(Minghui.org) The 38th Flame Tree Arts Festival was held in Saipan from April 11 to 14, 2019. The popular annual event featured stage performances, arts and crafts, various cultural events and culinary experiences, and attracted a great number of local citizens and tourists. Falun Gong practitioners who live in Saipan took part in the festival this year, and introduced the traditional Chinese spiritual culture and health benefits of Falun Gong, also called Falun Dafa. They raised awareness about the 20-year-long persecution that Falun Gong practitioners in China have faced.

Practitioners displayed posters at their booth that discussed the mental and physical benefits of the practice and its wide spread around the world. They also showed posters revealing the Chinese Communist Party's atrocities of forced organ harvesting from living Falun Gong practitioners for transplant. The posters discussed how practitioners are being incarcerated and killed in China for refusing to give up their faith. Several posters attested to the support that practitioners have received from people around the world, who are calling for China to immediately stop the persecution.

Passersby stopped to read the posters carefully and then chatted with practitioners about the health benefits of the practice and the persecution in China.

Falun Gong practitioners discuss the benefits of the practice and the ongoing persecution in China.

Many attendees who learned about the persecution and the atrocities of organ harvesting expressed shock and even anger. They were eager to show their support by signing a petition calling for an immediate stop to the persecution.

A young man signs the petition supporting practitioners’ efforts to end the persecution in China.

Practitioners distributed Falun Gong literature and handmade paper lotus flowers to people who passed by their booth.

They also taught the exercises to anyone who wanted to learn. Many people took the opportunity to learn the exercises. A good number of people were very interested in Falun Gong and asked practitioners for more information about learning the practice.