Germany: People Ask Practitioners, "What Can We Do To Help You?" at Anti-Torture Exhibition in Nuremberg

September in Germany is a very nice time of year. It is the best time for people to do outdoor activities. It is also the time of Nuremberg’s city festival. The streets of the old city are filled with people. On the 11th of September, practitioners from Bavaria obtained permission for an information day to introduce Falun Gong and expose to the general public the ongoing torture of practitioners in China. We also collected signatures in support of suing Jiang Zemin for his genocide against Falun Gong practitioners.

Nuremberg is a famous ancient city in Germany. It is located in the state of Bavaria. Nuremberg was the capital of the German Holy Roman Empire in medieval times. It was also the base for Nazis during World War II. Nazis used to have big gatherings here. After World War II, Nazi war criminals were also put on trial by the allies in Nuremberg. The citizens of Nuremberg are therefore not unfamiliar with the word “Genocide”.

Many passersby stopped to read our information boards, they came to ask for information and wanted to learn the facts about Falun Gong in detail. A lot of people felt it was unthinkable and shocking that cruel means of torture such as force-feeding with salty water are used to force Falun Gong practitioners to give up their belief. They immediately signed our petition to express their support for bringing the prime culprit in the persecution of Falun Gong to court. There were also people who wanted to donate money. When they learned that Falun Gong does not accept donations they instead signed our petition to show their support for stopping this persecution. Many people, after signing the petition, asked what else they could do to help us. We told them that they could go and tell other people about Falun Gong or take more Falun Gong materials to give to their friends and family. They were very happy to take more leaflets and Video-CDs with them.

One old gentleman took a few leaflets and said he wanted to give them to people in the nursing home for the old aged residents. A teacher asked us for a copy of a poster with pictures and illustrations and the information material about practitioner Gao Rongrong’s disfigurement to her face. He wanted to use them as teaching material in class. There was also a lady who cried uncontrollably and wrote down her name and address on our “Bring Jiang to Justice” petition after seeing the force-feeding torture and illustrations of the torture methods and hearing the personal experience of Falun Gong practitioner Wang Yuzhi, who was force-fed when illegally detained in a labour camp. With tears in her eyes, she asked practitioners if such tortures are really being carried out every day in China. When practitioners told her that this is really happening in China, she cried even more and was extremely sad. Her husband was also very sad. After she signed the petition, he also signed. Because there were so many people waiting to sign the petition, we set up another petition board for people to sign.

There was a little moving story in the course of the signature collection. A lady came to our stand to learn Falun Gong. She told us that she had been to China before and has many good friends in China. Although she thought that such torture should not happen, she did not want to sign the “Bring Jiang to Justice” petition because she feared that she would have problem to obtain a Chinese visa next time. As soon as she said that, a gentleman beside her told her unreservedly that the next person being persecuted would be you, if you thought this way, you would be persecuted sooner or later. That lady felt very uneasy. In order to ease the atmosphere a little, practitioners suggested to her that she read our materials when she went home and then make her decision.

When our activities finished, we met a German who had just returned from China as a tourist. He talked with us about his impression of China. When he saw the big modern cities, he felt China was progressive. But when he heard personally from a Chinese teacher that students had to bribe him in order to get good scores, he felt the degree of corruption was unthinkable. Not only was the teacher unashamed of what he did, he dared to openly tell other people. After our talk, he understood the false picture of the Chinese economy and also understood facts about Falun Gong. He signed the petition.

During this activity, we also heard concerns from ordinary people that the media should stand up and spread the facts about Falun Gong, and that the media should not keep quiet.

Having considered that Nuremberg is a very diverse city with many tourists, businessmen and immigrants, we specially prepared information materials in different languages. Many people were nicely surprised when they got Falun Gong materials in their own languages in a foreign country. An old Greek gentleman, after reading Falun Gong materials, asked practitioners for all the remaining materials in Greek and said he wanted to pass them to his Greek friends. Materials in English, Italian and Spanish all went very quickly. It’s unfortunate that we didn’t prepare enough materials in Japanese, Vietnamese and Turkish. We were very sorry to disappoint these people.

During the activity, we also met people who wanted to practise Falun Gong. A Chinese person hoped to get a copy of Zhuan Falun to read. There were also German people who wanted to know where our exercise sites were. One German person was so interested in this cultivation way that he spent a long time carefully reading the exhibition board introducing Falun Gong. Practitioners gave him a miniature copy of the exhibition board and he was very happy.

We will continue our information day activity next week. There were already people who were interested in Falun Gong contacting us. More and more people saw through the evil nature of this persecution and hoped this persecution would end soon. At the same time, more and more people are awakening to the principle of Truthfulness, Compassion and Forbearance.