Russian Falun Dafa Practitioners Share their Understandings of the 6th Anniversary of the "4.25" Peaceful Appeal in China

On the 25th of April 1999, ten thousand Falun Gong practitioners appealed for peace and freedom of belief outside China’s State Department Appeal Office. Looking back on those six years of suffering and suppression, Russian Falun Dafa practitioners understood more clearly and profoundly the magnificence of this remarkable feat and the strong impact that Falun Dafa practitioners displaying their spirits of great compassion, enormous tolerance, peace and rationality have had on the world.

On the night of 23rd April 2005, Russian Falun Dafa practitioners held a sharing together over the Internet.

Lalisa, a Falun Dafa practitioner from St. Petersburg commented: “When ten thousand people went to appeal on 4.25, there were many different views at our exercise site. I have had connections with China’s evil Communist Party’s education system for over a few decades in Russia’s past. I thought that such a huge movement involving so many people was unbelievable in a country ruled by the evil Party. This notion formed a barrier in my mind. Along with my improvements in studying the Falun Gong teachings, cultivation and understanding of Fa-rectification, I came to break through this barrier. The ten thousand Falun Dafa practitioners who peacefully appealed in China were standing for what is right, creating a precedent for Falun Dafa practitioners validating the Fa around the world.”

Mary, a Falun Dafa practitioner of over 70 from St. Petersburg said: “The appeal by Falun Dafa practitioners on the 25th of April in China was a legal action protected by the Chinese constitution and would be permitted in a democratic country. Everyone should have the right to express their opinions, yet only those people living under the Chinese Communist Parties (CCP’s) brainwashing education for so many years could incorrectly consider it as obstructing social “security” or be an act of “getting political”, with which the CCP could use as a reason for persecuting Falun Dafa. The people in China, as well as the rest of the world, should be clear that this is wrong. Although Russia, escaping the persecution under the dictatorship of the Communist Party, can not compete economically with the west, it still definitely forbids anything like the persecution in China to happen. The Russian government did not adopt extreme means to deal with the gathering and demonstration activities protesting against the government reducing welfare earlier this year, but instead they considered how to improve and guide better through this incident. Suppressing people’s freedom of belief, freedom of speech can only occur in a despotic country under the evil and autocratic Communist Party.”

Nawa, a Falun Dafa practitioner from the Far East said that she personally suffered the persecution brought about by Jiang Zemin’s wicked regime. Late in 2004 her whole family moved to Beijing because of her spouse’s job, but Nawa still practiced Falun Gong and was blacklisted. Therefore the Chinese custom refused to let her in and she was separated from her family in two different lands. With her personal experiences, she truly comprehended the extreme cruelty and inhumanity of the persecution happening to hundreds of millions of Falun Dafa practitioners who follow, “Truthfulness Compassion Tolerance”. The persecutors made the peaceful appeal of ten thousand people on 4.25 an excuse for the persecution. She said: “I greatly admire the amazing feats of those Falun Dafa practitioners in China who came out to stand up for what is right under such severe environments.”

Ivan, a Falun Dafa practitioner from Moscow started to practise in March ’99 and experienced the sudden changes brought about after the 4.25 appeal and when the persecution against Falun Dafa was officially launched on the 20th of July. Despite the many difficulties Ivan has managed to organise activities in Moscow to let more people know about Falun Dafa and the persecution. Back then Moscow was flooded with the lies and slander fabricated by Jiang and his henchmen in China. Even press conferences introducing Falun Dafa were interfered by the Chinese Embassy. Today, six years later, Ivan said with a heavy heart: “In China in an authoritarian, tyrannical and terrible environment, tens of thousands of those who practise Falun Dafa are letting go of their personal interests and coming out to reflect the situation to the Chinese government. They are selfless, and they came to tell the government that Falun Dafa is righteous, asking the government to give them a lawful environment to practise and release all arrested Falun Dafa practitioners. The peaceful appeal on 4.25 showed me Falun Dafa practitioners’ magnificence and selflessness. It has helped and encouraged me to do better in my cultivation and let more people know the true facts about Falun Dafa”