‘Freedom of belief and freedom of expression’

Falun Gong practitioners from all over the Melbourne Metro region lined up along the Princes Bridge in the heart of Melbourne’s CBD on April 25.
‘Freedom of belief and freedom of expression’
Falun Gong practitioners with dozens of banners lining the Princes Bridge. (Peta Evans/The Epoch Times)
By
4/29/2009
Updated:
11/27/2010
<a href="https://www.theepochtimes.com/assets/uploads/2015/07/IMG_5071_medium.JPG"><img src="https://www.theepochtimes.com/assets/uploads/2015/07/IMG_5071_medium.JPG" alt="Falun Gong practitioners with dozens of banners lining the Princes Bridge. (Peta Evans/The Epoch Times)" title="Falun Gong practitioners with dozens of banners lining the Princes Bridge. (Peta Evans/The Epoch Times)" width="320" class="size-medium wp-image-85305"/></a>
Falun Gong practitioners with dozens of banners lining the Princes Bridge. (Peta Evans/The Epoch Times)
MELBOURNE, Australia—For Australians, April 25 is a day to remember the sacrifice of the ANZAC troops and the thousands of soldiers who lost their lives at Gallipoli in Turkey in World War I. Worldwide, practitioners of Falun Gong remember April 25, 1999 as the day when over 10,000 practitioners gathered in a peaceful protest at the National Appeals Office outside the Communist Party headquarters at Zhongnanhai, Beijing, China.

“In many ways, [the Zhongnanhai protest] was the event that sparked off the persecution of Falun Gong,” explained Michael Pearson-Smith, spokesperson for the Falun Dafa Association of Victoria Inc.

Falun Gong practitioners from all over the Melbourne Metro region lined up along the Princes Bridge in the heart of Melbourne’s CBD on April 25 to acknowledge the 10-year anniversary of that fateful day.

“[Anzac Day] is a sacred occasion for Australians. We thought about this and we thought that, well, those people were fighting for freedom and this is what the whole Falun Gong story is about. It’s about freedom of belief and freedom of expression,” said Mr Pearson-Smith.

<a href="https://www.theepochtimes.com/assets/uploads/2015/07/IMG_5067_medium.JPG"><img src="https://www.theepochtimes.com/assets/uploads/2015/07/IMG_5067_medium.JPG" alt="Many passers-by took pamphlets and paused to read the statements on the banners. (Peta Evans/The Epoch Times)" title="Many passers-by took pamphlets and paused to read the statements on the banners. (Peta Evans/The Epoch Times)" width="320" class="size-medium wp-image-85306"/></a>
Many passers-by took pamphlets and paused to read the statements on the banners. (Peta Evans/The Epoch Times)
Between 2pm and 5pm, cars slowed down and tram passengers peered out at the dozens of banners lining the Princes Bridge, which connects the bustling Flinders Street Station and the Melbourne Arts Centre. Many passers-by took pamphlets and paused to read the statements on the banners.

One German tourist and her husband stopped to comment on the demonstration. “I didn’t know anything about it,” she said of the persecution of Falun Gong in China. “We know that there are some things really wrong in that regime, but I have never really looked at literature about it. That’s what I think I will be doing now.”

Falun Gong, or Falun Dafa, is a spiritual discipline based on the universal principles of truthfulness, compassion and tolerance. It includes a set of qigong-type exercises, including a peaceful meditation, for the improvement of one’s physical, mental and spiritual well-being.

On July 20 1999, three months after the April 25 protest at Zhongnanhai over the beating and arrest of 40 practitioners who were protesting at the Tianjin Education College the previous week over a defamatory article published in the university’s journal by physicist He Zuoxiu, the Chinese regime outlawed Falun Gong and began a decade-long crackdown on practitioners throughout the country. To date, there have been 3,242 confirmed deaths as result of the persecution – Human Rights Watch uses a figure of 10,000 deaths while many sources inside China say the true figure is well into the thousands, including many who have been killed for China’s lucrative organ transplant business – while the number of practitioners imprisoned and tortured ranges in the hundreds of thousands.

<a href="https://www.theepochtimes.com/assets/uploads/2015/07/IMG_5107_medium.JPG"><img src="https://www.theepochtimes.com/assets/uploads/2015/07/IMG_5107_medium.JPG" alt="There have been 3,242 confirmed deaths as result of the persecution.  (Peta Evans/The Epoch Times)" title="There have been 3,242 confirmed deaths as result of the persecution.  (Peta Evans/The Epoch Times)" width="320" class="size-medium wp-image-85307"/></a>
There have been 3,242 confirmed deaths as result of the persecution.  (Peta Evans/The Epoch Times)
Among the people holding banners was Harry Sun, who has practised Falun Gong since the mid-90s, well before the spiritual practice was outlawed in China.

“This day, we came to the bridge to tell people, no matter if they’re from China or from different parts of the world, the true facts of Falun Gong,” explained Mr Sun. “We practitioners just hope that the persecution stops immediately. And we hope to bring all these criminals, the Chinese top officials who are engaging in the persecution, to justice.”

Mr Sun experienced the persecution firsthand before he moved to Australia. “In 2001 my family members – my wife, my parents, my sister-in-law – were detained because we were practising Falun Gong.

“My story is just the tip of the iceberg compared to those practitioners who were persecuted until they lost their lives,” Mr Sun explained. “They just defended what they believed in with their lives. We hope to expose this to the world’s people.”
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