On August 20th and 21st, Falun Gong practitioners in Turkey held activities in a square in a busy commercial area of Istanbul, raising awareness about Falun Gong and the persecution taking place in China. Many people were attracted by the exercise demonstration and came over to find out more.

On August 12th, 2008, 610 Office agents arrested Falun Gong practitioner Ms. Shen Yuxia at her family-owned tofu stand at the Beiqiao Market. On August 27th, after only 15 days in police custody, her family was notified that she had died. Ms. Shen's family saw that her body was covered with wounds, and her chest was covered with dark bruises. When her family asked doctors about how she died, the doctor told them that Ms. Shen was already dead when she arrived at the hospital. Mr. Shen's husband Yu Jinnan is also a Falun Gong practitioner, and is currently incarcerated in Hunan Province.

On September 4th, 2008, Guangshui City 610 Office agents arrested practitioners Ms. Wang Yanfeng and Ms. Sheng Cuilian. Guangshui City Domestic Security agent Fang Hong brutally beat Ms. Wang during the arrest process. The two women were detained in the Guangshi City Detention Centre, where they held a hunger strike to protest the persecution. They were cruelly beaten repeatedly each time they refused to eat. They were both extremely weak, and 46-year-old Ms. Wang Yanfeng died on September 24th, 2008.

A brainwashing centre is located inside of Plant 854, an abandoned military logistics plant. The local 610 Office rented over 20 rooms from the plant during the Beijing Olympics and uses them as a brainwashing centre to secretly persecute Falun Gong practitioners. Many practitioners were tortured to death or physically disabled in the previous brainwashing centre. Furthermore, the Pengzhou 610 Office colluded with the mental hospital in Pengzhou to inject drugs to damage practitioners' central nervous systems. Falun Gong practitioners were mentally healthy, but they were so severely tortured with the injections, that they were incoherent and appeared mentally ill after one night.

Ms. Ding Guiying, in her fifties, makes a living as a hairdresser and also rents out some apartments. Since she began practising Falun Gong in 1996, she followed the principles of Truth-Compassion-Forbearance and was known to be a noble person. She provided warm and thorough service to her customers. For those who rented her apartments, she provided them with quilts without any charge. Her husband passed away a long time ago. She raised her two daughters on a meagre income. From the perspective of her neighbours, Ms. Ding is kind hearted and has a strong will. Yet, with no regard for her upstanding character, the authorities sentenced her to forced labour recently.

Flashy kicks, double-edged spears and long swords filled the stage at New Tang Dynasty's "International Chinese Traditional Martial Arts Competition" preliminaries on September 27th at The Armory in Upper West Manhattan.

On the evening of September 16th, the New York based Divine Performing Arts presented the third show of the Mid-Autumn Spectacular at the John Bassett Theatre in Toronto. The show features classic Chinese dance and brings many beloved Chinese legends to life.