(Clearwisdom.net) On the 24th and 25th of April, 2004, the ninth annual "Earth Day" Festival was held at Parque de la Ciutadella in Barcelona. This festival has a more than thirty-year history and draws approximately half a million people from all over the world. The main objective of this festival is to maintain ecological balance and world peace.
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Barcelona is a beautiful international city surrounded by the sea and mountains. During the two-day celebration, the Parque de la Ciutadella became a big, crowded, multi-racial, multi-culture stage. This year is the first time that Spanish Falun Gong practitioners formally joined the "Earth Day" activities. The 25th of April also marks the 5th anniversary of the peaceful appeal by 10,000 Falun Gong practitioners in Beijing.
Practitioners prepared lots of Falun Gong truth-clarifying materials in different languages at the Dafa stand. Tourists from France, the United Kingdom, Belgium, Switzerland, USA, Russia, Denmark, Morocco, India, New Zealand and China all happily accepted Dafa materials in their respective languages.
Among people talking to practitioners, some of them had seen practitioners practicing in the park before and therefore had a little understanding of Falun Dafa, while for many others it was the first time that they heard of Dafa. They all showed an interest in learning Falun Gong exercises and asked for the exercise locations and time. Many parents and their children came to learn to make colourful paper-lotus flowers with practitioners. When a child came past our stand and saw the picture of practitioners meditating, he pointed at the picture and told his parents:" I want to learn this." This child only happily left when he saw his parents collect many Dafa materials.
After learning the truth, many people could not believe that such a beautiful practice was being brutally persecuted in China. People willingly came to sign our petition supporting Falun Dafa and calling for an immediate end to the persecution.
There were also many young Chinese people passing by the Dafa stand. They willingly came to talk with practitioners. Some of them were poisoned by Jiang's political group's lies and slander of Falun Gong, and initially showed resistance to Dafa. After practitioners patiently clarified the truth and showed the truth-clarifying pictures to them, they suddenly realised that they were also the victims of lies and that the only thing their fellow countrymen, who are being brutally tortured and killed, wanted to do is to become better people by improving through self cultivation practice. They thanked practitioners for helping them to learn the facts of Falun Gong.
The organisers of the "Earth Day" festival specially provided a site for practitioners to teach the exercises. Many people joined to learn the exercises. It was obvious that people are waiting to learn Falun Dafa's universal principles and begin their cultivation practice.. A girl joined the learning group during the fifth sitting exercise. Later she told practitioners that she discovered Falun Gong by chance, but she strongly felt that this was the cultivation method she has been looking for.
This "Earth Day" festival activity was a rare occasion for more people to learn the facts about Falun Dafa. The excellent response from the public encouraged practitioners to work more diligently in promoting Dafa and clarifying the truth.
Source: http://www.clearharmony.net/articles/200405/19701.html
