Germany: Clarifying the Facts in a Radio Interview

I live in Bruchsal, a small city near Karlsruhe, where the offices of the German Federal Prosecutor are located. The lawsuit by German practitioners against Jiang Zemin and fifteen other Chinese officials involved in the persecution of Falun Gong was submitted to the German Federal Prosecutor in Karlsruhe. Several weeks ago, a second assembly focusing on the lawsuit was organised there too. I used this opportunity to clarify the facts at a radio station in Bruchsal that had taken the initiative to report the lawsuit against Jiang when it was first submitted. By chance, the hostess of the radio station had graduated from a Chinese college and one of her college classmates was a German Falun Gong practitioner. When she talked about her classmate, she praised his Chinese proficiency highly. Thanks to her classmate, she already had a positive understanding of Falun Gong. We talked for a long time, our topics ranging from the cultivation method of Falun Gong to the recent developments of the persecution in China.

Afterwards, she decided to produce a forty-five minute programme about Falun Gong to be broadcast several weeks later. The first part of the programme would introduce the cultivation method, the particular features of Falun Gong and its worldwide popularity, while the latter part of the programme would be about the persecution. In addition, the hostess planned to interview a German expert on the problems in China over the phone. Also, she borrowed the book Falun Gong to read.

So, several days ago, a practitioner from Karlsruhe and I went to the radio station. While we waited in the hall, we introduced Falun Gong to the receptionist who took a deep interest. She asked us about the reason for the persecution. We did not get to talk about the persecution in detail before it was time to hurry into the broadcasting studio.

During the first twenty minutes of the broadcast, my fellow practitioner and I took turns introducing the origin and principles of Falun Gong as well as how to go about learning the exercises. We discussed Falun Gong’s spread around the world and also our own personal experiences and understanding of cultivation. Though we did not specifically arrange the content of our individual remarks, we coordinated well, adding extra information to eachother’s comments. Therefore, the questions were answered in quite a satisfying way. In the following twenty minutes, the German expert on the situation in China objectively explained the reasons behind the crackdown on Falun Gong in China. The explanation was quite positive, so we only needed to add a little extra information. At the end of the programme, the lawsuit against Jiang Zemin taking place in Germany was mentioned.

After the programme came to an end, we shook hands with the hostess, saying, “You did a good job!” “No, it was you who were terrific,” she said. When we returned to the reception area, the receptionist pointed to a speaker on her desk, saying, “I heard all of what you said. It was interesting and very good!”