Sweden: Paper Lotus Flowers Convey the Message of the Suffering of Falun Gong Practitioners' Children

It was the start of the Swedish Malmo Festival on August 21st 2005. Many tourists went to the National Park to watch different activities. On the lawn of the northeastern part of the park, Falun Gong practitioners demonstrated the practice's exercises, waist-drumming performances, dancing, exhibitions and folded paper Lotus Flowers.

Beside a sign reading “Rescue the orphans of Falun Gong practitioners” in Swedish, many adults and children sat around a table. They were listening to practitioners talking about the stories of some Chinese children, while folding Lotus Flowers.

“The boy who is demonstrating the Falun Gong exercises there is Liu Xiaotian. After he escaped from China, he came to live in Denmark. When he was sixteen years old, both of his parents were persecuted to death because of practising Falun Gong. He once lived alone for one year without anyone assisting or taking care of him. He often weeps for long periods of time and wakes up from nightmares frequently.”

“Rongrong, four years old, lost three people who loved her most. Sometimes, she will climb onto a stool and bend over the table to kiss her father’s casket containing his ashes. Sometimes she will innocently tell others,‘My father is in heaven.’

“Rongrong’s father, Zou Songtao, was arrested by the Chinese police because he was not willing to give up the belief of ‘Truthfulness, Compassion, and Forbearance.’ Her father was viciously beaten with electronic batons by Wan Xin and Shao Zhenghua, the policemen in the labour camp in Zibowang Village, Shandong Province on November 3rd, 2000. Afterwards, he fell from an upper storey on the same day. He was only twenty eight years old when he died. Because Jiang Zemin gave the secret order: "If Falun Gong practitioners are beaten to death, the authorities should regard it as suicide," many practitioners were forced from upper storeys after being beaten by police or thrown from windows after being beaten to death to create a‘suicide scene.’

“Rongrong’s mother, Zhang Yunhe, was forced to flee from home because of her belief. Afterwards, she was kidnapped to Dashan female prison in Qingdao and has been imprisoned since then. Rongrong had to live with her grandparents when she was only two and a half years old. However, her grandmother in her sixties could not endure losing her son-in-law and departing with her daughter, she passed away in August 2001.”

“Xuanxuan, five years old, has not seen her father for three years. Since she was two years old, she had to flee from home with her mother and grandparents. One night of last February, these three adults were kidnapped to a brainwashing detention centre in Haerbin, Xuanxuan silently sat lone for a whole night.”

“Little Kaixin often weeps by herself. Both of her parents are Falun Gong practitioners. When she was one and half years old, her mother, Luo Zhixiang, was persecuted to death on the 5th of December 2002. Her father, Huang Guohua, was also persecuted and illegally detained by the authorities. Kaixin is raised by her grandparents now. She has never revealed her mother’s death to her grandmother since she was one and half years old. With kindhearted people’s help, Kaixin and her father have been rescued abroad.”

Nearly 2,700 Falun Gong practitioners have been persecuted to death during the past six years of cruel persecution in Mainland China. However, inside news from Chinese government reports say that the actual number of dead is more than ten thousand. There are still hundreds of thousands of Falun Gong practitioners imprisoned in labour camps, jails, and mental hospitals for a long time. They are tortured with cruel punishments and brainwashing, and forced to labour.

In the persecution of a hundred million Falun Gong practitioners, about ten million children in China are affected. Many children are expelled from school, become homeless, are discriminated against and detained with their parents, and some have even been persecuted to death. Many children become orphans because their parents were persecuted to death. The age of the orphans is between five and eighteen. Some orphans only stayed with their parents for a short time before their parents were persecuted to death. Most orphans cannot get any help from the general society. Some orphans even don’t know that their parents have already passed away and are extremely hurt psychologically. They urgently need help.

The people around the table of Lotus Flowers came and went. The parents who had listened to the explanations automatically told newcomers the meaning of folding the paper Lotus Flowers and the stories of the orphans in China. People left with leaflets and the Lotus Flowers they had made, sympathetic to the orphan's plight and knowing a little more about the practice of Falun Gong.