Norway: Learning About Falun Gong in a Small Town

Local residents in Korgen, a small town in northern Norway, learned about Falun Gong at a health exhibition held at a community activity center on the first weekend of November 2022.

Korgen is a small town with less than 900 people that is located close to the Arctic Circle. This is the first health fair that’s been held in the region, and had about 200 attendees. Many people went to the Falun Gong booth to learn about the meditation practice.

Ms. Johansen and Mr. Grønaas had a long conversation with a Falun Gong practitioner in front of the booth. They told the practitioner that the powerful and pure energy of the Falun Gong booth drew their attention. They wished to invite Falun Gong practitioners to give a seminar on the small island in the North Atlantic where they live.

There were quite a few visitors who became interested in Falun Gong, and some offered to invite practitioners to introduce the practice where they’re from.

One first grade primary school student watched Falun Gong practitioners demonstrating the exercises intently. She asked her mother, “What is this?” After she left, she went back to learn the exercises on her own. After trying the first and second set of exercises, she left the booth happily.

A woman who studied acupuncture in China was hesitant to talk to Falun Gong practitioners at the exhibition. After they spoke, a practitioner learned that she had heard lies about Falun Gong spread by the Chinese Communist Party (CCP) when she was studying in the mainland. When the woman learned that Falun Gong practitioners live according to the principles of Truthfulness-Compassion-Forbearance, she said in amazement, “These are beautiful words!”

After learning more about the CCP’s persecution and lies, her doubts completely disappeared. The acupuncture student said that she was thankful that she mustered up the courage to talk to the practitioners. Her friend said that watching Falun Gong practitioners doing the exercises, “... is a wonderful experience, as if you are in another dimension.”

The organizer thanked the Falun Gong practitioners for adding peaceful energy to the exhibition. She admired that the practitioners could practice in such a noisy environment without being disturbed, and said she wished that she could also have that much concentration. She wanted to learn more about Falun Gong.

Background

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.

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.