On Thursday the 20th of November, visiting Birmingham in the UK as part of David Bowie's tour of Europe, Sterling Campbell, the drummer for the band, took the opportunity to raise awareness of the persecution of Falun Gong. A Falun Gong practitioner since 1998, Sterling had also experienced the persecution first hand when he went to Tiananmen Square to appeal in February of last year. He was unlawfully detained and beaten before being deported. As a westerner, he got off lightly compared to the tens of thousands of Chinese practitioners in labour camps, suffering daily torture and beating.
In the morning, Sterling went to the Town Hall in Birmingham with a few local Falun Gong practitioners, where he handed in a letter for the city mayor. In his letter, Sterling described his own experiences in China, and also the situation of a local practitioner whose passport the Chinese embassy have refused to renew, leaving him unable to leave the UK, or even to visit relatives in China.
In the evening, as the concert goers filed their way into the concert hall for the bands performance that night at the famous NIA venue, practitioners handed out over one thousands leaflets. This was an arrangement made with the organizers of the tour, which allows Falun Gong practitioners to have a display table and to hand out information explaining about Falun Gong and the persecution before and during each concert.
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| Delivering an Appeal Letter at the Town Hall |
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