Chamer, a small city in German Bavaria, hosted a large-scale Citizen Festival on June the 26th and 27th. Local Falun Gong practitioners participated with a display stand introducing Falun Gong, as well as performances of traditional singing and dancing. Falun Gong's participation brought peace and harmony to the Citizen Festival, which bustled with noise and excitement.
During the two days of activities, practitioners came to realise that people are awakening to the truth, as many people expressed their support for Dafa and for the lawsuits against the criminals involved in the persecution of Falun Gong practitioners currently taking place in Mainland China. After seeing our exercise demonstration, many people said that they would like to learn the exercises.
When we were setting up, a hotel manager would not allow us to hang our display banner on her wall. When she learned that we were Falun Gong practitioners, she changed her mind and allowed us to hang the banner because she had watched our exercise demonstration and was quite attracted to it. She had also read about the persecution of Falun Gong in local newspapers. As a result, she supported our activities, graciously allowed us to use the toilet in her hotel for nothing, and offered us an extension cord to play our dancing music.
One young man came directly to our display stand to sign the petition and also asked his friends to sign the petition in support of the lawsuits against Jiang Zemin. Upon being asked why he understood Falun Gong, he said that he saw the Falun Gong parade in Vienna last week and was impressed by its beauty. Today when he saw the petition in support of the lawsuits against the criminals responsible for the persecution of Falun Gong, he signed his name without hesitation.
The Mayor who hosted the Citizen Festival watched our exercise demonstration and came to our display stand for a brief chat. He said that he was acquainted with a student from China whose understanding of Falun Gong was completely different from the information we offered. We told the Mayor that the propaganda slandering Falun Gong distributed and broadcast constantly in China resulted in this kind of wrong understanding. We asked the mayor to give a pamphlet of information about Falun Dafa to the student, but the Mayor said that he had already showed him the Falun Gong newspaper the other day.
At the Citizen Festival we also met the government official in charge of the festival and thanked the city government for offering Falun Gong a precious opportunity to tell the facts to more people. The official said smilingly, "Falun Gong makes contributions to our Citizen Festival."
The chairperson of the German Political Party SPD in Chamer City also attended the Citizen Festival. He said that now he had a deeper understanding of Falun Gong and wanted to talk more with us about the practice. Then he accepted a copy of our newly printed Falun Dafa information newspaper.
At the Citizen Festival, Falun Gong drew the attention of three newspapers who individually published our photos and reports this week.
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