(Clearwisdom.net) On June 17, 2004, Austria Falun Dafa Information Center held a press conference in Vienna and began a series of activities with the theme, "Working together to stop the persecution of Falun Gong practitioners in China."
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At the press conference, Mr. Zhao Ming, a Falun Gong practitioner from Ireland, related his experience of being tortured while he was imprisoned in a Chinese forced labor camp for nearly two years. Practitioner Chen Gang from Germany talked about how his sister was recently unlawfully detained in China. Austria Falun Dafa Information Center introduced the series activities to be held the following days and called upon all of society to pay attention to Falun Gong practitioners in China and work together to stop the killing of Falun Gong practitioners.
On June 18, 2004, many Falun Dafa practitioners from Europe and the Asia Pacific region gathered in front of Austria's Chinese Embassy to commemorate the hundreds of innocent people killed because they practice Falun Gong, a peaceful exercise and meditation practice based on three guiding principles: Truthfulness, Compassion and Tolerance. They demonstrated the five sets of Falun Gong exercises and displayed many banners to let people learn more about their appeal and their call for the chief instigator of this persecution, Jiang Zemin, to be brought to justice in the courts of law, morality and conscience.
Practitioners appealed for an immediate end to the brutal campaign of genocide that has been waged against Falun Gong for the last five years. During these five years of torture, murder, rape, forced abortion and countless other horrific human rights abuses against those who practice Falun Gong, there have never been reports of a single case of retaliation. The peaceful actions of the practitioners in Austria reflected the heroic forbearance of their fellow practitioners in China and attracted the attention of many passers by who pulled up in their cars, and even people in nearby houses who opened their windows, to ask for a flyer.
Seeing practitioners' candlelight vigil, people stopped to ask questions. Many people took their initiative to ask for Falun Gong truth-clarifying materials.
A letter was read in both German and Chinese calling on the Embassy staff to see through Jiang's veil of deceit and join voices all over the world calling for an end to this persecution. Although the Embassy's doors remained firmly closed and even the letterbox was sealed shut to stop the letter being posted through, the practitioners hoped that their heartfelt voice could break through the lies that have poisoned the Chinese Embassy staff and that compassion can arouse their sense of justice.
Category: Rallies & Protests
