Notes from a Canadian’s Journey of Truth in Europe: Changes in Slovakia

December 15, 2001

Bratislava is the capital of Slovakia. There is only one practitioner in Bratislava. He has translated the books into Slovak and even the Czech practitioners use that one because there are no translations in Czech yet. Last year when he arranged a practice demonstration, the Chinese Embassy interfered and said very bad things about Falun Dafa to the city officials. This year when he applied he was refused. He asked Amnesty International for help and they were refused too. Then suddenly to everyone’s surprise - permission was granted to exercise, hand out fliers and to have a petition to stop torture. The permission was granted to Amnesty International and Falun Dafa combined.

At the site, people walking by were very polite and pleasant, most of them took fliers and many were interested in learning. Some stood and watched the exercises even in that unbelievably cold, icy wind. Even while they struggled to walk over the icy bumpy frozen walkways they smiled when they took a flier. Handing out fliers my hand froze as I tried to give them out one at a time. Another practitioner said she took off her glove and was afraid her hand would freeze but instead the bare hand giving out the
fliers got warm and the other one in the glove got colder. At lunch my hands and feet surprisingly felt normal again and afterwards when I exercised I felt I could on forever, I hardly felt the cold at all. There were about 13 practitioners ..some from the Czech republic, 2 from Great Britain, 3 from Austria, 1 from Canada and a couple from Amnesty International. Practitioners are incredible. No matter what, they show how much they care about their fellow practitioners in China who are courageously standing up for Falun Dafa. A reporter took many pictures. I gave him a media letter and explained the banner to him.
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Three different police cars came - the officers didn't even get out - they were only interested in the permits. We had them and they were happy to let us be. At one point the diplomats from the Chinese embassy came and talked to our Chinese practitioner. They told him he should stop Falun Dafa and be loyal to China so China could be strong. Our practitioner said he would never stop Falun Dafa and China would be a strong country if they would stop torturing and killing people. The diplomats left with no fuss caused.

Canadian practitioner