United Kingdom: Practitioners Demonstrate the Falun Gong Exercises and Raise Awareness of the Persecution at the Start of the Edinburgh Art Festival

UK Falun Gong practitioners were once again invited to take part in the Edinburgh Fringe Festival, which is held annually in August. The Festival originated in the 1940s and according to the organising committee, this year’s event attracted many tourists from all over the world.

On August 6th, at the start of the festival, Falun Gong practitioners introduced the practice on Prince's Street and informed the public of the persecution in China. They demonstrated to people the five sets of Falun Gong exercises. Their peaceful and serene performance was in stark contrast to their display of the photos of the brutal persecution and torture.

Practitioners talked to curious onlookers about the persecution. Some signed the petition to show their support and wished the practitioners good luck.

Falun Gong is also known as Falun Dafa. It is a high level cultivation practice of the Buddhist school and was introduced to the public in 1992 by Mr. Li Hongzhi. Practitioners follow the principles of Truthfulness, Compassion and Forbearance to improve their mind-nature. The number of practitioners grew rapidly and prior to the beginning of the persecution in 1999, the Chinese media estimated that there were around one hundred million people practising Falun Gong.

In 1999, the Chinese Communist Party (CCP) started the comprehensive, brutal persecution of Falun Gong. More than 2,700 practitioners have been persecuted to death according to human rights organisations.

Despite the persecution in mainland China, Falun Gong has spread to more than seventy countries around the world and received more than one thousand awards from various governments and organisations. Its founder Mr. Li Hongzhi, was also nominated several times for the Nobel Peace prize.

The peaceful civil disobedience of Falun Gong practitioners has been noticed more and more by the world’s people, media and governments. The CCP’s persecution of Falun Gong has been widely condemned by human rights organisations around the world.