Ukraine: Calling for an End to the Persecution on Human Rights Day

On the 10th of December 2006, International Human Rights Day, Ukrainian practitioners held activities to reveal the Chinese Communist regime’s persecution of Falun Gong. Over the past seven years, the Chinese Communist Party has not only persecuted its own citizens – 100 million Falun Gong practitioners – with brutal and inhumane torture, but has also given orders through its Embassies to defame Falun Gong and to buy over other countries with financial interests so that these countries would keep silent over the issue of Falun Gong.

In order to let more people know the truth of the persecution, Ukrainian Falun Gong practitioners held activities in central Duonietsk on Human Rights Day. They talked with local people about Falun Gong and the CCP’s human rights abuses and also collected petition signatures for two Chinese practitioners in Ukraine who were seeking asylum and were at risk of being sent back to China to face imprisonment, torture and even death.

This event attracted many journalists. Before the event, practitioners sent press releases to the media in the Ukraine. Some journalists even turned up before the practitioners arrived.

After practitioners arrived, they set up the posters and banners quickly. Photographers could not wait to take photos of the posters. The posters showed them the difference between the way Falun Gong is treated in China and outside China. In China, Falun Gong practitioners are persecuted and their organs were harvested while they are still alive to sell on the transplant market. Outside China, practitioners from different countries all over the world are enjoying the benefits of practising Falun Gong. A sharp contrast was formed between the scene of many people doing exercises together in overseas countries and the persecution in China. Journalists from different media organisations interviewed the practitioners.

A journalist from the famous local newspaper Donbass was interested in this event. She interviewed many practitioners. In her interview, she told practitioners that the Chinese Ambassador came to the city yesterday and a journalist asked him for his view on the practitioners’ approaching activities. The Ambassador said that the practitioners are paid fifty US dollars each day for taking part in the event and the journalist wanted to know if this was true.

Hearing this, the practitioners told the journalist that the principles of Falun Gong are Truthfulness, Compassion and Tolerance and Falun Gong teaches people how to be good. Practitioners are volunteers. They have received many physical and spiritual benefits from practising Falun Gong and they want to bring the persecution to end from the bottom of their heart. There is no making money from Falun Gong activities; the practitioners will not even accept donations. Instead, they pay everything with their own income. The Communist regime always lies to people just as it has done throughout history. After hearing this, the journalist thanked practitioners and said she would write a report of what she saw and heard on that day.