Awaking to the Reality: Interview with a UK Practitioner about the Anti-Torture Exhibition

The graphic make up and the mock-up torture devices of the anti-torture exhibition outside the Houses or Parliament on July 18th had a profound effect not only on the intended audience of tourists who passed by, but also on the participants. For Zek Halu, a Falun Gong practitioner from London, participating that day continued a process which had begun when he read the story of a Falun Gong practitioner who’s face was destroyed through seven hours of repeated shocks with electric batons. “She was really a beautiful, stunning-looking young woman whose face and life have been destroyed by this torture. At first, the effect on me was not so noticeable after I read about it, you know, I cried a little and that was about it. But then I found I stopped sleeping so much. I started sleeping a much shorter period time than before and each time I would wake up and think, “What can I do today to help women like her more?” Today, participating in this anti-torture exhibition, that feeling has simply deepened; I feel I have less time for myself, and I don’t want to do things for myself. I just want to do what I can to expose the persecution of these innocent people who believe in following truthfulness, compassion forbearance.”

The anti-torture exhibition was the first of its kind in the UK, following the enormous success of such exhibitions in the United States and in other places around the world.

For many people, including even Falun Gong practitioners, the persecution of Falun Gong in China can remain something intangible, unbelievable and distant; something only understood through nameless statistics and faceless stories. The agony, brutality and horror of the torture methods and their effects are something that simply cannot be contained within words alone.

Just as the plight of the young victims in China and the anti-torture exhibits had brought the reality of the persecution much closer to Zek, so it was hoped the anti-torture exhibition, through its vivid portrayal of the reality of agonising torture, could bring home to people what is really happening in China.

Zek describes how any prior concerns that the very graphic nature of the exhibition may put some people off or offend them turned out to be unfounded. “My experience has been that people come forward and they really want to help. While we are standing here in sunny London on a Sunday, while people are relaxing, or going for a walk, this horrendous torture is going on in China at this moment. Women, children and men are being beaten to death through horrendous ways. We are showing a fraction of the 117 tortures which Amnesty International has mentioned. But even they are so shocking that people are really touched deeply and awakened. We make it clear that this is make up and that no one is hurt here and that the horrendous gaping wounds you see are just make up and that all the devices are just theatrical props. But it does bring home the awful truth of the world that we live in.”

Observing the exhibition from the shadow of the nearby Westminster Abbey, the steady stream of passing tourists that day who could nearly all been seen accepting leaflets and stopping to look was confirmation of the success of the event. The large proportion of people stopping to sign petitions, read the posters and talk with practitioners also bore witness to the very powerful effect which the exhibits created.

Yet Zek also emphasises the need for sensitivity and to act with compassion, pointing out that the primary intention of the event is to responsibly inform people of the reality, not to shock them. Having volunteered to talk about the exhibits to the onlookers over a megaphone, Zek was faced with the issue of how to be sensitive to the audience but at the same time not to shy away from the reality which he feels they have a right to know and he has a responsibility to expose. “The first torture to talk about is forced abortion and that brings tears to my eyes. An eight month old baby is poisoned and suffers maybe forty two hours of agony before dying and being expelled by the body of the mother. I don’t want to start by saying this. This is the most horrendous thing for me, destroying life before it even begins. So I am thinking about those people who are standing horrified listening, I am softening my voice, speaking calmly and softly without any edges in my voice. Because I don’t want these people to be hurt any more by what they are seeing. I am trying to reach out to these people and make it easier for them to absorb the horror of what is going on. But at the same time I must tell the truth about it, it is horrendous. I think that when I describe what is happening, my job is to present it in such a way that isn’t hard, that isn’t zealous, that isn’t extreme, that isn’t sensationalist. It’s very easy to be sensationalist about the torture because it is such a horrendous thing. The purpose is just to inform, that actually THIS is what is going on. What you are seeing is only a tiny part and then it is up to people to do what they need to do. They are free to do what they want we just present it hopeful in a compassionate, restrained and kind way. That’s the purpose.”

For Zek, informing people is an issue of enabling them to take responsibility for what is happening in China and enabling them to actively condemn the persecution rather than passively condoning it through inaction. “We are trying to inform these people. Why are we trying to inform them? It is out of compassion for them. When someone is tortured, I am tortured. When a Falun Gong practitioner is tortured, I am being tortured and it is the same for these people here too. They know this too and they are learning that if they do not condemn it they are actually condoning the torture. So my job is simply to be compassionate and to help them come to that realisation that, “If I stay silent I am condoning it, I become part of the persecution. If I. do not say anything I am condoning it.” and that’s the choice every human being is facing today.

The quiet endurance of the practitioners who were acting out the role of torture victims was a powerful part of the exhibition, according to Zek. “It is painful. You just try to sit like that and people feel that. When they see practitioners doing that, that’s what moves them, because they see how serious we are, how sincere we are.”

In fact, the process of seeing how his fellow practitioners had approached the event and prepared for it in general had also touched him, “For me there were two striking things. The first is how responsibly everyone was approaching it. If something needed to be done, it would be done. The other thing was how sincerely everything was done. (There was laughter too. In between the serious moments, there was a lot of joy too.) I remember one practitioner came in and she realised that she was going to be asked to be a tortured person, and she sat down and just thought really seriously about it. The people who were playing the guards too, they wanted to make sure that they could really portray the sternness of those guys in the labour camps so that they could really show the people the real situation and how mean those prison guards are.”

But it seems that Zek is not the only person for whom the anti-torture exhibition was a powerful experience. He gives an example of a Chinese practitioner, “The person who made the frame from which people are handcuffed, he did not want to make that frame. He cried and said he did not want to make this frame because it is such a horrendous device and he cried and said that he really didn’t want to do it. But in the end he did it and made it and now we can use it today for such a tremendous purpose.” Looking at the bloodstained shirts and monstrous devices portrayed in the exhibition it is easy to understand the feelings of this practitioner, no one wants to have to deal with things of such suffering and agony, let alone replicate them. Yet, as long as they exist and are used for such evil purposes, we have no choice but in the end to turn to face the reality of their existence and do whatever we can to expose them to the world.