Letter to the Prime Minister of Ukraine from the European Falun Dafa Association

We are writing to express our extreme concern at treatment of 23 Falun Dafa practitioners who were detained on 24 August while practising their exercises in a park. As the Falun Gong practitioners were taken into custody, witnesses say police cited pressure from Beijing as the cause, stating China is “huge and powerful” compared with a developing country like Ukraine and that Ukraine “can’t afford trouble with China relations.” According to the detained practitioners, police also mentioned that Chinese officials had struck a deal with the Ukrainian Ministry of Foreign Affairs to stop Falun Gong activities in Ukraine.

Fortunately the judge dismissed a case brought against practitioners of Falun Gong by Ukrainian police as “groundless.”

This detention never should have occurred, and could not and would not have occurred in any democracy around the world. The facts of this case are clear: the Ukrainian police were acting under pressure from Jiang's regime, a regime that continues to wage violence against tens of millions of good people in China.

The 23 Falun Dafa practitioners did nothing wrong. They had been practising in the same park regularly for the past two years with permission from the Ukrainian Committee of Safety and the Ministry of Internal Affairs.

It is appalling that Jiang Zemin can dictate the actions of an independent state like Ukraine and that Ukrainian authorities would be subject to decrees from as far away as Beijing. Through a series of recent events, we are witnessing a systematic expansion of Jiang’s persecution of Falun Gong in Europe. We hope that the Ukrainian Government will stand up to the pressure from Beijing, and truly protect its citizens’ right to freedom of conscience, expression, and association.

If Ukraine wishes to aspire to the best European standards, then upholding the freedom of belief and association will be one of the basic building blocks. No Western European country would tolerate the interference of Jiang’s regime in its internal affairs.

Please let me know if you have any questions.