France: Introducing Falun Gong in Besancon City

From June the 17th to the 19th, Falun Gong practitioners from Germany, Switzerland, and Grenoble in southern France, along with Falun Gong practitioners in Besancon, held three-day long activities to promote Falun Gong and raise awareness about the human rights abuses in Besancon city centre.

Besancon is the capital of Le Doubs province in eastern France and is known as the biggest garden city in France. The eye catching jade green makes people feel pleasant and joyful. In July 2004, the famous bicycle race Tour de France let the world’s people remember this beautiful green city. This year in the same city, Falun Gong, a Buddha cultivation practice rooted in Chinese traditional culture has left a profound impression on the people there.

At 9 o’clock in the morning of June 17th, Falun Gong practitioners had already set up an information booth on the square in front of the City Hall in the city centre and started to hand out leaflets to people. The warm-hearted population unceasingly came over to learn the truth about Falun Gong and signed their names on the petition form.

After learning about the brutal persecution of Falun Gong practitioners in China, people felt extremely shocked. They could not believe that in 21st Century, such a bloody persecution could be happening Many kind-hearted people signed their names to support Falun Gong. After a young girl and her mother signed their names, they had tears in their eyes and said: “we hope our signatures can help to rescue those people who are suffering.”

Telling people about the persecution
People sign their names in support

On the second day, two young men came over and said: “do you know, I have some Chinese friends, they have a very negative attitude towards Falun Gong”. A practitioner told him: “This is not difficult to understand. In China, people are unable to know the truth; why people utter this kind of remarks is because they are deceived by the CCP’s propaganda. You think about it, in such a country people don’t have the right to say ‘No’ to the government, how could they get the true figures about Falun Gong? Most of them got information about Falun Gong only from the government controlled state-run media. People don’t have the chance to hear a different voice or express their own thoughts. Therefore, the only thing people can do is to always follow the government line. Under such a system, no wonder your Chinese friends say things like that.”

The young man replied: “Oh, yes, what you said makes sense.” Then he also asked: “What is Falun Gong? Why does the CCP persecute Falun Gong?” After listening to practitioners’ detailed explanation, the young man was suddenly enlightened and said excitedly, “Give me some Chinese leaflets, I will bring them to my Chinese friends to read”. This French young man also expressed that he had been interested in Chinese Qigong for a long time and wanted to further study Falun Gong. Before leaving, he said to practitioners: “you are very brave, thank you and keep going!”

In 1999, Jiang Zemin’s group launched the brutal persecution of Falun Gong practitioners in Mainland China, which has already lasted six years. The persecution experienced by Falun Gong practitioners is shocking. During the six years, in order to let more people not be deceived by the CCP and to help them know the truth about Falun Gong, practitioners have made unremitting efforts all over the world without any complaint or regret. Now Falun Gong has already spread to over seventy countries and regions. More and more people know about Falun Gong and have learned the truth of the persecution.