Germany: 2005’s First Falun Gong Information Day held in Essen City

Essen is considered the main city in the Ruhr Industrial Region of Germany and it has a population of about 650,000. At the start of the New Year, Falun Gong practitioners chose Essen to hold their first Falun Dafa Information Day in 2005.

On Saturday January 22nd, Falun Gong practitioners from different German cities met in Essen city centre. According to the Clearwisdom website, more than 1,300 Falun Gong practitioners have been persecuted to death in China, and in December alone the death cases numbered over fifty. In order to rescue their fellow Falun Gong practitioners who are still imprisoned and tortured in China, and to end this inhuman persecution as soon as possible, the practitioners gathered in Essen to continue raising awareness of the human rights violations in and asking people to add their voices to the worldwide call for those responsible for the genocide campaign against Falun Gong to be brought to justice.

Originally the weather forecast said it would be a rainy day. In the morning it was cloudy but rain was expected at any moment. The practitioners were not put off by the weather: some demonstrated the Falun Gong exercises, some sent righteous thoughts and others talked to passers by. Around 11 o’clock, the sun came out and the dark clouds scattered. The sky was no longer dark and turbid, and more and more people passed by.

Ten of the practitioners positioned themselves on different street corners to reach a wider range of people. A Chinese lady passed by with her western husband. This lady thought that what the communist regime in China says about practitioners is true and that they were doing something like political propaganda. She was just turning to walk away when a practitioner immediately told her what Falun Gong is, how many countries it is practised in and all about the persecution in China. After understanding the truth, she said: “I’m still patriotic even though I’ve lived abroad for many years; however, I’m against the Chinese Government’s way of forbidding people from practising the exercises and even arresting them.” The interesting thing was that although her husband didn’t understand the Chinese conversation, he could tell what was happening from his wife’s facial expressions. He accepted a leaflet and signed a petition supporting calls for an end to the persecution. After taking leaflets, both of them thanked us sincerely and left happily.

Since 2001, Falun Gong practitioners have been able to freely utilise an activity room in the Essen Eastern Civil Activity Centre once a week. The western practitioner who is responsible for this exercise site received dozens of activity programme booklets of the centre’s schedule last week. The booklets contain a picture of five practitioners meditating together beneath information on the free Falun Gong exercise site. At 2 pm, more than fifty programme booklets were distributed to people who were interested in learning the exercises. There were several tourists from cities far away asking how to contact the Falun Gong practitioners in their respective cities.

A middle-age woman saw the Falun Gong information desk and came to hurriedly ask: “Who can speak good German? I have questions to ask.” She had been reading Zhuan Falun [the main text of Falun Gong cultivation practice] and while reading she had some reactions within her body. Many practitioners have experienced significant physical improvements after reading the book. This lady had learned the exercises in the activity centre. The practitioners talked with her and encouraged her to continue practising the exercises.