Two-Day Falun Dafa Event in Vienna Well Received

Many people stopped to listen to music from the Tian Guo Marching Band at Stephansplatz during an event in Vienna, the capital of Austria, held August 28 to 29, 2026. “This is great. I find the music very peaceful and beautiful,” said Sue Lemke from Munich, Germany. She also watched practitioners do the Falun Dafa exercises and said, “The exercises are very interesting.”

Practitioners introduced Falun Dafa to passersby and told them about how the Chinese Communist Party (CCP) persecutes practitioners in China, and harvests their organs while they are alive.

The Tian Guo Marching Band’s performance and the exercise demonstration attracted many local residents and tourists from other countries. People talked with practitioners and read the informational materials. Many signed petitions to support the practitioners’ efforts to end the persecution after learning the details.

Vasas and her daughter Nisa came from Iraq and currently reside in Vienna. Their friend Malwah came from the Czech Republic. The three women signed the petition after learning about how practitioners are persecuted.

Nisa, who works as a housekeeper, said, “We didn’t know what was happening in China —we aren’t aware of a lot of this information. And learning about what is actually going to really shook me. I’m a bit speechless, and I just wanted to make a statement with my signature. We feel for them, and my sympathies are with these people.”

Vasas explained that she signed the petition because, “It is the right thing to do.” She believes more signatures will help end the persecution.

Malwah is a sales assistant and said, “It’s important to carry out campaigns like this everywhere to make a statement and inform people about the terrible experiences others are going through. An initiative like this helps to raise awareness among others so they know more about what is happening around the world. And it’s a good thing to support something like this.”

They explained the band’s music drew them to find out more about Falun Dafa. Nisa said, “We heard the music. We were just around the corner, and wondered what was happening. We decided to stroll over and take a look.” She said the atmosphere there was “Very nice. Very peaceful. The people are just so pleasant and calm. The energy coming from them is good.”

Regarding the principles of Falun Dafa, Nisa said, “I think they’re excellent. They are simply fundamental principles that a person ought to have. And it’s good to practice them with others; given how terrible the world is today, it helps you restore that inner state—to get back to how things used to be. You learn it all over again that way.”

Malwah agreed, “I also think that if every one of us practiced [Falun Dafa’s principles] there would be no wars, no evil in the world; we would truly live as if in paradise—the way it was meant to be for all of us.”

They found it hard to believe that the CCP forbids people from practicing Truthfulness, Compassion, and Forbearance. Malwah said, “I grew up under communism. I’m from Prague, the Czech Republic. It used to be a communist country, too. So, I experienced communism from childhood. I know roughly how things work there. A lot of things were forbidden for us, too; we weren’t allowed to believe in God or go to church. And we were heavily oppressed. Thank God it ended for us in 1989, and now people are free. But I also feel very sorry that this is still the case in China.”

Nisa said that it is very important for the practitioners to expose what the CCP did in the persecution to the public. “This way everyone has the opportunity to know. I’m very surprised because I’d never heard of the persecution before. As Malwah said, it’s very important for people to find out about it. Then people can make a choice whether they want to help. But if I don’t know it, I can’t really do anything about it.”

Malwah said, “We wish the people in China who are following the path of Falun Dafa great strength and good fortune. And we hope they don’t give up—that they simply keep going until they achieve what they set out to achieve.”

Truthfulness, Compassion, and Forbearance Are Social Foundations

Linker and Wende from Germany signed the petition calling on the CCP to end the persecution of Falun Dafa. Wende said, “We are absolutely against violence. Anything done voluntarily is fine, but anything one is forced to do against one’s will is not right.” She agreed that people or government should not just think about economic advantages and ignore the moral aspects.

“I think it’s good that you do things like this [to expose the CCP’s persecution] and raise awareness about what’s going on in the world. Even though you see it on the news, hearing or seeing it from the people actually affected makes a different kind of impression.”

Linker praised practitioners’ efforts to expose the persecution. “Fundamentally, we stand for democracy in this world. And what is happening in China and some other countries goes against our human values.”

“Truthfulness, Compassion, and Forbearance are the social foundations needed for people to live together sensibly.”

Wende echoed Linker’s words and said, “[These principles] are things we were once taught ourselves, too. I’m familiar with these basic principles from home. But unfortunately, the world—or at least many people—have lost sight of them.”

Linker agreed that it was important to let people know about the persecution of Falun Dafa. “People need to be awakened and prompted to reflect—to have their awareness opened to how well off we are. We can reflect on the fact that we’ve never known [the communist] systems—and hopefully never will,” he said.

Wende agreed and said, “We also need to call for action to get more and more people involved. The more of us there are, the more we might be able to achieve.”

Linker said, “We want the persecution to end and, above all, for the communist system to eventually be rejected through democratic means. After all, the CCP does not stand for good traditions; instead, it represents the oppression of minorities and the oppression of people. That is something we fundamentally cannot accept or condone.”

Retired IT Engineer Touched After Seeing Falun Dafa Poster

Josef is a retired IT engineer who worked for a major bank. He said when he saw the large banner at the event exposing the CCP’s systemic effort to harvest organs from living practitioners, he was deeply saddened. “I heard harrowing screams and the piercing sounds of electric batons. I saw glimpses of dark cells where these practices are carried out under strict control.”

He signed the petition and said that the CCP’s live organ harvesting “Is a catastrophe.” “I read about it. It is a crime—a state-sponsored crime.”

He said that the principles of Falun Dafa—Truthfulness, Compassion, and Forbearance “are perfect” and that the CCP’s 27-year persecution is a “state-sponsored terror” and must be stopped. “It can only happen through pressure from authorities and foreign nations—by raising awareness of these principles and having states intervene.”

Josef encouraged practitioners to expose the persecution to the public. “How else? There is no other way. It only works through public pressure. Nothing else will happen otherwise.”