Switzerland: Falun Gong Practitioners Celebrate World Falun Dafa Day in Zurich

On May 13th, 2006, in the biggest city in Switzerland, Zurich, the sound of waist-drums and traditional-style Chinese music echoed on the lakeside. People could not help looking for the source of this sound. When coming closer, the first thing to greet people's eyes eyes were three huge gold Chinese characters reading ‘Truthfulness, Compassion and Tolerance’ and a gold banner reading ‘Falun Dafa is good’. Then came the waist-drummers in yellow uniforms.

The banners read: ‘Falun Gong also Falun Dafa, Truthfulness, Compassion and Tolerance, practised by a hundred million people, persecuted by the Chinese Communist Party’, ‘Bring Jiang Zemin, Luo Gan, Liu Jing and Zhou Yongkang to justice’, ‘Gods will eliminate the Chinese Communist Party’. What especially attracted people’s attention was the scene at the latter part of the parade: Two Chinese policemen bound two Falun Gong practitioners with a chain, after them were two doctors in operation gowns with containers labelled with ‘kidney’ and ‘heart’ in their hands. The banners in front of and behind them read, respectively, ‘Chinese Communist Party is harvesting Falun Gong practitioners’ organs to make huge profit’ and ‘the KZ in Germany, the Gulag in the USSR and Laogai in China, exposing to people the crimes of the CCP harvesting Falun Gong practitioners’ organs in forced labour camps.

Many passers-by were shocked at the contrast of the former and latter parts of the parade and took the leaflets handed out by practitioners. Some of them stopped to read the material carefully, some recorded this scene with their camera and video camera, some inquired about the background and what they could do to help.

When the procession was moving among the crowds of people on Bahnhofstrasse, the busiest shopping area in Zurich, even people on the other side of the road looked at the group attentively. A lady looked at the picture of ‘a kidney’ and told the practitioners, organ harvesting by the CCP was so cruel! A passer-by told the practitioners who were giving out leaflets that although the human rights violation in China was widely known, yet he was still shocked, it was hard to believe such a cruel persecution was happening. Some passerby said to practitioner ‘Well done! You are very good to have courage to do so!’

At the rally after the parade, Falun Gong practitioner Erich mentioned the aim of this activity in his speech. ‘May 13th is World Falun Dafa Day. Fourteen years ago on this day, Falun Gong was spread to people in China for the first time. We, Falun Gong practitioners in Switzerland started to practise Falun Gong at different times and we gained a lot in terms of both physical health and morality. That is the reason for this celebration today. However, we still have a heavy heart in this celebration because the persecution of Falun Gong practitioners by CCP has lasted for almost seven years. In the last two months, many witnesses have corroborated that for a long time, CCP has been harvesting live Falun Gong practitioners’ organs to make huge profit in forced labour camps and prisons. Many Chinese doctors also admitted that organs were from live Falun Gong practitioners. We are here hoping more people to know the truth about the persecution of Falun Gong practitioners by the CCP and hoping more people would help to stop the persecution of Falun Gong. Please tell the truth you have come to know to your relatives and friends, write to the media, to parliament members and to the Swiss government.’

Dolores has been cultivating for three years. Since she practised, she became patient and would like to take care of others. She has learned to treat people and matters positively rather then filling her head with negative ideas. Falun Dafa Day was a very special day for her. She could not imagine what would happen if she had not obtained the Fa, if all the practitioners had not obtained the Fa, or if Dafa had not been spread.

Anderas is a practitioner from a place near to Thun. He saw some practitioners protesting in front of the Chinese Embassy in Berlin, got some truth-telling material and read Zhuan Falun online. One and a half years ago, he decided to start practising Falun Gong when he was in India. On World Falun Dafa Day celebration, he found some Chinese people were cheated by CCP and refused to listen to different opinions. He hoped that the Chinese people could have the courage to know the truth and not be cheated by the CCP any longer. Silbi, a practitioner who practises Falun Gong with Anderas together, hoped that the Chinese people could read the Nine Commentaries editorial published by the Epoch Times newspaper. She herself did not know the crimes of the CCP controlling Chinese people by using lies, vice and fights and why Falun Gong practitioners who wanted to be good persons by following the principles of ‘Truthfulness, Compassion and Tolerance’ were persecuted by the CCP until she read the Nine Commentaries. She thought that people would gain a lot and make their own judgement after reading the Nine Commentaries.

Ms Zhang has been practising for three months. She said it was her first time to take part in an activity of her own will. She was so excited the night before that she was almost sleepless. Although she was practising for only a short period of time, she has really understood how to be a good person and her family also benefited. Before, she did not know how to show her care to her son. Every time when she wanted to do something for her son, it only made her son feel worse. After she started to practise, she shared with her son her understanding about how to be a person and told him her new understanding of people and matter which was obtained from cultivation. There was finally real communication between their hearts. Before cultivating, this sixty year-old lady always felt her legs heavy and very tired when walking, however, that day she did not feel tired at all even after she played a drum for almost two hours.

The organiser of the waist-drumming, Mr Lin, has been practising for eight years. After he started to cultivate, he always put himself in other people’s position and considered other people’s need rather than just caring about himself. Before the parade, the waist-drum team practised for only four hours, but all the members were working hard and with high efficiency. To play the waist drum in the parade was because of the special power of the drum. It could attract people’s attention and let them feel the power. During the parade, many people were attracted by this waist-drum team. They said they had never seen so many Chinese people playing waist-drums with Westerners. Mr. Lin also hoped that after seeing the performance of waist drumming, more people would come up to know the beauty of Falun Gong and help to stop the cruel persecution of Falun Gong by the CCP.