On March 7, 2002, hearing that four Australian Dafa practitioners went to Tiananmen Square to appeal and were arrested, and seeing the call for 'urgent rescue' on Minghui net, Melbourne Dafa Practitioners took action immediately by contacting media, sitting in front of the Chinese Consulate in Melbourne from 6:00 p.m. to 10:00 p.m. in the evening, sending forth righteous thoughts at the top of each hour, and holding a press conference the next morning.

Melbourne Media Extend Broad Coverage to the Tiananmen Appeal of Australian Practitioners

Perhaps because the Australian practitioners were almost all from Melbourne, all local TV stations dispatched report teams, which was a first for Melbourne. Nearly 20 practitioners did the sitting meditation and sent forth righteous thoughts on the lawn across from the consulate. Reporters from Radio stations and TV stations interviewed six practitioners. Some stations made live reports. TV channels 10 and 9 covered the event on the noon news as the first and second news item, respectively. They also reported the interview with Melbourne's Falun Dafa spokesperson. The SBC national radio broadcasting station covered the event on their noon news too. The Sky News Australia radio station broadcast the event every half hour and included it as a news headline every 15 minutes.

On the evening news, every TV station covered the event. TV channels 10 and 9 reported extensively about each practitioner arrested, including a former silver medallist in Olympic Swimming and the interview with the spokesperson. These reports helped the Australian people to learn about the Jiang regime's inhuman persecution of Falun Gong and the worldwide spread of Dafa.