United Kingdom: Practitioners Participate in the Glasgow West End Festival

The City of Glasgow played host to Scotland's largest cultural event of the year on May 31, 2013, the West End Festival. Over 100 organizations, arts groups, and local and international artists participated in the wildly popular event.

The festival featured diverse programmes ranging from talks, workshops and exhibitions, to music, theatre and arts performances.

Crowds flock to the West End Festival in Glasgow	Practitioners demonstrate the exercises and pass out flyers

Falun Gong practitioners set up a booth, demonstrated the Falun Gong exercises, collected petition signatures, and talked to passersby.

Revellers were attracted by the practitioners' peaceful music and gentle exercise demonstrations. A large crowd quickly gathered around the Falun Gong booth.

People watch the exercise demonstration, reluctant to leave	Passersby sign a petition calling for an end to the persecution in China

Posters depicting the brutal persecution of Falun Gong lined the inside of the Falun Gong booth. There was also a petition urging British MPs to attend a hearing opposing the Chinese Communist Party's practice of forced live organ harvesting.

Some practitioners stood in front of the booth and talked to passersby about Falun Gong, while others walked along the street passing out flyers.

People who had just learned about the persecution condemned the Chinese communist regime and signed a petition urging U.K. government officials to help stop the persecution in China.

Quite a few Chinese people listened to the patient explanations about the Party from practitioners, and decided to do the three withdrawals.

One practitioner prepared beautiful cards with the words, Truthfulness-Compassion-Forbearance at the top. He then wrote the Chinese equivalent of each visitor's name, according to their phonetic similarity.

Despite the scorching sun, people waited patiently in a long line to obtain their Chinese names. Some people took photos, and many showed an interest in learning the five Falun Gong exercises.