In October 2001, Practitioners from Austria and other countries came to Karlovac, Croatia's Capital, to hold Hongfa activities. Their activities have received very positive feedback. Two days later, October 28, 2001, the biggest local newspaper Jutarnji List published an article reporting on the Hongfa activities. The article offered an opportunity for more people to know Dafa and be aware of the persecution of Chinese government against Falun Gong. The following is the English translation of the original article.

Thirty citizens of Karlovac joined Falun Gong

Spiritual practice: Croatians started learning the exercises, for which the practitioners in China are brutally persecuted

Truthfulness, compassion and tolerance are the fundamental principles of Falun Gong, said Miljenko Brkic, who most contributes to spreading Falun Gong in Croatia. Everything in Falun Gong is free of charge, there is no membership and nobody records any information on practitioners.

KARLOVAC - About thirty citizens of Karlovac joined Falun Gong, a Chinese method for improving mind and body, for which practitioners are persecuted by the Chinese government, on Saturday evening in the city library.

They are the first in Croatia, but also on the space of former Yugoslavia, which started become more organized in practicing Falun Gong, also called Falun Dafa exercises. Truthfulness, compassion and tolerance are the fundamental principles of Falun Gong and Miljenko Brkic from Karlovac, professor on the faculty of philosophy in Zagreb, most contributed to its spreading in Croatia. He gets great support from the 30 year old Igor Jancev from Sarajevo, who lives in Vienna.

First exercises started

One month ago, I contacted Mr. Jancev in Vienna, and today we already have our first exercises. Igor is practicing this method for years and has a great wish to spread it to the citizens in the countries of former Yugoslavia. We in Karlovac first showed interest in Falun Gong, and according to the reactions, the practice will also found great reception in other parts of Croatia, said professor Brkic.

During the exercises on Saturday, there were a couple of people from Zagreb who asked for contacts so they can bring the practice to the capitol. Soon there will be videocassettes and books, with an explanation of the exercises. It's also remarkable that everything in connection with Falun Gong is free of charge, there is no membership and nobody takes down any information on practitioners.

This is neither a xx or religion. Through exercises and by applying the principles of truthfulness, compassion and tolerance in daily life, the health can be significantly improved, stress can be lessened and inner peace and harmony with everything around us can be achieved. This is confirmed by tens of millions of adherents around the world. Falun Gong is really needed in these countries - said Mr. Jancev, who already established contacts with sympathizers in Sarajevo, Ljubljana, Skopje and Beograd.

Strong support for the tortured Chinese Falun Gong practitioners was sent out from Karlovac. As emphasized, they will also try with peaceful methods to draw the attention of Chinese and the world public to the crimes that the Chinese regime is doing to the practitioners in China. They said, they are not afraid that they could also be a target of the persecution. Falun Gong has spread to more than 40 countries and in many of them they got proclamations.

Two young practitioners from Austria who came to Karlovac only for that reason, demonstrated the exercises.

Peace between nations

They say, nothing is hard for them, because they spread peace and goodness to all nations. What we could see, the movements of the exercises are simple and easy. As the young Falun Gong practitioners mentioned, the exercises are effective, and they support and regulate the energy processes in the body and eliminate the energy blockages. As Professor Brkic said, there are more than enough interested people so that a healthy core of Falun Gong in Croatia can be formed. Additional information can be found on the web page: www.falundafa.org or by Jancev's e-mail: igjan@yahoo.de.

Falun Gong followers in China are detained in labor camps

Falun Gong was introduced to the public by Mr. Li Hongzhi in the year 1992. After only a short time, this practice gained great popularity and right now there are more than 100 million followers around the world. The appearance of such a mass movement made the Chinese regime nervous, so the government in Peking banned Falun Gong 1999, despite the fact that Falun Gong is not political and is a totally peaceful meditation movement.

To date, in China more than 100,000 Falun Gong followers have been arrested, more than 20,000 have been detained in labor camps, and more than 1,000 healthy people are sent to "reeducation" in psychiatric hospitals. According to some information, more than 1,000 practitioners have died at the hands of the Chinese police.