have been imprisoned and tortured for their faith.

There is concrete evidence that the CCP sanctions the harvesting of organs from detained practitioners, who are murdered to supply the organ transplant industry.

Under Jiang’s personal direction, the CCP established the 610 Office, an extralegal security organization with the power to override the police and judicial systems and whose sole function is to carry out the persecution of Falun Dafa.