Ireland: People Support Falun Dafa Practitioners’ Efforts to Stop the Persecution in China

(Minghui.org) “This practice is so peaceful. I feel the energy field while they meditate,” said Maire, an Irish woman who passed by the Falun Dafa information booth on Grafton Street in Dublin on April 8, 2023, Easter weekend.

Practitioners held activities to introduce the spiritual practice and raise awareness about the Chinese Communist Party’s (CCP) persecution .

Practitioners held activities in Dublin on April 8, 2023. Passersby read the information on the banners and signed the petition to call for an end to the persecution.

Grafton street in Dublin’s city center is known for its high end retail shops and buskers, and it is a must-see destination for tourists from around the world. It was especially busy during the Easter holidays. The sight of practitioners demonstrating the slow, gentle Falun Dafa exercises caught the attention of many people who took photos and accepted fliers. Many people signed the petition to call for an end to the 23-year-long persecution.

Maire is from Cork in Southwest Ireland. After signing the petition, she took photos of the display boards, “I plan to tell my students about this persecution,” she told practitioners.

She explained that she’s an English teacher. While searching online for teaching materials, she saw a documentary. It was the first time she heard of the CCP’s forcible organ harvesting from imprisoned Falun Dafa practitioners.

“It is frightening,” she said while shaking her head. Pointing to the flier in her hand about Falun Dafa and the CCP’s persecution, she said she would tell her students about the regime’s suppression of the innocent people who follow the principles of Truthfulness, Compassion, Forbearance. “Spreading information by word of mouth is powerful, five people will tell another five, the other five will then tell another five, thus the world will know the truth.”

Maire took photos of the display board so that she can tell more people about the persecution.

A man carrying a guitar passed by the display and asked what Falun Dafa is. He said he was a sensitive person and felt the energy field surrounding practitioners as they did the exercises. A practitioner told him they were doing the Falun Dafa exercises and gave him a brochure with the website address and practice sites where he could learn them. He happily took the information.

Brendan explained that he saw practitioners doing the exercises in a park before and felt Falun Dafa was great. He could not understand how such a peaceful exercise was brutally suppressed in China, “It is so cruel,” he said as he signed the petition. “Fortunately, more and more people are aware of this persecution.”

Labenta, a woman from Italy, gave practitioners a hug after learning of the persecution they went through in China. She then signed the petition to end the atrocities. Watching practitioners demonstrate the exercises, she said she found it hard to believe such a peaceful group would be so brutally tortured, “It is inconceivable that people are sent to prison for doing such a peaceful exercise.”

Rachel and Kevin were on a tour in Ireland with their family. They paused and read the information. They signed the petition and said, “The CCP is terrible!” “You must persist.” They encouraged practitioners to keep up their efforts to let more people know about what is happening in China, “This persecution must end,” said Kevin.

Yanis supports practitioners’s effort to stop the persecution.

Yanis from France explained that he first heard about Falun Dafa and the CCP’s brutal persecution in Paris. He knew about the organ harvesting. “The CCP killed tens of thousands of Falun Dafa practitioners! We will never know exactly how many people they murdered.” “This is probably the biggest crime of the 21^st century, it is even worse than war.”

Yanis said he supports practitioners in condemning the persecution, “Thank you for spreading the information. You must continue to do this.”

Background: What Is Falun Dafa and Why Is the CCP Persecuting It?

Falun Dafa (also known as Falun Gong) was first introduced to the public by Mr. Li Hongzhi in Changchun, China, in 1992. The spiritual discipline is now practiced in over 100 countries and regions worldwide. Millions of people who have embraced the teachings, which are based on the principles of Truthfulness, Compassion, and Forbearance, and have learned the five exercises, have experienced improved health and well-being.

Jiang Zemin, former head of the Chinese Communist Party (CCP), perceived the spiritual discipline’s growing popularity as a threat to the CCP’s atheistic ideology and on July 20, 1999, he issued an order to eradicate the practice.

Under Jiang’s personal direction, the CCP established the 610 Office, an extralegal security organization with the power to override the police and judicial systems and whose sole function is to carry out the persecution of Falun Dafa.

Minghui.org has confirmed the deaths of thousands of practitioners as a result of the persecution over the past 23 years. The actual number is believed to be much higher. Countless practitioners have been imprisoned and tortured for their faith.

There is concrete evidence that the CCP sanctions the harvesting of organs from detained practitioners, who are murdered to supply China’s organ transplant industry.