France: Call for Justice in Paris Human Rights Plaza

On March 16th, 2008, French Falun Gong practitioners gathered at Human Rights Plaza in Paris, calling on the international community to be concerned over the persecution of Falun Gong in China, urging the Communist Party to stop the illegal arrests and detention of Falun Gong practitioners before the Beijing Olympics and to release all the practitioners detained.

Though it was a drizzling Sunday afternoon, there were many Parisians and tourists passing by from the Human Rights Plaza. A Frenchman watched the Falun Gong exercise demonstration and read the information about the persecution of Falun Gong on posters, and then he asked, ‘I am also practising Qigong and I find your exercises are peaceful and your cultivation principles have nothing to do with politics, why is the Communist Party is trying to persecute you?’ A practitioner told him, since the spread of Falun Gong in China in 1992, there were almost 100 million Chinese people practicing Falun Gong by 1999, more than the total number of communist party members, which made the leader of the Party so scared and jealous and then the ruthless persecution was launched; now more than eight years has passed, the persecution is still carried on and at least 3142 practitioners had been persecuted to death.

After accepting a leaflet, a French lady told of her experience in Paris in 1999. In the summer of 1999, when she and some friends passed by the President’s residence the Elise Palace, the former Communist Party Jiang Zemin’s car was entering the Elise, then they stopped to look on. Some policemen came and threw them into a police car without any reason and they were taken to a police station to be questioned. She said, a dictator came to a democratic county and asked them to arrest ordinary people, which was obviously the dictator’s manipulation of the French government and was a shame for France. A dictator could do so in a democratic country, not to mention what he could do in China. She thought Falun Gong practitioners were doing well and encouraged them to carry on.

Five Ukrainians came to the Human Right Plaza and they experienced the disintegration of the former USSSR and knew clearly the disasters communism brought to people. They signed their names on the petition to support the practitioners’ campaign against the persecution.