United States: Explaining the Truth during "Human Rights Week" at the University of North Carolina

From March 31 to April 4, 2003, an annual "Human Rights Week" was held on the campus of the University of North Carolina. The aim of the activity is to introduce information and projects related to human rights so as to educate the students on human rights issues, and to provide them with an opportunity to get to know and participate in the international community. As it was spring and the weather was pleasant, many students were out walking the grounds of the campus. Our Falun Dafa booth offered them a good place to learn the facts about Falun Gong.

The activity was divided into two sections. Our afternoon outdoor activity included demonstrating the five sets of Falun Dafa exercises, handing out truth-clarifying materials, collecting signatures for the rescue of Charles Li, and a Western practitioner's singing while playing a guitar. After learning about the persecution of Falun Gong, many students signed their names on the petition. A blind student asked her friend to read the words on the petition to her and then she sincerely signed her name and left her contact address with the help of her friend. Some students came to ask what they could do for us before we set up our booth. One student walked up to our booth and told the practitioners that she knew about the persecution in China, and she could not stand it. Before leaving, she took some postcards and expressed that she would let more people know and sign their names. A member of Amnesty International of the University of North Carolina Chapter came to our booth as soon as the activity began, and helped us to set up the booth and told the students who came to ask for more information about the persecution of Falun Gong in China. With his enthusiastic help at the booth, more Falun Gong practitioners could go out to distribute Dafa materials and directly clarify the truth to the students.

The evening activity was held in a telecommunications classroom. Western practitioners made a good presentation and arranged everything quite well, from hosting the activity to giving explanations. Several Western practitioners introduced to the audience through the overhead projector and video about Falun Dafa's rapid growth in China in its early stage, and the persecution that came later. The topics also included: Why is Falun Gong persecuted? The April 25th peaceful appeal, the video analysis of the Tiananmen Square Self-immolation [created by the Jiang regime to incite hatred of Falun Gong among Chinese citizens], how the Chinese regime is extending the persecution of Falun Gong to countries around the world through diplomatic and economic interests and other methods, as well as peaceful appeals of Falun Gong practitioners around the world. At the same time the practitioners also introduced in detail the various means and instruments used by the Chinese regime to brutally torture Falun Gong practitioners and the horrific evidence of the persecution. Local Chinese practitioners also told the stories of their family members who suffer persecution because they refuse to give up their belief in Truthfulness-Compassion-Forbearance.