Croatian newspaper, Jutarnji list, reports on Falun Gong

At the end of October, practitioners from Austria and many other countries held Falun Gong activities in Karlovac, the capital of Croatia, and received a very good response. Two days after the activity on 11-28-2001, the biggest newspaper there “Jutarnji list” published a report about this activity. The report enabled more Croatian people to get to know Falun Dafa and know about the brutal persecution against Falun Gong in China.
The following is a translation of that report.

Falun Dafa practitioner in Austria

Spiritual practice: Croatians started learning the exercises, for which the practitioners in China are brutally persecuted
Thirty citizens of Karlovac joined Falun Gong

Truthfulness, compassion and tolerance are fundamental principles of Falun Gong, said Miljenko Brkic, who most contributed to spreading Falun Gong in Croatia. Everything in Falun Gong is free of charge, there is no membership and nobody takes information about practitioners.

KARLOVAC - About thirty citizens of Karlovac joined Falun Gong, a Chinese method for improving mind and body, for which practitioners are persecuted by the Chinese government, on Saturday evening in the city library.
They are the first in Croatia, but also in the territory of the former Yugoslavia, which become more organized to practise Falun Gong, also called Falun Dafa exercises. Truthfulness, compassion and tolerance are the fundamental principles of Falun Gong and Miljenko Brkic from Karlovac, professor on the faculty of philosophy in Zagreb, most contributed to its spreading in Croatia. He gets great support from the 30 year old Igor Jancev from Sarajevo, who lives in Vienna.

First exercises group started

One month ago, I contacted Mr. Jancev in Vienna and today, we already have our first exercise group. Igor has been practising this method for years and has a great wish to spread it to the citizens in the countries of the former Yugoslavia. We in Karlovac first showed interest in Falun Gong, and according to the reactions, the practice will also found great reception in other parts of Croatia, said Professor Brkic.
For the exercises on Saturday, there were a couple of people from Zagreb, who asked for contact details so they can bring the practice to the capital. Soon there will be video cassettes and books, with the explanation of the exercises. It's also remarkable that everything in connection with Falun Gong is free of charge, there is no membership and nobody takes information about practitioners.
This is no sect or religion. Through exercises and by applying the principles of truthfulness, compassion and tolerance in daily life, the health can be significantly improved, stress can be lessened and inner peace and harmony with everything around us can be achieved. This is approved by tens of millions adherents around the world. Falun Gong is really needed in these countries - said Mr. Jancev, who already established contacts with the practitioners in Sarajevo, Ljubljana, Skopje and Beograd.
Strong support for the tortured Chinese Falun Gong practitioners was sent out from Karlovac. As emphasized, they will also try with peaceful methods to draw the attention of the Chinese and world public to the crimes that the Chinese regime is doing to the practitioners in China. They said, they are not afraid that they could also be the target of the persecution. Falun Gong has spread to more than 40 countries and in many of them they have got proclamations.
Two young practitioners from Austria, who came to Karlovac only for that reason, demonstrated the exercises.

Peace between the nations

They say, nothing is hard for them, because they spread peace and goodness to all nations. What we could see, the movements of the exercises are simple and easy. As the young Falun Gong practitioners mentioned, the exercises are effective, and they support and regulate the energy processes in the body and eliminate the energy blockades. As Professor Brkic said, there are more than enough interested people so that the healthy core of Falun Gong in Croatia can be formed. Additional information can be found on the web page: www.falundafa.org or by Jancev's e-mail: [email protected].

Falun Gong followers in China are detained in labour camps

Falun Gong was introduced to the public by Mr. Li Hongzhi in the year 1992. After only a short time, this practice gained great popularity and right now there are more than 100 millions followers around the world. Appearance of such a mass movement made the Chinese regime nervous, so the government in Peking banned Falun Gong 1999 in spite of the fact that Falun Gong is not political and a totally peaceful meditation movement.
To this day in China more than 100.000 Falun Gong followers were arrested, more than 20.000 were detained in labour camps, and more than 1000 healthy people have been sent to "reeducation" in psychiatric hospitals. According to some information, more than 1000 practitioners have died in the hands of the Chinese police.