On the morning of January the 28th 2004, the French Falun Dafa Association held a press conference outside the Supreme Court in Paris. They announced that the Falun Gong practitioners who were badly treated and arrested during Hu Jintao’s Chinese New Year visit are preparing to sue the responsible French authorities.

"We recognise that these acts of repression were not the wish of the French people and government and that they were the result of pressure from the Chinese government and its spreading of fabricated lies about Falun Gong. As a democratic country, France should have stood up for liberty and human rights under the evil pressure. Faced with political and economic interest, the French government, through these acts of repression, has not only sent a wrong message to China, but also violated basic principles of civil and human rights."

On January the 28th, some delegates attending the international conference on ‘Genocide in the New Era’, together with practitioners from Europe, North America and Asia held a press conference at the Swedish Parliament, regarding the French Government’s treatment of Falun Gong and their kowtowing to Beijing. During the period of the Chinese New Year Parade and Hu Jintao’s visit to France, the Paris police unreasonably arrested several Falun Gong practitioners who did not do anything wrong.

'“When your boss wrongfully scolds you, it is already quite a skill to remain calm. It’s even stronger if you really are calm inside. And that is something I can achieve since I started practising Falun Gong," says Matthias Slaats, who is a fervent adherent of this Chinese teaching.'

I discovered that the Chinese Embassy has been spreading newspapers that slander Falun Gong in my college. They also said that freedom of speech is for foreigners, and Chinese are not allowed to talk about freedom. In other ways, when overseas Chinese students obtain newspapers in the college, they are still being poisoned by the fake news from the Chinese media. I think the behaviour of the Chinese Embassy should be exposed because what they have done is sinister and it degrades the Chinese people. In addition, to expose the efforts of the Chinese media in controlling the people can eliminate the poison spread by Jiang’s lies.

On January the 25th, Dafa practitioners went to Manchester’s Chinatown to hold celebration activities for the Spring Festival. While here, practitioners handed out flyers and clarified the facts about Falun Gong to Chinese people and westerners. The Chinese people's attitude had also changed a lot. When receiving information from practitioners, many of them sincerely said thank you. Some of them even asked for information about practice sites and said that they would like to learn the exercises.

Each session of "Tightening Rope" lasts ten to twenty minutes. After the rope is loosened, the victim has lost the feeling in his arms, and it takes a long time to regain it. For those who have experienced this torture, their arms are often disabled in severe cases, or they cannot raise their arms or they lose some function in the arms. The marks left on the arms by the rope usually don't disappear for one or two years.

Mr. Li was brought back to the Yuanshan Police Station dead. Before the funeral, when his family members tried to change his clothes, they found that his clothes were stuck to his body with blood and could not be taken off. Mr. Li Jingdong died from gross injustice. His elderly mother cried, and there is now no one to care for his young child. A family was torn apart.

The group leader of the inmate guards, Wang Xiaohong, was sentenced to three years of forced labour for drug trafficking. Prison guard Yu Fangli has taken a 400 yuan bribe from Wang Xiaohong. Wang is used for torturing Falun Gong practitioners. In exchange for her services and for the bribe, Wang Xiaohong can even use her mobile phone to organise drug trafficking from the forced labour camp hospital.

Gao You then insulted me and the other practitioners. He said to me, "I will send for the two retarded guys in Xiangyang Village to rape you." He also said, "Never mind being a good person according to truthfulness, compassion and tolerance, why don't you sell your body?" He even said, "Raping someone's wife is a good skill -- I don't care, do whatever you want to do as long as you don't practise Falun Gong."

The police tied one female practitioner 14 times--until her shoulders were bleeding. They also said, "If you don't transform, we'll drive you insane!" In the Gaoyang Forced Labour Camp, practitioners are routinely beaten and shocked. One female police officer told the Falun Gong practitioners, "When you come here, you come to the Palace of the King of Hell."

I understand that because of Dafa’s choice Fa-rectification exists and with it the hope that our lives can be saved. Otherwise, everything would have been destroyed. Dafa’s choice is the foundation for the birth of the myriad things in the cosmos, and is also the precise reason why our lives are generated, renewed and saved. Harmonizing Dafa’s choice is the overall meaning for the generation and existence of our lives.

On the afternoon of January 29, 2004, Falun Gong practitioners in Washington DC held a press conference in front of the French Embassy. The practitioners urged the French Government to take immediate action to correct its wrongful detention of Falun Gong practitioners to avoid further damage to France's image in the international community.

'The group [...] demanded Taiwan's foreign ministry relay a strong protest to Paris over what it called an "unreasonable and unlawful" act infringing on the basic rights and freedom of its members. "They were checked by French police on the streets just because they were wearing yellow scarves. The police could not give them any proper reasons, except (for) saying 'yellow scarves are illegal in France today'," Chang Chin-Hwa, a spokeswoman for Taiwan Falun Dafa, or Falun Gong, told AFP.'

Falun Gong practitioners in South Australia area participated in the annual National Day parade. During the parade, some practitioners demonstrated Falun Gong exercises while others displayed traditional Chinese attire. The local community thoroughly enjoyed the parade.