Finland: High School Classroom Learns About Falun Dafa

Schools in Finland generally offer courses about religious beliefs. Every year, teachers from various schools invite Falun Dafa practitioners to talk to students to give students an opportunity to learn about Falun Dafa in depth.

A practitioner told the students at Tikkurilan High School what Falun Dafa is, how Falun Dafa was widely spread in China before 1999, and how the CCP (Chinese Communist Party) has been persecuting Falun Dafa since 1999.

He told the students that the China Sports Commission had estimated “the number of Falun Dafa practitioners reached 70-100 million before 1999. That was more than the number of Chinese Communist Party members at the time.”

The practitioner continued to introduce that Chinese culture is one of the oldest cultures in the world, with a history spanning thousands of years, and that Falun Dafa teaches traditional Chinese wisdom and emphasises the importance of moral values.

He said that a Falun Dafa practitioner should consider others in any situation. “A practitioner not only practices exercises, but also asks himself to be a good person and cultivate his character.” Practitioners refer to this as finding attachments. For example, when things are not going well, a practitioner will look within to see where he or she did wrong. Such a process is very beneficial to one’s physical and mental health.

A teacher asked, “What is the criterion for being a good person?” The practitioner explained, “Truthfulness-Compassion-Forbearance are the principles of cultivation in Falun Dafa. It is to follow the criterion of Truthfulness-Compassion-Forbearance.”

The practitioner explained the persecution of Falun Dafa in China that was launched in 1999 by the CCP and its then leader, Jiang Zemin. The practitioner told the students that the crimes committed against practitioners, including organ harvesting from living practitioners, have been exposed one after another, shocking the world. Independent investigators David Matas and David Kilgour published their first report in 2006, detailing their research into organ harvesting from living Falun Dafa practitioners in China. The issue received international attention.

A teacher, who once worked in the European Union, asked, “What is the current situation with the persecution of Falun Dafa outside of China?”

“The CCP has been harassing practitioners overseas for a long time,” the practitioner replied. “They actually harassed some practitioners in Finland over the phone.” The practitioner explained that Chen Yonglin, a former consul in the Chinese consulate in Australia, testified before the US Congress that at least one official in every Chinese embassy must be in charge of work related to persecuting Falun Dafa. As far as Chen was aware, more than a thousand Chinese agents and informants were operating in Australia.

The practitioner gave two more examples. One was about a professor at a university in Finland who tried to stop practitioners from playing a documentary on campus exposing the CCP’s persecution of Falun Dafa. The other example was Chinese embassy staff demanding the Tampere Theater in Finland revoke its performance contract with Shen Yun Performing Arts in 2008, because the performance contained scenes describing the CCP’s persecution of Falun Dafa. “The Tampere Theater rejected the threat from the Chinese embassy,” the practitioner said.

Some students asked, “Is Falun Dafa political? Or did the CCP label it political to use that as a pretense to attack Falun Dafa?” The practitioner explained that Falun Dafa is not interested in politics, and has no political agenda. “After the persecution began, what practitioners do is to tell the world the true nature of the CCP, and call on the Chinese people to withdraw from the CCP and stop following the evil.” He said that more than 400 million Chinese people have withdrawn from the CCP and its affiliated organizations, because they don’t want to follow the evil CCP.

A teacher accepted a gift, a folded lotus flower, from the practitioner at the end of the class. She thanked the practitioner, “The content of this speech was very good for the students. Thank you very much for coming, and we welcome you to come again next time.”