Barefoot, sitting cross-legged, with hands conjoined and eyes closed – that’s how young Poles, in an act of solidarity with persecuted Chinese practitioners of the ancient practice of Falun Gong, demonstrated yesterday in front of the Chinese embassy. They feared neither the cold nor the falling snow.
“During the last few days, these types of demonstrations have taken place all over the world,” said one of the protesters, Tomasz Ozimek.
The Chinese authorities banned the Falun Gong movement in July 1999, calling it [slanderous term omitted]. People who practise these ancient exercises combined with meditation, are locked up in prisons, labour camps and psychiatric hospitals. “Falun Gong is a peaceful movement, which espouses three values – Truth, Compassion and Tolerance – which constitute the nature of the universe,” explained Tomasz Ozimek. “However, the Chinese authorities saw Falun Gong as dangerous competition for the Communist Party, and that is why they attack it,” adds the Pole who during his stay in China was also arrested, beaten up and deported from the country.
The Chinese pubic security forces burned thousands of Dafa books in their campaign of repression against Falun Gong. As of November last year, people who work in defence of human rights have received reports of 43 cases of Falun Gong followers being tortured to death. The amount of practitioners of Falun Gong is estimated at approximately 70-80 million throughout the world. Falun Gong became widely known when the Chinese Public Security forces brutally broke up a gathering of Falun Gong practitioners on Tiananmen Square in Beijing.
Translated by Polish practitioners
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