(Minghui.org) Falun Gong practitioners met at Cologne Cathedral in Cologne, Germany, on September 14, 2019, to introduce the peaceful meditation practice and to raise awareness of the ongoing persecution of the practice in China. Cologne is the fourth most populous German city and Cologne Cathedral is one of the nation's most visited tourist attractions. During the Falun Gong activities, many people signed a petition to support practitioners' peaceful resistance to the persecution in China.
Falun Gong practitioners demonstrate the exercises in front of Cologne Cathedral on September 14, 2019.
The practitioners' activities coincided with the China Festival, which was being held nearby. Many China Festival attendees also stopped by the Falun Gong practitioners' activities. After practitioners explained the Chinese Communist Party's (CCP) brutality, several Chinese students and residents decided to separate themselves from the regime by quitting the CCP and its affiliated youth organizations.
Pedestrians talk with practitioners to learn more about Falun Gong.
Local Residents: Need to Inform International Society About This
A couple from Bavaria stopped to talk to Falun Gong practitioners. They said they had traveled to China in 1976 during the final days of the Cultural Revolution. They said that what they saw back then was astonishing. A practitioner talked to them about the mistreatment that Falun Gong practitioners suffer in China for their belief, and told them about the horrors of forced organ harvesting. The couple were shocked. “It is even worse than what we saw during our trip,” the husband said, “Even animals could not do something so crazy.”
Two women in their 40s stopped at the booth. “This is Falun Gong,” said one of the women to the other, “I have talked with you about this before—the brutality they receive from the CCP is beyond imagination.” Both women signed the petition calling for an end to the persecution in China.
A middle-aged woman also stopped to sign the petition. She encouraged the practitioners: “You need to inform the international society about this, so that those government officials can help you.”
Chinese Student: You Must Continue
A student from mainland China put his bag on the ground and started to talk with practitioners. He said he had already renounced his memberships in the CCP organizations. He also told a practitioner, “You must continue doing this and don’t give up!” He said that sometimes Chinese tourists may appear to be uninterested, because they are afraid. But in their hearts, he said, they do want to hear this information.
When two Chinese students who had recently arrived in Germany stopped by at dusk, one of them had a long chat with a practitioner. The practitioner explained why the CCP suppresses Falun Gong and the truth of the staged self-immolation incident at Tiananmen Square, which the CCP created in 2001 to incite hatred against Falun Gong practitioners.
The practitioner then answered the young man's questions and explained that the CCP fundamentally contradicts traditional values and this led it to want to suppress Falun Gong. The students agreed with Falun Gong's principles of Truthfulness-Compassion-Forbearance, and before they left they took copies of the Nine Commentaries on the Communist Party and other materials.
Chinese Residents Quit the CCP
During the first day of the China Festival on September 12, 2019, China’s ambassador to Germany attended the Business and Investor Forum China. Members from several groups, including Amnesty International, house churches, and Falun Gong, held peaceful protests about the human rights violations in China. After learning the reality of the persecution of Falun Gong in China, at least seven Chinese protesters decided to separate themselves from the CCP, including its two junior organizations the Communist Youth League and the Young Pioneers.
A Chinese man in his 60s told practitioners he had come to Germany to visit family. He said that he had already renounced his memberships in the CCP organizations with the help of a coworker back in China who practices Falun Gong.
“Jiang Zemin [the former CCP leader who started the persecution of Falun Gong] does not like the principles of Truthfulness-Compassion-Forbearance. That is why he suppressed Falun Gong,” the man commented.
He agreed that practicing Falun Gong improves health and offers spiritual guidance. “When a person is too attached to material possessions, it could harm his mind and body,” he said. He added that he wanted to visit the FalunDafa.org website to learn more about the practice.
