Belgian Dafa Practitioner Interviewed on National TV about the Genocide Lawsuit against Jiang
'Aan tafel' ('at the table') is a talk show on TV1, Belgium's national
Flemish TV station. 'Aan tafel' features a host and guests sitting around a
table and has been the most successful talk show of the summer. The guests are
people who have been part of the news in the days leading up to the show. On
Thursday August 21st, a Belgian Falun Gong practitioner was invited onto the
programme to give a 'testimony' about Falun Gong, the persecution and the
lawsuit launched against Jiang Zemin and his accomplices in Belgium. Host: Welcome to 'At The Table'. For the people that haven't been
following this story, it has been in the news yesterday, let's start from the
beginning. What does Falun Gong stand for? Practitioner: Falun Gong is actually a cultivation method of
mind and body. What does that mean? Falun Gong is based on 3 principles, truth,
compassion and tolerance. And we try to apply those three principles as best we
can in our daily lives. Host: And how is this expressed? By, first of all, thinking of others first, by trying to put
aside one's ego. And are there any rituals that accompany that, or how does it
work? No, absolutely not. Falun Gong is cultivation practice of
mind and body, with the three principles we live by for the mind and to
cultivate the body, we do exercises. Physical exercises, like Tai Chi or Yoga,
very slow movements. Show some, so we can get an impression of such things... Ah,
so you have to stand up for it? Yes, yes. So we have four standing exercises and 1 sitting
meditation exercise. Do one please. One movement we do for instance is going up and down with the
hands, following the body... What does that do? ...We do this 9 times in a row. What do you feel then? It makes energy flow through your body. So the energy goes
through our body and as a result our body is being purified. It's actually to
achieve a healthy body and to maintain it. No one can be against that, can they? A healthy mind in a
healthy body. But how did you get into contact with these movements? Actually, it was through my husband. My husband came into
contact with it about four years ago through an article in a newspaper. And at
that time he was already practicing Qigong and Tai Chi, just like the movements
I just showed, to purify the body and attain better health. That has been done
for ages in the East and has now slowly reached the West. It has now become such a big group, especially in China, more
than 70 million it has being said have converted to Falun Gong, so to say. Not converted. Converted..., I mean that are practising it. Is that more
accurate? Yes. Ok, now the Falun Gong movement has submitted a complaint
against the Chinese government. And this is what VRT News said about it
yesterday: "The first complaint of the new genocide law that has only just been
enacted has been filed this morning in Brussels by 6 practitioners of Falun
Gong. Meanwhile, others have been demonstrating how they meditate in Falun
Gong in front of the court building. The Chinese government have been
persecuting Falun Gong practitioners systematically, torturing them and even
killing them since 1999 under the order of the then leader, Jiang Zemin." Yes. That is of course a little strange if you tell it like
that, I want to believe that it's just about a healthy mind in a healthy body.
But why would they want to absolutely ban Falun Gong in China? What we think is that in China, Falun Gong has very quickly
become enormously popular. It was in 1992 that it was made public for the first
time. Its popularity grew enormously during the next seven years, so that 70
million people, like you just mentioned, started practising Falun Gong. So, we
think that the president Jiang Zemin feared a large group which was so popular
and as a result, was afraid of losing power. But I cannot quite understand, that if these people only do
these kinds of movements, lead that kind of life. That doesn't mean that they
are going to exercise power, does it? No, absolutely not. We have nothing to do with politics. Nor
with exercising power either. We think it was just fear of the large amount of
people, because there were more Falun Gong members than members of the communist
party at that time, and because Falun Gong was being practised by people from
all walks of life. There were also people of the highest rank in the communist
party practising Falun Gong. Your husband, who also practises, went to China himself and
there he had to deal with persecution. What happened? Last year in February, my husband went to China to try to
help open a dialogue with the Chinese government, to try to stop the
persecution. He planned to join a hundred practitioners from all over the world:
America, Canada, and Europe. But at that time, the Chinese government already
knew that this was going to happen. Every westerner that tried to go to
Tiananmen Square, was arrested and put into jail, and so my husband was arrested
as well and spent twenty four hours in jail. He was then released. Yes, that is bizarre, but why is it exactly that Falun Gong
is forbidden? After all, in China, as is generally known, people have meditated
for ages, go over [the reason] very briefly, the people in power would not have
been surprised by something like Falun Gong, would they? Probably because of its popularity. These exercises have
always been done by many people. But Falun Gong is more than just exercises, we
also hold a philosophy, a way of life and because of that it became immensely
popular. The reason is probably because of the large amount of people. It's forbidden in China, you just said so, but how come so
many people are practising it? Is it done secretly, in a basement or something? Well, the moment the ban was ordered, there were already 70
million people practising Falun Gong. Those people are still practising now. But
because they were not allowed to do it in public anymore, they would have to do
the exercises and read the Falun Gong book at home. What is there in this book? Just the teachings of
Forbearance? The teachings of Falun Gong are actually 9 lectures given by
Mr. Li Hongzhi, who is the person who came out to teach Falun Gong in China. He
has explained how one can live by these three principles. But maybe that's the reason why the government is so afraid,
because there is a man who appears as a Guru so to say. And then they think it's
a kind of cult and then of course bells start ringing... Guru is definitely a wrong word. We indeed have a person who
came out with the teachings, that's why we call him Teacher or Master, out of
respect. But there is no worshipping at all. There is nothing that has anything
to do with a cult. We have no initiation, we don't have membership, we have no
worshipping as I just mentioned, there is no circulation of money, you name
it... [...] You have now filed a complaint, through the new genocide law.
You know how hard it's going to be. What do you hope to accomplish, with this
complaint against Jiang Zemin? We indeed hope that in all different nations, such a lawsuit
will be started, that everybody sees what this persecution actually is, what is
happening in China and that China also sees they are receiving a lot of
attention so they cannot go on as they are doing now. Are there other countries besides China where it is
forbidden? No, absolutely not. We practise Falun Gong in sixty
countries. So in more than sixty countries Falun Gong is being practised, and
China is the only country where it is being slandered. Many problems ahead of you, but let's hope they can be
resolved by this complaint, with the genocide law you are using. Let's hope it
gets a good ending. But that is going to still take some time; you are surely
prepared for that, aren't you? Absolutely. Good luck, in every respect. Many thanks. Source: http://www.clearharmony.net/articles/200308/14763.html
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