הזוועות הקשות נגד מתרגלי הפאלון גונג בסין נמשכות כבר מעל 25 שנה - פעילים באירופה מנסים להעלות מודעות

Behind me here, 200 people are calling on European Union leaders to help bring an end to the persecution of the spiritual practice Falun Gong in China. Practitioners of the faith have suffered brutal repression at the hands of the Chinese Communist Party for over 25 years and today, in harmony with the International Day of Peace, they are calling on politicians to help defend their freedom to believe. Drums and cymbals beat and crash as the marching band parades through the city and a dragon follows close behind. Falun Gong, also known as Falun Dafa, is a peaceful meditative practice guided by the principles of truthfulness, compassion and forbearance. It gained widespread popularity in China with some 100 million people practicing it in the 1990s. The head of the dragon dance, Tomek Kowalski, said he tries to live by the principles in his daily life. It's changed my life tremendously. As a family, living according to those principles, raising our three kids, it's been a blessing, basically. I'm really grateful for this practice because it makes my life much easier. But while experiences like his are commonly reported, Friday's parade also highlights a brutal persecution. In 1999, the Chinese Communist Party launched a brutal persecution campaign targeting Falun Gong, which is still taking place today. Falun Gong practitioners in China are sent to jail, tortured and even killed for their faith. The Chinese regime goes so far as to use them as a living source of organs for transplants, killed to order and sold for profits. To do the dragon dance here, to draw attention from the public, this is the very right thing to do. For others, this appeal is more personal. Le Bin Ding's mother and father were detained last year. His father is still in prison. My father is a Falun Gong practitioner. He has done nothing against Chinese law, just because of his faith in Falun Gong. Now we don't really know how my father is doing. I'm extremely worried about the fate and safety of my father. Thanks to his campaigning, the European Parliament earlier this year passed a resolution urging China to end the persecution and immediately release Ding's father. Board member of the International Society for Human Rights, Man Yan En-jie, had an additional message for the EU. Remember, those people who give order to persecute such peaceful movements as Falun Gong, they are the same people who come to the European Union and talk with you about trade, about cooperation, about the scientific exchange and so on. And Anneke Pontier, a member of Belgian Parliament and of the Belgian Foreign Affairs Committee, said it's important more people know. A lot of people aren't aware of the situation that the Falun Dafa movement is in, the prosecution, the forced organ harvesting. We should, as members of Parliament, but also as a society in general, be aware of the unawareness of the situation. So we should strengthen that message. In particular, she says it's important the government is made aware of the danger Falun Gong practitioners face in China, and hopes they can practice their faith in a free world and a free society. Malcolm Hudson, NTD News, Brussels.