(Minghui.org) Almost every week from May to the end of July 2023, Falun Gong practitioners in Italy held activities in urban centers and scenic spots to raise awareness of the Chinese Communist Party’s (CCP) persecution of Falun Gong in China. They demonstrated the Falun Dafa (also known as Falun Gong) exercises and told people about the CCP’s 24-year-long persecution. Those who understood expressed their solidarity and support.
Falun Dafa practitioners demonstrate the exercises in Florence.
Telling people about Falun Gong and the CCP’s persecution
Florence is the capital of Tuscany in central Italy. It is the art and cultural center of Europe, the birthplace of the Renaissance, the birthplace of opera, and a world-famous tourist destination.
Since May, Falun Gong practitioners have held activities to raise awareness of the persecution at major scenic spots and tourist destinations in the center of Florence almost every weekend.
When they held activities there on July 29, an elderly couple from Hong Kong stopped to read the poster boards and looked at the practitioners in admiration. The man gave them a thumbs up to express his appreciation and thanked them for their efforts to expose the persecution.
The man said that they already knew about the persecution and hoped that practitioners would continue to raise awareness like this, because the CCP is “a danger to all mankind.” He also recounted his experiences during the Cultural Revolution, when the CCP sought to destroy China’s five-thousand-year-old culture. He said the Italian government must be very careful not to sign any economic agreements with the CCP and must make every effort to stay away from the CCP to avoid endless troubles.
Raising Awareness in Padua
Padua, an ancient city in northern Italy near Venice, is an important industrial and commercial city in the Veneto region. The University of Padua is one of the oldest top universities in Europe and the alma mater of Galileo, the father of modern physics.
Raising awareness in Padua
Hearing about Falun Gong
Falun Gong practitioners held activities in the center of Padua on July 15. A man told them that he had been to China several times for work and wanted to learn about the CCP’s persecution of Falun Gong.
After a young man was given a leaflet, he asked practitioners if they needed money. When he understood that they just wanted to tell him about Falun Gong, he smiled and signed a petition calling for an end to the persecution, expressing his support for practitioners in their efforts to end the persecution.
A young couple who’d received a Falun Dafa flier stopped to talk to the practitioners. When they learned about Falun Dafa and how the CCP persecutes its practitioners, the young woman said that she’d been given Falun Dafa fliers before, but she didn’t know the real situation and could not quite fathom what the practitioners said. Both of them agreed to sign the petition calling for an end to the persecution and thanked the practitioner for the origami lotus flower.
Across from the stand, a Chinese shopkeeper watched through the open door of his shop. A practitioner gave him a copy of the Nine Commentaries on the Communist Party and told him that Falun Gong is not the only group the CCP persecutes. The number of people who have quit the CCP and its youth organizations has so far exceeded 400 million. He expressed an interest in Zhuan Falun, the main book of Falun Dafa, and wanted to read it.
Demonstrating the exercises in Sardinia
Despite the hot weather in July, practitioners held several events in Turin and Sardinia. They distributed brochures, patiently answered questions from the passersby, demonstrated the Falun Gong exercises, displayed banners and poster boards to introduce Falun Dafa, and exposed the CCP’s persecution.
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