Sweden: Peacefully Appealing outside the Chinese Consulate on July 20th

On the 20th of July, Falun Gong practitioners from Gothenburg and places nearby gathered outside the Chinese Consulate General in Gothenburg. The gathering was held on the 20th of July because this was the day that the Chinese Communist Party, under the leadership of the previous president Jiang Zemin, began a brutal persecution against innocent people who practise Falun Gong. The persecution has also spread outside of China. Chinese embassies and consulates have been spreading slanderous propaganda and have harassed, spied on, monitored and refused Falun Gong practitioners visas and passport applications to China.

During this gathering Falun Gong practitioners demonstrated the five sets of Falun Gong exercises, sent forth righteous thoughts, distributed flyers to passers-by and collected petition signatures calling for an end the persecution.

The flyers mentioned that it is six years since the beginning of the brutal persecution against Falun Gong and gave a few examples of some torture victims. One of them is Gao Rongrong, a thirty-seven-year-old woman who suffered seven hours of continuous electric baton torture that disfigured her face. Despite the injury, she was later exposed to more severe torture. She died on the 16th of June 2005. The flyer also mentioned a Chinese diplomat in Australia, Chen Yonglin, who recently defected and withdrew from his job, which included monitoring and persecuting democracy activists and Falun Gong practitioners in Australia, because he refuses to continue to participate in this persecution.

Falun Gong practitioners engage in peaceful appeals outside the consulate every weekday during opening hours, calling for an end to this persecution that has caused so much suffering for so many Chinese people. On the 20th of July, there were more practitioners participating than usual. They wanted to tell the staff of the consulate that all people have responsibility for their own actions and for following their own conscience. Falun Gong practitioners will continue to hold peaceful appeals outside the Chinese consulate until this brutal persecution stops.

Originally published in Swedish at http://se.clearharmony.net/articles/200507/15072.html