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Historic Moment: Validating Dafa in Tiananmen Square in October 1999

January 20, 2004 |   By a practitioner from Dalian City, Liaoning Province

(Clearwisdom.net) In October 1999, many practitioners wanted to validate Dafa in Beijing upon hearing that the persecution was escalating. I went to Beijing by train with several practitioners. Some who arrived ahead of us to arrange accommodations came to greet us. There were many practitioners there from different regions all over the country, particularly from Changchun, where Teacher first introduced Falun Dafa in 1992.

We studied the Fa, practiced the exercises, discussed about how to validate Dafa together, and prepared to appeal. Fellow practitioners arrived every day from various regions of the country. Some Beijing practitioners offered their homes to them. Pretty soon, the temporarily built accommodations in many Beijing style quadrangles were full of Dafa practitioners. Even on the hills, in the tunnels, and other places, there were Dafa practitioners. Nobody could tell how many Dafa disciples were in Beijing. Practitioners who went to the appeal office said: "The sign has been taken down. There is no appeals office any longer. We have no alternative but to go to Tiananmen Square."

Around 8:30am on October 25, 1999, we went to Tiananmen Square. I got off the bus and walked toward the flagpole. A soldier asked me just after I walked a few steps: "Are you a Falun Gong practitioner?" I said: "Yes." Then he grabbed my arm and asked another woman: "Are you a Falun Gong practitioner?" She said: "Yes." Then he grabbed her with his other hand and delivered us to a plain-clothes policeman beside him. I looked around and found that there were soldiers, plainclothes police, and Dafa practitioners all over the square.

The police took us to the public security bureau nearby, which was full of Dafa practitioners, and even the hallway was full. Later on, there were over 20 practitioners of different ages brought in. Among them were an elderly woman and a six-year-old boy. An elderly woman led everyone in reciting Lunyu, the preface of Zhuan Falun. We began to recite Lunyu and Hongyin paragraph by paragraph. A policeman came up and shouted at us to stop reciting. After a while, we were sent to a big fenced building one group after another. The place was full of Dafa practitioners, over a thousand, and we all had to remain standing. We were jam-packed. All of us, over a thousand of people, recited Lunyu and Hongyin. That voice was so loud and great that I couldn't describe it in words. The voices of the policemen calling to anyone couldn't be heard at all. They had to wait for the pause between paragraphs to call someone to come out. We kept reciting the Fa like this all the time.

They mobilized the police and vehicles from all the Beijing police stations to come here to get people. Another batch of police vehicles came every few minutes, sometimes one vehicle, sometimes two to four vehicles. Each vehicle could hold 10 people. Practitioners were sent to various police stations, where we were asked our names and where we came from. There were three to four thousand practitioners just that morning. I was sent to a remote police station in Beijing about one hour later, where the police asked me where I came from. A policeman who was working on registering practitioners said: "I can hardly hold my pen any more." Later the Beijing Liaison Office of Dalian City Public Security picked me up and took me back to the Dalian City Drug Rehabilitation Center.

On the night of October 27, it rained and thundered at the Dalian City Drug Rehabilitation Center. Over 50 practitioners were brought in the next day. Almost all the prisons, detention centers and drug rehabilitation centers in the county were full of Dafa disciples.

We just knew that we were Dafa disciples and that we should step forward to validate Falun Dafa.