“The police barred the demonstrators from unfolding their banners just as the Chinese consulate hoped.”
The Chinese consulate in Munich represents the Chinese authorities and seems very sensitive to anything related to their reputation. The following event had drawn criticism from the Chinese consular official, Yao Yachen. On June 1st, the Dalai Lama was invited to deliver a speech in the Olympia centre in Munich; the Mayor, Christian Ude, stepped on to the stage and had a friendly conversation with Dalai Lama, but neither of them uttered any criticism of the Chinese government.
The Munich Mayor promised that no one in the future would have the power to decide whom he should talk to. The Mayor hoped that the police in Munich would have the same democratic consciousness.
Falun Gong practitioners in Munich reported:
“On Friday and Saturday we staged a peaceful demonstration in front of the Chinese consulate in Munich. The theme of our demonstration was telling people about the lawsuit charging the former Chinese leader, Jiang Zemin, with genocide and human rights violations. It was under this theme that the Munich City Hall guaranteed us permission for our demonstration on June 18th.
We unfolded two banners which read, ‘Please Support the Lawsuit against Jiang Zemin for Committing Genocide in China’ (in German,) and ‘The International Organisation to Investigate the Persecution in China Has Been Set Up. Jiang and His Gang Are Charged with Genocide in America’ (in Chinese.)
Mr. Wu, one of the Chinese consulate staff, then reported our demonstration to the police. The policeman said that in his opinion the two banners were insulting and he asked us to take them away. The policeman indicated that we could not display the two banners in the future.
One of the demonstrators asked to speak with the Police Chief, but two other policemen immediately told her that the Police Chief did not want to talk to her. We demanded the police to give us a document and also to sign their names on it. In this way, we unfolded our banners.
On the next day, that is Saturday June 21st 2003, the Police Chief drove his own car to come and talk to the two policemen on duty. We tried again to talk to him and the other two policemen, but the ban was not lifted. Because it was the weekend, there was no staff on duty in the Munich administrative court.
The originally scheduled time for our demonstration was from Thursday to Saturday, but the time period needed to be lengthened so as to display the banners that explain the theme of our demonstration.
We felt that our freedom of expression enshrined in the German constitution was illegally curtailed. We believed that the words ‘Please Support the Lawsuit against Jiang Zemin for Committing Genocide in China’ displayed on the banners could cause no insult. If the information we tried to convey annoyed the Chinese consulate, then let them look at the suffering of the persecuted people in China.
It is a fact that Jiang is being charged with genocide in America. It is not an insult to tell people the facts. We think we are obliged to tell people, particularly the Chinese, of their duty as consulate staff. We explained that an international organisation to investigate the persecution of Falun Gong has been set up, and this did not bring any insult, either.
Jurgen Thierack, spokesman of the Munich Branch of the International Human Rights Association, thinks that in the past few years there have been some violations of freedom of expression and demonstration by political measures, and the situation is still continuing. “In Berlin and Dresden there are witnesses saying that the German police were directly commended by the Chinese officials during Jiang’s visit in April, 2002.”
Thierack reminded us to notice the judgement on Jiang’s visit in 1995 made by the Munich administrative court on January 21 1999. Based on the indication of the Bavaria State government, the police used loud music to stop the demonstrators and police cars were used to keep people from human rights organisations out of sight. According to the court, the meaning of making such a judgement years later lies in setting up the standard of judgement for future cases (the doctrine of precedent), Thierack said. “Now the police in Munich should be wise enough to consider such a standard.”
Translated from Chinese at http://www.yuanming.net/articles/200306/21791.html
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