Texas: Falun Dafa at Houston Black Heritage Fest

(Minghui.org) Falun Dafa practitioners participated in the 6th Houston Black Heritage Fest October 8 - 9, 2022, at Emancipation Park. They introduced Falun Dafa, demonstrated the exercises, and collected signatures on a petition to end the Chinese Communist Party’s (CCP) 23-year-long persecution of the spiritual practice. They also invited people to attend an in-person free workshop that will be held in January.

Practitioners participated in the Houston Black Heritage Fest October 8-9. After learning about the persecution, many people signed the petition to end it.

The festival featured performances, traditional handicrafts, and artwork, drawing many people from Houston and nearby cities to come and enjoy.

Practitioners displayed Falun Dafa flyers and other truth-clarifying materials about the CCP’s persecution and its state-sanctioned organ harvesting from living practitioners. They also had information about the free nine-day class to be held in Houston in January 2023, and visitors could watch short videos about Falun Dafa.

Many people came to the Falun Dafa booth and learned about the practice. There were two memorable encounters. The first night of the event, a girl and her mother came to the Falun Dafa booth. The girl’s eyes were glued to the introductory videos and she seemed reluctant to leave. She imitated the exercise movements in the short film and started doing them with the practitioner at the booth. The practitioner taught her how to do the five exercises and also taught her to recite the special phrases “Falun Dafa is good, Truthfulness-Compassion-Forbearance is good” in Chinese. The girl learned very seriously and gave the practitioner a hug before she left.

A little girl came to the booth and asked to learn the Falun Dafa exercises.

The next day Iry and his wife Rhonda stopped to watch the practitioners’ exercise demonstration. Iry said that he also meditated and knew about qigong. The practitioner told him about his own experience of practicing Falun Dafa and showed him a copy of Zhuan Falun. As Iry looked at the book, he kept nodding his head and saying, “This makes sense.” He said that he would definitely go online and look at the Falun Dafa website.

Invited by the event organizer, four practitioners demonstrated the exercises on the stage. Some in the audience imitated their movements. The atmosphere was calm and peaceful.

Afterward, many people came to the booth to get information about Falun Dafa. A man brought a lady over and said that she had cancer and was seeking all sorts of remedies. The practitioner told her about Falun Dafa and suggested that she repeat the two auspicious phrases. This lady wrote down the pronunciation of the Chinese phrases in English and registered for the nine-day class. She even asked the practitioner again if that was really all she needed to do to be able to attend the class. The practitioner reassured her that those who registered for the class would be contacted and reminded.

During the two-day event, more than 10 people left their contact information and registered for the nine-day class in January.

Background: What Is Falun Dafa and Why Is the CCP Persecuting It?

Falun Dafa (also known as Falun Gong) was first introduced to the public by Mr. Li Hongzhi in Changchun, China, in 1992. The spiritual discipline is now practiced in over 100 countries and regions worldwide. Millions of people who have embraced the teachings, which are based on the principles of Truthfulness, Compassion, and Forbearance, and have learned the five exercises have experienced improved health and well-being.

Jiang Zemin, former head of the CCP, perceived the spiritual discipline’s growing popularity as a threat to the CCP’s atheistic ideology and on July 20, 1999, he issued an order to eradicate the practice.

Under Jiang’s personal direction, the CCP established the 610 Office, an extralegal security organization with the power to override the police and judicial systems and whose sole function is to carry out the persecution of Falun Dafa.

Minghui.org has confirmed the deaths of thousands of practitioners as a result of the persecution over the past 23 years. The actual number is believed to be much higher. Countless practitioners have been imprisoned and tortured for their faith.

There is concrete evidence that the CCP sanctions the harvesting of organs from detained practitioners, who are murdered to supply China’s organ transplant industry.