Germany: Fifty-two Hours of Sitting-in and Two Marches in Bonn, (Photos)

Some practitioners from the area of North-Rhine-Westphalia held a 52-hour sit-in appeal in front of the Chinese Consulate in Bonn-Bad Godesberg from July 19th to July 21st. The weather was ideal, hardly any wind. It seemed that nature was on our side. We did the Fa Zheng Nian meditation every hour. Several banners and sandwich boards clearly proclaimed our messages to passers-by and people in cars, "Stop the persecution of Truth-Compassion-Tolerance in China," and "Falun Dafa is good."

On July 20th we staged a parade through the whole pedestrian areas in Bonn's city centre.

The silent march and distribution of several thousand flyers of informational materials added to the results to inform the public about Falun Gong and to win the hearts of people for the plight of those persecuted in China. We met mostly understanding, tolerant people; many people nodded, "ah, Falun Gong." Around noon we met at the centrally located Muensterplatz (Cathedral Square) to again do Fa Zheng Nian.

We were a bit late for the start of our second parade through the centre of Bad Godesberg. A friendly police officer walked along with us through the main shopping sections, which were formerly the residential areas for diplomats. Here the faces of people also became serious when they spotted the flower-wreaths-draped photographs of young practitioners who had been murdered and the banners and display boards.

We wended our way back through a beautiful park, past city hall and caught up with the practitioners who were doing the sit-in demonstration while we were parading. Journalists from two of Bonn's newspapers had already been at the site. The practitioners who had remained with the sit-in reported positive reactions from passers-by. Several Chinese whom we encountered during our parade had directly gone to the consulate to get more information from the practitioners.

Many practitioners studied the Fa [Law and Principles of Falun Gong] and shared experiences on this humid afternoon in the shade of trees. The sit-in demonstration concluded at 7:00 P.M. on the 21st of July. The team was tired but grateful in their hearts.