Italy: Practitioners Commemorate the 5th Anniversary of “4.25”

A group of Italian Falun Gong practitioners came to Old Castle Park Milan to commemorate the fifth anniversary of the “4.25” peaceful appeal.

On the 25th April, five years ago, more than ten thousand Falun Gong practitioners appealed peacefully at Zhongnanhai in Beijing, reflecting the situation of the unfair treatment of Falun Gong practitioners to the government with a peaceful, rational, tolerant and understanding attitude, and it was appropriately settled. This incident shocked China and the overseas communities, and has a deep historic meaning. Nevertheless Jiang, out of jealousy and self-interest, used all the propaganda he could muster to orchestrate an inhumane persecution using the means of deceit and slander. Since this persecution was launched on the 20th of July 1999, Falun Gong practitioners overseas and in China started to expose the facts behind this persecution to let people know the truth about Jiang's web of lies and vicious crimes.

Italian practitioners commemorated “4.25” by sending righteous thoughts, demonstrating the Falun Gong exercises and letting people know more about Falun Gong. This day was also Italy’s “Independence Day”, so there were lots of tourists on the ancient square. On the sides of the stone bridge we hung up banners reading “Falun Dafa is Good”, “Truthfulness Compassion Tolerance” “Bring Jiang Zemin, Luo Gan, Liu Jing, Zhou Yongkang to Justice” and “The Laws are Just, Bring Jiang Zemin to Trial”, as well as lots of posters showing Falun Gong exercises. Many tourists stopped to watch the exercises and some people for details of their nearest free exercise class. Some people even demanded to learn the exercises on the spot.

The Old Castle is one of Milan’s tourist spots, and there were a great number of tourists from all over the world, as well as many Chinese tourists. Practitioners used this opportunity to tell them the truth that they may never get to hear inside China. One of them was a local people’s representative. He told the practitioners that he believed in the good being rewarded and evil being punished and he knew that China is a country with only one party so the people have no human rights. He approved very much of the lawsuits against Jiang in democratic countries, but he also doubted that Jiang could be brought to justice in China at the moment. We told him that, “this day will come eventually”.

Some Chinese tourists took photographs, especially under the banner of “The Laws are Just, Bring Jiang Zemin to Trial”. Over a year or so of clarifying the truth at Old Castle Park, this banner has been a favourite with Chinese tourists who have their photos taken with it. Another Chinese tourist filmed the whole appeal as a souvenir. When we were clarifying the truth to a Taiwanese tourist group, they told us that they knew all about it. Falun Gong is well-known and very popular in Taiwan.