Over the last two weekends Falun Dafa ( also known as Falun Gong) practitioners came from Sydney, Goulburn and Canberra to join the local practitioners for Tulip Time in the Southern Highlands. In Corbett Plaza Bowral practitioners demonstrated the set of five exercises introduced into China in 1992 by Master Li Hongzhi based on the principles of Truthfulness, Compassion and Tolerance.

Falun Dafa became so popular in China (and was supported by the Chinese Communist Party in its early years) because people were not getting sick and benefited greatly from this beautiful practice.In April of 1999 ten thousand practitioners gathered outside the Government office in Beijing to protest peacefully at the arrest of over thirty practitioners. The President of China then Jiang Zemin (ten years earlier spearheaded the crackdown on the 'Pro Democracy Students' in Tiananmen Square, where thousands were killed) wanted to know how ten thousand people were able to gather so quickly without the Government knowing about it. So a survey was put in place to find out how many people in China were practicing Falun Gong. It revealed in Jiang Zemin's own Government, the army, the police force, corporations and the general public that there were over seventy million people practicing Falun Gong. This figure shocked Jiang Zemin, who wrongly assumed there were only sixty million Communist Party members, hence this is destabilizing the Government and banned Falun Gong on 20 July 1999.The 610 office was set up ( with jurisdiction over all Government departments legally and financially including Embassies and Consulates worldwide) whose sole mandate is to 'Eradicate Falun Gong'. For this you can be illegally jailed thrown into a labour camp (strewn all over China), tortured and killed, for being a good person, living by the principles of Truthfulness, Compassion and Tolerance.

Six years later, a different leader in China, the Chinese economy booming and all foreign countries wanting to hop on the financial bandwagon. But at what cost? The persecution still runs rampart with thousands of practitioners of Falun Dafa killed, families bankrupted, mothers raped and children left homeless as young as two years of age to fend for themselves. At what cost is the world going to let this human rights catastrophe continue?

Now in over eighty countries around the world over one hundred million people practice Falun Dafa including in the Southern Highlands in NSW Australia.State MP Peta Seaton (who is very supportive of Falun Dafa) and was judging the parade commented how beautiful our Fa boat float was as we participated once again in the 'Tulip Time Parade' with also drummers and practitioners proudly displaying banners to a very silent crowd of onlookers, you could hear a pin drop as we marched through the town as though we were engulfed in a great benevolent field. Last Saturday the ' Journey of Falun Dafa' pictorial was displayed in Corbett Plaza where locals and tourists could see firsthand the true facts of the persecution. A musical performance by Fo Xing enhanced the impact of the display. The organiser of the 'Tulip Time Parade' saw us from his car and exclaimed that "unfortunately we can't award Falun Dafa first prize two years in a row".

Posting date: 5/Oct/2005
Original article date: 3/Oct/2005
Category: Event