Finland: “Thank you for letting us know this.”

Falun Gong practitioners from Finland, Sweden, Germany and Russia joined together on a tour of five Finnish cities to hold anti-torture exhibitions and other activities to raise awareness of the persecution against Falun Gong in China. The tour lasted ten days.

On the 20th and 21st of June, the group came to the fourth stop on this tour, Kuopio City, and the exhibition was held in an open-air market. As soon as the tour vehicles arrived, practitioners quickly put up stands, hung banners, prepared exhibition boards and put out leaflets and petitions for the public. Practitioners simulated some of the torture methods that the Chinese Communist Party employs against people who practise Falun Gong.

Upon seeing a simulated torture scene with a victim sitting in a small, iron cage, her left hand bleeding from the bamboo sticks under her fingernails, people immediately revealed expressions of astonishment and indignation. Finnish people live in a peaceful, democratic environment and find it hard to believe that such terrible crimes against humanity are happening in the world. Practitioners told people how Jiang Zemin’s evil faction has been inhumanly persecuting Falun Gong practitioners in China for more than six years. Those who heard the truth signed the petition, expressing support for Falun Gong.

In the meantime, many parents were patiently explaining the torture scenes to their children and then taking them to sign the petition. A three-year-old girl kept asking, “Why is she sitting in the cage? Why doesn’t she come out? Who has made her bleed like that? Why?” She couldn’t tear herself away from the place until her mother called her to leave several times.

After looking carefully at the exhibition boards and the anti-torture show, a Finnish person said to practitioners, “Thank you for your letting us know this.”

When a Japanese businessman, who was accompanied by a Finnish man, looked seriously at the demonstration and listened carefully to explanations by his Finnish companion about the contents of the exhibition boards, he then signed the petition.

Although a lady who supports human rights and is against torture signed the petition expressing support for an end to the persecution. She didn’t know anything about Falun Gong and had some misunderstandings about the practice. Practitioners patiently explained things to her, and later on she carefully watched our exercise demonstrations and read the exhibition boards. A Chinese girl accepted leaflets in Chinese and talked with practitioners. She asked us for material in English saying that she would to take them to her friends.