Czech Republic: Introducing Falun Gong at the Cultural & Reggae Vibez festival in Hořice v Podkrkonoší

In the picturesque enviroment of a stone quarry near Hořice, a Reggae festival took place between the 23rd and 24th of June 2006. On the 24th, Falun Gong practitioners arrived to let festival goers know about the torture and illegal organ harvesting taking placd in China's labour camps. When practitioners demonstrated the Falun Gong exercises, two little girls were enchanted with their movements and imitated the 'Buddha Showing a Thousand Hands' exercise with laughter.

Most of the festival’s visitors were young people, many of them were interested in the contents of the exhibited banners. “Even though I don’t have any idea how you are going to make China stop violating of human rights, I like your firm belief that these things will change for good,” said a young guy with long dreadlocks. When we were distributing the leaflets, another man said: “I already have one leaflet in my pocket and you go and tell everyone, they got to know...” Providers of the tearoom which was placed in a pagoda-shaped tent, decided to display a poster with a photograph of Gao Rongrong, a Chinese woman who was tortured to death. Children took away all the paper lotus flowers in a minute. The only present black man was mistakingly given a leaflet twice.

Before we were leaving, we decided to walk around and ask the Reggae fans to sign a petition against the persecution of Falun Gong in China. Some signed without a word, some were concerned: “It is such a wonderful afternoon and we get to meet with such terrible things all of a sudden,” said one of the girls with a sigh “everyone who is literate must sign this”. With lots of signed petition lists we were leaving the festival, while its atmosphere grew somehow denser. Even though we did not get to see the highlight of the evening, a Reggae group from Martinique, we were satisfied.