Russia: Raising Awareness about Falun Gong in Moscow City Centre and Appealing to End the Persecution

Moscow Falun Gong practitioners gathered at Slavyanskaya Square near the Kitai-Gorod subway station on February 5th to help people learn more about Falun Gong and to make an urgent appeal for an end to the persecution that the Jiang regime is waging against Falun Gong practitioners in China.

Recently, Jiang and his followers have utilised the Chinese Communist organisations to intensify their ongoing persecution against Falun Gong practitioners. A series of events have taken place, including another wave of widespread arrests of Falun Gong practitioners and a new run of falsified propaganda and rumour-mongering about the self-immolation staged by Jiang and his regime. This happened in 2001 and saw several people set themselves alight on Tiananmen Square and claim to be Falun Gong practitioners. Jiang then filled China’s state-run media with reports on this staged event, using it as a tool to turn people against Falun Gong and to deceive the rest of the world about the nature of the practice.

Russian Falun Gong practitioners felt that it is their responsibility to let people know the facts about the persecution and call for their support in bringing it to an end. In spite of the bitter weather, practitioners in Moscow have held activities in the downtown area and major communities of Moscow in recent weeks. Their intention is to raise Russian people’s awareness of the campaign of genocide that is being waged against Falun Gong practitioners in China and to help the people who have been deceived and poisoned by lies from Jiang’s evil group.

The temperature in Moscow that day was minus twenty degrees Celsius. Practitioners held banners and information boards in the cold weather for four and a half hours. In Chinese and Russian, the banners and boards read, “Falun Dafa”, “Truthfulness, Compassion, Tolerance”, “1343 Falun Gong Practitioners Persecuted to Death in China” and “Stop Persecuting Falun Gong!”

Practitioners distributed leaflets and talked to passers-by. A loudspeaker was also used to introduce the truth about Falun Gong, and to appeal for an end to the persecution in China.

Many people came from the churches and government offices nearby. They took the material gladly and listened to practitioners’ explanation. The banners could be seen from the coffee shops surrounding the square. A waiter came out of a coffee shop to get some leaflets and not long after the manager came out too.

After obtaining leaflets, a middle aged male asked questions of practitioners, trying to understand the situation of the persecution in China. He asked practitioners, “What can I do for you?” In reply, practitioners told him, “You can sign your name to support our appeal to stop this persecution.” He signed his name gladly. When some passers-by refused to take the leaflets, he told them, “I suggest that you should take a look at these materials. If we don’t stop this kind of persecution now, it may occur to you or me one day. Then it will be too late!” His words deeply touched the hearts of those people and also led practitioners to realise that more and more people in Moscow are starting to understand about Falun Gong.