We held a peaceful appeal in front of the Houses of Parliament on Tuesday December 10th – International Human Rights Day. The human rights situation for Falun Gong practitioners in China is one of the worst in the world and we wanted to make as many people as possible aware of this, and ask them to help us call for an end to the Jiang regime’s persecution. The road in front of the Parliament is very large and busy and passengers on the cars, trams and buses could all see the enormous and bright SOS characters that were spelled out with candles. Many people were attracted by this beautiful scene and came to take photographs, particularly as the practitioners did the Dafa exercises.

There were some Members of Parliament at work in the building and when they left we gave them VCDs. These contain short films that reveal how over 500 Chinese practitioners have been killed and hundreds of thousands have been falsely imprisoned in labour camps and detention centres, where they are subject to torture and beatings.

Some of the Parliament Members were supportive and wished us good luck in our appeal for an end to this persecution. One man, who had recently signed an appeal letter to Jiang Zemin, agreed that the situation of practitioners in China would improve when more people are aware of the scale of this suppression, that affects not only the 100 million practitioners of Dafa but also their friends and family. In China many practitioners’ family members have been intimidated, arrested and even violently treated because their relatives practise Falun Gong. One lady from the Parliament was very happy to see the practitioners. She asked for details of the local exercise practice site and said that she would like to learn Falun Gong.