5th November 2001
I first got to know about Falun Gong in Ukraine in 1997. At the time I thought that I had found something really important to modern science and modern human society. Then I kept reading “China Falun Gong” [introductory book of Falun Gong] and “Zhuan Falun” [the main book of Falun Gong] later on. My understanding of the Fa [principles of Falun Gong] deepened and I am able to find answers to many mysteries unexplained by modern science.
In July 1999, when the number of Falun Gong practitioners in China exceeded 70 million [more than the number of the Chinese communist party members], the party leaders crackdown on the exercises. They launched a brutal persecution of the Falun Gong practitioners simply because of their firm belief in Truth-Compassion-Forbearance. Until now in China there have been over 300 practitioners killed in police custody, including children! The Chinese embassy in Ukraine has kept sending fabricated rumours about Falun Gong to the Ukraine government. The country of Ukraine used to be a communist country and has had a good relationship with China. However, I think that true friends should point out each other’s mistakes! And if a friend has killed someone, he should be condemned and sent to prison! Therefore as early as the beginning of the persecution, I started contacting our president, parliament and national media, urging them to condemn China for its inhumane persecution. Myself and fellow practitioners have requested many times but we never heard from the Ukraine government. However mass propaganda about Falun Gong has appeared in national media. Obviously this was the hard work of the Chinese embassy. At the same time, together with the Chinese embassy the Ukraine government suppressed the Falun Gong practitioners to a certain degree in their own country.
About a year ago a special service agent followed us for a long time checking our activities. He said that in Ukraine no Falun Dafa advertising is allowed, nor any large gatherings. He also said that at the moment the government was just observing Falun Gong in their country. Another agent told all bookshops not to sell Falun Gong books and said that they were banned. Regarding all this dirty business we requested the appropriate governmental departments for explanations. Still we received no reply. We also kept sending righteous materials to the national media and asking them to reveal the truth of the persecution. A journalist told us that the officials papers only talk about positive things whenever relating to China, and no negatives things are mentioned at all. I thought that people with such mentality were very wrong. Their goal is to keep a good relationship with a strong country like China to gain help in solving national political and economic problems. But they fail to realize that the main reason for political and economic tensions is to be found inwards, not outwards, and is to be solved by uplifting people’s moral standards. The Ukraine government only wants to gain some benefits from China and they would even support China’s vicious persecution towards the innocent Falun Gong practitioners. They are just the misfortunes of the country of Ukraine.
This year when Jiang Zemin came to visit, the local practitioners handed letters to the city government urging them to stop China’s persecution on Falun Gong. Because the Chinese embassy had previously written to the government, the city government and the high court forbid us to demonstrate at the embassy. Despite this, I and a fellow practitioner went to practise in the park opposite the Chinese embassy, displaying the banner “Falun Dafa, Truth-Compassion-Forbearance” and “over 300 deaths already resulted from Chinese police custody”. At the beginning the guards of the embassy came and asked us to leave their duty area, because we had no permits. I told them that all we wanted to do was to reveal the truth of the Jiang regime’s brutal persecution, and that we were not obstructing any public laws. I told them that it was Jiang who broke the law and should be punished. Then the police came as well and requested us to leave. We explained again that we did not obstruct any laws. The police then asked us to go to the police station with them. At the beginning we refused to do so. But later on in order not to make the situation worse we followed them to the police station. On the way to the station we kept promoting Falun Dafa to them with a compassionate heart. We revealed the persecution of the Chinese government and told them about our personal benefits from practising Falun Dafa. Many policemen were deeply touched by our words. The police did not charge us at all. All they requested was that we do not hold activities where Jiang visits. We were also banned to wear T-shirts with “Falun Dafa” or “Truth-Compassion-Forbearance”.
Seeing that most countries over the world have expressed their support towards Falun Gong, condemning China for its brutal persecution, I feel so happy for the leaders and citizens of these countries. At the same time I feel very sad for the fact that the Ukrainian and Russian governments have not done anything similar to support Falun Gong.
When I came to know that fellow practitioners in China had gone on hunger strikes for over a month, and that many fellow practitioners in other countries had also gone on hunger strikes in order to support those on the mainland, I did some deep thinking myself. At first I didn’t fully understand why people would take the form of hunger strikes to protest. However I deeply believed in the heroic actions of the fellow practitioners in China, and of their firm belief in Truth-Compassion-Forbearance. Such innocent people are getting killed there. How can I attract the attention of our government and people to care about the persecution? Because of the propaganda of the Chinese government, people in Ukraine hold negative attitudes towards Falun Dafa, and they treat Falun Dafa practitioners as enemies and are rude to us. However they have no idea that Truth-Compassion-Forbearance is the universal law and the principle of retribution is recognized by the heavens. We as Falun Dafa practitioners should be compassionate towards these people.
Going on a hunger strike was purely my own will. Before that I wrote a statement to the government and met a solicitor. According to the law individual hunger strikes do not require formal permits. Therefore my solicitor helped me to register my hunger strike plan at the city council.
At 10am on 11th September I arrived at the Chinese Embassy. I told the guard that I had already registered my hunger strike with the government. I also asked him to hand in a letter to the Chinese authorities, in which I requested the stop of the brutal persecution. At the beginning their reactions were quite calm.
I erected two large boards saying "Falun Dafa -Zhen Shan Ren" and "There have already been 260 Falun Gong practitioners killed in Chinese police custody". I also put out materials showing the truth of the persecution, my own hunger strike statement and the resolution from Amnesty International.
A few moments later a Ukrainian policeman guarding the embassy requested me to leave immediately. I told him that the land where I was standing belonged to Ukraine, not the Chinese Embassy, and that I was doing something perfectly legal. He then asked me to show him the registration of my hunger strike.
People started to gather around me and some even recorded the scene. Soon two high ranking officials came to speak to me. They said that my request had been heard by the higher Chinese authorities, and that I could leave. I replied that I wanted to carry on my hunger strike. They then suggested I do my hunger strike in front of the Parliament. I told them that I had no complaints with our president nor with our parliament, and I only wish they could condemn China's persecution. Their answer was that according to the diplomatic documents between China and Ukraine such a hunger strike in front of the embassy had to be permitted by the Foreign Office.
A newspaper journalist came to interview me. Quite a few Chinese people also took away literature on Falun Gong. There were also academics and some politicians, and they all wished me good luck. Some even wished to know more about Falun Gong.
Towards the evening fellow practitioners brought along another board to support me. When the night fell, a group of policemen came, taking away all our boards and forced us to leave. They even said, "You should think of our difficulties, since the Chinese embassy keeps pressing us." I then told them about the truth of Falun Gong, and my wish that the Ukrainian people would not be cheated by the Chinese government. They then appeared to be really embarrassed and claimed that they were told to do so by their supervisors.
At the beginning of October we applied to reveal the truth in town centre but it was not approved by the government. Previously they told us that as long as they did not reject the application we could carry out our activities but when we actually did so, the police came and stopped us. We were even blamed for “damaging the relations between China and Ukraine, etc”
We will continue revealing the truth, because the truth will defeat the lies in the end.
Translated from
http://www.yuanmingeurope.net/articles/2648.html
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