DUBLIN, Ireland - On a trip to Dublin to celebrate her birthday on July 20th, Mrs Una McDermot was drawn towards the General Post Office by beautiful music she had never heard before. The music was called Pudu and it was being played by Falun Dafa practitioners at a commemorative event to mark the anniversary of when the Chinese regime started persecuting the spiritual discipline in China on July 20, 1999.
“How can man create such beautiful music and yet destroy the soul of his own nation by arrogance, greed and selfishness when he could live with such harmony,” said the County Donegal pensioner, commenting on the persecution of Falun Dafa by the Chinese Communist Party (CCP) in China.
How hard it must be not to be able to return to the land where you were born to visit family, attend funerals and marriages of loved ones. Listening to the Falun Dafa practitioners and their stories about their exile and the treatment they faced at the hands of the CCP for their spiritual beliefs put average day to day worries into perspective.
Most people would be bitter if they faced such hardships, but as each person spoke you could sense that they were more worried about the land of China and its people who were ruled by the CCP than their personal circumstances.
Ms Dongxue Dai, spokesperson for the Irish Falun Dafa Association said: “We are here today to commemorate the practitioners who have been tortured to death … we are also here to praise those who have been very courageous in their beliefs and have spread the truth of Falun Gong.”
Ms Dai started practising Falun Dafa in 1996 and she said she found it very beneficial both spiritually and healthwise. She told her family members about it and her parents, sisters and brother also started to practise. “After the persecution started my sisters were sent to labour camps and my mother died two months after that; I wasn’t allowed to go home to attend the funeral,” said Ms Dai.
Shortly after that event in 2001 Ms Dai’s passport was up for renewal. The embassy in Dublin said they would not renew her passport unless she gave up the practise of Falun Dafa. She refused to do that and subsequently had to apply for asylum in Ireland.
“As everybody in the world you are proud of your own country and culture … China has 5,000 years of civilisation and culture, great traditions but unfortunately the CCP has destroyed and ruined everything … I love my country but not this party [CCP],” said Ms Dai.
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