Russia: Large-Scale Activities to Raise Awareness about the Persecution during the 2004 Russian Falun Dafa Experience Sharing Conference

This year’s Russian Falun Dafa Experience Sharing Conference was faced with interference from the outset. The Chinese Embassy tried its best to obstruct the conference. All the practitioners understood that Jiang and his regime are still trying hard to stop people from learning the truth about the genocide against Falun Gong in China, and that they will take any opportunity to interfere with Falun Gong practitioners’ activities. As a result, practitioners from Saint Petersburg, other places in Russia, Ukraine, Latvia and many from other countries came to Moscow a couple of days before the conference, so as to visit various departments of the Russian Government, the Parliament and the media to tell them the facts about the persecution.

In the evening practitioners got together to study the Fa [the principles of Falun Dafa cultivation practice], share experiences and prepare material for the next day’s activities. Each day, they went out in the early morning and visited several government agencies. In a span of several days, they visited almost all of the Russian Government agencies, two hundred or so parliamentarians and all Russia’s major media organisations. Not only did practitioners give them leaflets and Video-CDs, but they also mailed them a copy of the letters that the Russian Falun Dafa Association sent to President Putin, the Speaker of the Parliament and the Minister of Foreign Affairs. In these letters, they exposed the illegal activities the Chinese Embassy has employed in the past five years to obstruct Russian Dafa practitioners’ activities to expose the persecution. Large-scale efforts to raise awareness of Falun Gong and the persecution were a major distinctive feature of this conference. Veteran practitioners and new ones alike actively participated and everybody learned a lot from the event.

The Fa conference this year was held from October the 15th through to the 17th, which coincided with President Putin’s visit to China. The Chinese Embassy took advantage of this coincidence to make a fuss, saying, “Activities will be held to enhance the friendship between China and Russia during these three days.” Their real purpose was to prevent Dafa practitioners from staging appeals at the Chinese Embassy. Failing to get approval from the authorities to hold appeal activities in groups, practitioners arranged a schedule for representatives from different places to take turns holding a solitary appeal at the Chinese Embassy with a poster in hand, as a single person’s activities are not subject to approval from the government. However, the Chinese Embassy repeatedly phoned the police officer on duty in attempts to stop the appeal.

The policeman got annoyed by so many phone calls and he approached a practitioner to ask, “When will you be leaving? I am fed up with their repeated phone calls.” The practitioner kindly explained the facts to the policeman, telling him that Dafa practitioners are persecuted to death in China every day; it is a righteous deed to protest against the killing of innocent people, and the police should support justice and protect Russian citizens exerting their legal rights. After hearing the facts, the policeman wandered away quietly.

At that moment, a busload of Chinese passengers pulled up at the Embassy. At the sight of the lone practitioner, they came over to take a look at the scene with curiosity. One of them even stood by the practitioner and called to his companion, “Come on! Take a picture here for me.” And then he left happily. Nonetheless, they didn’t have the courage to accept the material. In the light of this situation, practitioners felt that they should not let these precious people miss the opportunity of hearing the facts. They approached the Russian bus driver to explain the facts to him. After hearing the facts, the driver said: “Give me more flyers, so that I can distribute the material to them.”