Zurich, Switzerland: Awareness-Raising Event Touches People

(Minghui.org) Falun Dafa practitioners held an event to introduce Falun Dafa and protest the Chinese Communist Party’s (CCP) persecution of the mind and body practice beside the Limmat River on April 15, 2023.

“Seeing the banner, I think it [the persecution] is very unfair,” said Gentian Matoshi, a Swiss man who works in a bank. “It destroys people’s lives. It’s unreasonable that there is live organ harvesting, so I want to know more.” He was emotional after learning about the details of how the CCP persecutes Falun Dafa practitioners.

Practitioners demonstrate the exercises during an event in Zurich on April 15.Passers-by sign the petition calling for an end to the CCP’s persecution. A man reads the display boards with information about Falun Dafa and the CCP’s persecution. Passers-by talk to practitioners. 

After talking with practitioners, Mr. Matoshi learned that the CCP forbids them from having their own belief and viewpoints. They are illegally detained and tortured for practicing Falun Dafa. He immediately signed the petition. 

He said, “This [persecution] is too bad. If it happened in front of me, I would take action to stop it. My life creed is: Do unto others as you would have others do unto you. I would never treat others like this, so I signed the petition, hoping to end this as soon as possible.”

For many years, Dafa practitioners have held events on the banks of the Limmat River to introduce Falun Dafa and tell residents and tourists about the persecution. The location is at the intersection of the old town and modern Zurich, the largest city in Switzerland, and between the famous Zurich Cathedral and Fraumuenster. The central location gives practitioners the opportunity to talk to tourists from around the world.

A woman from the United States stopped in front of the information booth and talked with a practitioner. She said she noticed the display boards and wanted to learn more. She said she’d heard about the CCP’s persecution of the Uyghur people in China, but she did not know that Falun Dafa practitioners were also persecuted by the CCP.

After talking with the practitioner, the woman said, “The persecution is terrible, but it can be stopped—this needs to be known by more people. More people should take action, whether it is to speak out [to stop the persecution] or pray to help. We should help Falun Dafa practitioners, and our signatures are important. I will pray for them, hoping that God will help them and make everything right. I hope to help them.”

Savina Stark, a nurse who also teaches gymnastics, signed the petition after seeing the information booth. She said, “The persecution of this group [Falun Dafa practitioners] makes me feel bad. It must be stopped, absolutely.” She said she wished to “end all of this [the CCP’s crimes]” by adding her name to the petition.

When talking about the CCP’s various surveillance and persecution of people, especially the CCP’s control during the pandemic, Ms. Stark was indignant. She said, “People should have dignity. They should have freedom, be able to think freely and express their opinions freely, and not be persecuted.”

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, though due to the difficulty in getting information out of China, 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.