Tusentals människor tågar genom Manhattan för att fira Internationella Falun Dafa-dagen | NTD NYHETER

Next, today is World Falun Dafa Day, an annual celebration of the spiritual faith Falun Dafa in New York City. Thousands of its practitioners are marking the occasion with colorful banners, floats, and cultural performances. NTD's Sherry Ning brings us there. Rows and rows of banners, colorful flags, dragon dancers, and lotus fairies parading down the streets of Midtown Manhattan as thousands of Falun Dafa practitioners gather to celebrate the annual World Falun Dafa Day. Falun Dafa, also known as Falun Gong, is a spiritual practice rooted in Buddhist tradition originating from China. Within a few years of its public introduction in 1992, it quickly spread around the world with millions benefiting from its moral teachings and miraculous health effects. Practicing Falun Dafa has given me an incredible sense of peace, courage, and the conviction to want to become more self-aware and a better person. And that means being truthful in my thoughts, in my actions, being compassionate towards myself, towards others, having forbearance, having tolerance and patience. And now we know in the world there's a lot of turmoil and difficulties, but despite that, deep down, I feel this incredible sense of wonder and gratitude just to be alive. I think the main thing, truthfulness, compassion, tolerance, they're, you know, these universal principles that really help me with challenges in my life and stuff like that. And even in something as festive as a dragon dance, it can show up there. For example, for the dragon dance, it's a lot of teamwork. You really have to focus on how to work with the team, the person ahead of you, what their pace is, what their flow is, for the dragon to work together. And I think Falun Dafa really helps with me and trying to keep myself a little more down and more about the team. Because it's founded on these universal principles of truth, compassion, and tolerance, those are universal principles. So naturally, it resonates universally. And it's spread through word of mouth, naturally, because it's so good and beneficial. May 13th marks both the anniversary of Falun Dafa's public introduction and the birthday of its founder, Mr. Li Hongzhi. Each year, practitioners around the world celebrate with various festivities, the parade in New York City being one of them. The occasion also highlights practitioners' efforts to uphold their freedom of belief in the face of brutal persecution by the Chinese communist regime, which began in 1999 and continues today. So both of my parents are practitioners, and they were both arrested with other six practitioners on October 27, 2020, when they were just studying Falun Dafa book, Zhuang Falun, in a practitioner's house. And my dad was sentenced to four years, and my mom was sentenced to three years and 10 months. They deprived my dad's sleep, like two days straight. And they didn't let my dad go to the restroom and forced him to drink urine. They beat my dad and stomped him on the chest and submerged his head into a water barrel. And after they'd been released, the police came to visit my parents and warned them not to speak any truth. The parade procession cuts across Manhattan from east to west, starting near the United Nations headquarters, passing Grand Central Station and Times Square, and ending near the Chinese consulate. Among the banners in the parade, many are calling for an end to the persecution of Falun Dafa and to the Chinese Communist Party itself. As the world watches President Trump's meeting with Chinese regime leader Xi Jinping, Falun Dafa practitioners in New York City remind us of the atrocities taking place under Communist rule, and of what the world could look like with a little more faith. Reporting from New York City, Shenrui Ning, NTD News.