(Minghui.org) Ukrainian Falun Dafa practitioners in Dnipro, the fourth largest city in Ukraine, held an event to introduce Falun Dafa on April 28, 2024. Practitioners also raised awareness of the ongoing persecution perpetrated by the Chinese regime. Practitioners held their event on the city’s embankment.
Practitioners wanted to observe the date of April 25, 1999, when 10,000 practitioners in China gathered outside the State Council Appeals Office. They requested the release of their fellow practitioners who were arbitrarily arrested for their faith.
At the event, practitioners explained the facts of the persecution to passersby and talked about the Chinese communist regime’s state-sanctioned forced organ harvesting of Falun Gong practitioners. Many of the spectators signed the practitioners’ petition and condemned the Chinese Communist Party’s (CCP) human rights violations.
Practitioners also demonstrated the five meditative exercises of Falun Dafa, which sparked their interest in learning more about the practice.
Ukrainians Wish for an End to the Persecution
People from varied backgrounds stopped at the practitioners’ event to learn more about what was going on. Some, like Victor, had already heard about Falun Dafa in the past, and wanted to get more information.
Victor is a resident of Dnipro who had previously been given information about Falun Dafa but had not heard about the persecution and expressed his sympathy. He also spoke of his desire to pray to God and ask him to stop the persecution and stop all evil and violence existing on the planet. Victor signed the petition and said that he would like to learn the Falun Gong exercises in the near future.
Pensioner Lyudmila said that she had not heard of Falun Gong before. At the event, she saw the Falun Gong exercises and heard about the persecution for the first time. She wished Falun Dafa practitioners in China could continue to cultivate and have faith that the persecution would end.
Vasily and his 24-year-old son Vladislav, refugees from the Donetsk region, wanted to learn the Falun Dafa exercises and asked about the location of the Falun Dafa practice sites and on what days the classes are held. A practitioner gave them a newspaper with information about Dafa and told them about the place and time of the classes. After hearing from practitioners at the event about the CCP’s forced organ harvesting from Falun Dafa practitioners in China, Vasily asked how long this has been going and added, “This must be stopped.”
Students Support Falun Dafa’s Values
Several students also expressed their support for Falun Dafa and the principles of Truthfulness, Compassion, and Forbearance that practitioners are asked to follow. Sophia, an 8th-grade high school student, said she knows there are high spiritual practices that allow people to improve. When she saw the Falun Gong exercises for the first time at the event, she said that she had a strong desire and interest to do them. She also shared her attitude towards the principles of Truthfulness-Compassion-Forbearance: “The attitude is excellent! This is how you should live – calmness, peace, inner harmony, patience, humility. Just like that.”
University student Ivan wished good luck to the practitioners and expressed his desire that they continue to hold such events in the future. Regarding the persecution in China, he said, “I think each person’s interest is much more important than other people’s opinions. Because every person has the right to choose their religion, faith, what they will do, and so on. No one should condemn this. That is, if a person meditates or does something else, it is his choice and should not be judged.”
Ukrainian Practitioners Share Their Hopes for the Situation in China
At the event, Ukrainian practitioners also shared their reasons for participating in the event and their hopes for their fellow practitioners in China.
“Before practicing Falun Dafa I often noticed injustice when observing different life situations. I could not understand why this happened in life. When I came to know about Dafa, I realised that Dafa is the truth of existing life and that I was missing it. Now Dafa is the meaning of my life and the help in my life.” Alla also added that thanks to Falun Dafa books, she was able to understand why seemingly unfair situations often occur in life.
“As practitioners, we support Falun Dafa practitioners in China. We are against this suppression by the Communist Party. And we want to show our country, our people, that we are for the kindness, for the truth, and for the prosperity of Dafa, so that it goes around the world and brings a bright future to humans.”
“I came to this activity to first of all, show people what a good practice it is, what it is all about, what principles it follows – Truthfulness-Compassion-Forbearance, so that as many people as possible can get to know it. I would also like people to know about the other side, that the evil Party is persecuting Falun Dafa practitioners in China. We want it to be known so people would sign a petition. We wish to let it be known that we are against all this so that this persecution will finally stop,” he said.
Andrey added that he would like people to support practitioners. “And if they support practitioners, it means that the morality of humanity will grow,” said Andrey.
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