Opening Statement of Press Conference Outside UN by the European Falun Dafa Association

On Monday 17th March 2003, Falun Dafa practitioners held a press conference outide the United Nations in Geneva, to appeal to the UN and the rest of the world to act to help stop the persecution of Falun Gong in China.

The following is the opening statement by the European Falun Dafa Association

Translated from French

We welcome you. You have come here from the four corners of the globe to denounce the appauling persecution of Falun Gong in China, which has already created thousands of victims and plunged millions of families into misery.

The Place Des Nations where we are now, with its famous symbol, the public platform proposed jointly by Geneva and the United Nations, is the natural venue where the world can be told about the injustices, the loathsome deeds, the violence and the crimes which are always concealed with such great effort.

This then is the reason for our presence here, because for almost four years now this absurd and terrible repression, this manhunt organised by a Chinese "Gestapo" specially created for this purpose, has been rife in China.

For us, however, it is above all also an opportunity to assert and affirm our resolute belief in the universal values of Truthfulness, Compassion and Forbearance - the only safeguard of human dignity.

In these troubled times when it is precisely the opposite (values) which hold sway - in other words lies, hatred and intolerance - faced with the urgency of the situation, we Falun Gong practitioners, on this symbolic day of the opening of the United Nations Commission on Human Rights, appeal to the hearts and actions every individual so that the voices of millions of innocent persons who are persecuted can be heard, and so that in China and elsewhere, freedom of conscience and fundamental human rights will prevail.

European Falun Dafa Association