(Minghui.org) Practitioners participated in the Liverpool Street Summer Festival in Munich on June 1-2, 2024. People learned about Falun Dafa and watched the peaceful exercise demonstration.
Practitioners demonstrated the exercises during the Liverpool Street Summer Festival in Munich on June 1-2, 2024.
Over 200,000 people attended the Summer Festival this year.
The Liverpool Street Festival (Corso Leopold) is a large festival hosted by the Munich Cultural Bureau, and is supported by the Bavarian Cultural Bureau. Participants include various political parties, different departments of the Munich City Hall, sponsoring companies, artists, folk groups, craftsmen, and non-governmental organizations. It is held once in summer and once in autumn every year. The recent two-day event drew many local Bavarian residents. Although the number of attendees dropped sharply due to the wind and rain on the first day, it drew more than 200,000 people.
Practitioners participate in the Liverpool Street Summer Festival.
People talk with practitioners and sign the petition calling to stop the persecution.
Falun Dafa practitioners have been invited to participate in this festival, where they demonstrate the five exercises and tell people about the principles of Truthfulness, Compassion, and Forbearance. The peaceful music and graceful exercises drew the attention of many people, who asked about Falun Dafa and the group practice sites, and learned about the Chinese Communist Party’s persecution of the spiritual discipline in China.
Many were surprised to learn that such a wonderful practice has been persecuted in China for 25 years, and that hundreds of millions of people who practice Truthfulness, Compassion, and Forbearance have been unlawfully persecuted, and even subjected to the CCP’s live organ harvesting. People signed the petition calling on the German government to help end of the CCP’s persecution.
Event-goers Support Falun Dafa and Practitioners
Capek Damir said that the atmosphere at the practitioners’ booth was “very good, really relaxing, and I really like meditating.” He said he could feel positive energy and felt peaceful. He said the principles of Truthfulness, Compassion, and Forbearance were, “very good, and applicable to everyone.”
Capek Damir at the practitioners’ booth
Referring to the CCP’s persecution of Falun Dafa for the past 25 years, which does not allow people to practice Truthfulness, Compassion, and Forbearance, Mr. Damir said, “It’s unbelievable, incomprehensible, sad, and really tragic.”
He signed the petition to support the practitioners in their efforts to expose the persecution, and said, “I think organ theft [live organ harvesting] is terrible.”
Educator Siri Srinjan and social worker Sven saw the practitioners’ activities and talked with them for a long time because they really wanted to know about Falun Dafa.
Siri Srinjan smiled and said, “I’m surprised. How can they concentrate on practicing in such a noisy environment? I’m very impressed.” Sven said he was interested in practitioners’ meditation and practice, so he wanted to learn about Falun Dafa.
Srinjan said that she opposed the CCP’s practice of live organ harvesting and thought it was terrible. They both signed the petition calling to stop the persecution.
They talked with practitioners for a long time and learned about the CCP’s persecution and organ harvesting. Sven said, “It’s terrible, terrible. As Westerners, what can we do about this? We have too much economic cooperation [with China], and we really have to be very careful.”
Sven said, “China is already an important trading partner with [Germany]. Chinese people buy ports and real estate here, but morality should be more important than economics.” He said, “This [organ harvesting] topic is very serious. What happened there [in China] is too terrible, but [many] people still don’t see the problem clearly. It is indeed very cruel.”
Coilin, an Irish youth who is taking a language course in Munich and plans to go to a university, told practitioners that he signed a petition in Cologne, Germany to show his support. “I signed this petition because I believe that religious rights are important. Everyone should be able to freely and safely practice their own beliefs. This is a sign of the importance of a successful [democratic] society.” He hopes Chinese people can also have the freedom of equality and diversity.
Coilin supports practitioners in their efforts to stop the persecution.
“I can feel the energy and importance here,” Coilin said. He saw practitioners practicing freely and talking to the public. “This is very important. People can emphasize their rights of belief.” He said that the CCP does not allow people to practice Truthfulness, Compassion, and Forbearance. “It shows how big the difference is between the Chinese government and the people. The [CCP] regime certainly does not like freedom of belief or freedom of speech.”
Coilin said that hundreds of millions of practitioners in China are willing to risk being imprisoned and killed to uphold their belief, which shows, “how important it is for them to believe in Falun Dafa.” Therefore, he firmly supports Falun Dafa practitioners in their effort to expose the persecution.
Chinese Visitors Quit the CCP Organizations
During the festival, some Chinese people, especially international students, passed by the Falun Dafa booth. Some accepted informational materials, others talked with the practitioners, and some took photos and videos.
Two women from Northeast China saw the booth and immediately came over to talk with practitioners. One of them said that her grandfather was also persecuted by the CCP, and she believes that the CCP harvests organs from living practitioners. Afterwards, one of them agreed to declare her withdrawal from the Communist Youth League and the Young Pioneers, and the other withdrew from the Young Pioneers.
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. Its teachings are based on the principles of Truthfulness, Compassion, and Forbearance. Millions of people who have embraced the teachings and 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. 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 that has the power to override the police and judicial systems. Its 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. However, the actual number is believed to be much higher, due to the difficulty in getting information out of China. 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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