Slovakia: Introducing Falun Gong and Exposing the Persecution to People in Eastern Slovakia

Practitioners of Falun Gong visited several cities in Eastern Slovakia in the first week of August: Spisska Nova Ves, Presov, Kosice, Humenne and Bardejov. In each of these cities they organised a small activity, where they tried to show the beauty of Falun Gong exercises in contrast to the five years of brutal persecution against Falun Gong in China. Many people stopped to read posters detailing the sad stories of the victims. They often voiced their disagreement and signed a petition calling for an end to the persecution.

In most of the cities, the local media visited our gatherings and helped us to inform the public about the persecution in China. The reporter in Presov was surprised, “How come I have never heard about this persecution? Why are the foreign media sleeping?!”

Even though many people approached us with different opinions, after chatting with us and hearing our reasons for doing all this, they wished us success. Our petition was signed by hundreds of people. By-passers remarked sometimes, that they knew about the human rights abuses against people who practise Falun Gong from the news and they support us.

In the smaller cities, children often joined our activities and helped us to distribute flyers. Some even learned the exercises. In Presov and Humenne we organised successful workshops, where we taught the five sets of Falun Gong exercises for free and talked about our experiences of practising.