(Minghui.org) In honor of International Human Rights Day, Falun Dafa practitioners held a peaceful protest on December 12, 2023, in front of the Chinese Embassy in Sofia to raise awareness of the Chinese Communist Party’s (CCP) persecution.

Since 1999, the CCP has implemented a variety of savage methods in an attempt to force Falun Dafa (also known as Falun Gong) practitioners to renounce their faith. There have been over 5,000 confirmed cases of deaths due to the persecution.

Practitioners traveled from all over the country to the nation’s capital of Sophia to make their voices heard. Members of the public who sympathized with practitioners in China supported them. The practitioners set up banners across the street from the embassy so that they would be visible to the embassy employees. Written in Bulgarian, English, and Chinese, they read: “Stop the Forced Organ Harvesting from Falun Gong Practitioners in China,” “SOS for the Victims and Stop the Forced Organ Harvesting,” and “Falun Dafa, a Traditional Method for Cultivating Mind and Body.”

Some practitioners did the Falun Dafa exercises on the sidewalk in front of the Chinese Embassy, while others handed out informational leaflets to passersby near the main entrance of the embassy.

Many drivers slowed down to get a better look at what the practitioners were doing. Many people stopped to chat with practitioners, and some even took photos with practitioners as a show of solidarity.

Practitioners do the Falun Dafa exercises and protest the CCP’s persecution in front of the Chinese Embassy in Sophia.Passersby learn about Falun Dafa and the persecution.

The CCP’s Persecution Must End

Aleksandra, a practitioner, spoke to passersby and the embassy with a loudspeaker. She urged the CCP, which uses torture, brainwashing, and even forcibly removes organs, to cease its brutal suppression of practitioners in China.

She quoted the Universal Declaration of Human Rights, signed on December 10, 1948, which banned “arbitrary arrest, detention or exile” and gave people the right to “freedom of thought, conscience and religion” along with “freedom of opinion and expression.”

“China’s communist regime, which opposes human rights, has been trying to destroy Falun Dafa for more than two decades. It persecutes Falun Dafa’s followers and tortures them in its efforts to try to ‘reform’ them,” said Aleksandra. “And since they have refused to reform for 24 years and continue to believe in [Falun Dafa] instead of the Party, the CCP is now killing them for their organs, which it uses in its lucrative state-sanctioned transplant operations.”

One young Chinese man who came out of the embassy listened to the descriptions of the inhumane treatment of practitioners in China, which has gone on for 24 years.

He was shocked to hear about the atrocities in the detention and brainwashing centers and how the CCP harasses practitioners. He couldn’t believe that all this was possible.

He said that he had been indoctrinated from a young age to believe that he “should be against Falun Gong.” When he heard about the forced organ harvesting, he exclaimed, “This is not just death or killing, but killing to humiliate the self and the individual!”

A woman (left) expressed her support.

When an elderly lady accepted a leaflet and learned the reason for the peaceful protest, she wished the practitioners success.