(Minghui.org) July 20, 2023, marks the 24th anniversary of Falun Dafa practitioners’ peaceful protest against the Chinese Communist Party’s (CCP) persecution. On this day, practitioners from all over the country gathered for a peaceful protest in front of the Chinese Embassy in Sofia. Several media outlets covered the event.
Practitioners gathered near the Chinese Embassy in Sofia on July 20, 2023.
Demonstrating the Falun Dafa exercises
Bulgarian News Agency (BTA) reported on the practitioners’ event near the Chinese Embassy. The European Pressphoto Agency also photographed practitioners at the protest. The Bulgarian national cable television network (Skat TV) featured the event and interviewed a Falun Dafa practitioner.
Kremena Krumova is interviewed by Skat TV. (Screenshot from Skat TV)
Kremena Krumova has practiced Falun Dafa for over 20 years and is editor-in-chief of the Bulgarian media outlet Novetika. She published an article to explain the significance of July 20.
On the evening of July 20, Krumova was invited to be a guest on Skat TV, a Bulgarian national cable network, where she was given 20 minutes to chat with the host regarding the CCP’s brutal persecution of Falun Dafa.
The host described July 20 as an “extremely important and symbolic date for the tens, even over 100 million” Falun Dafa practitioners in China, leading to Krumova’s introduction of Falun Dafa as a spiritual discipline based on the principles of Truthfulness, Compassion, and Forbearance.
Krumova then detailed the suppression faced by practitioners in China, from wrongful imprisonment and torture to forced organ harvesting. She discussed the chilling evidence of the CCP’s forced organ harvesting from practitioners in China, described in the book Bloody Harvest, and how they peacefully resist the persecution despite the CCP’s attempt to eradicate them.
Finally, the host asked her if she or other practitioners in Bulgaria faced interference connected to the Chinese authorities. Krumova gave several examples to illustrate how the Chinese Embassy exerted pressure on the Sofia City Government to block Falun Dafa practitioners’ events, in an attempt to extend the CCP’s human rights violations outside of China.
Background: What Is Falun Dafa and Why Is the CCP Persecuting It?
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 have learned the five exercises, have experienced improved 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, he issued an order to eradicate the practice.
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.
Minghui.org has confirmed the deaths of thousands of practitioners as a result of the persecution over the past 24 years. The actual number is believed to be much higher. Countless practitioners 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 China’s organ transplant industry.
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