Article from Germany’s Mittelbayerische Newspaper Exposing the Persecution of an Imprisoned Practitioner from Europe

Xiong Wei Photo by Gietl

During the afternoon of January the 5th 2002, Xiong Wei was distributing information material in Beijing to the hurrying passersby. Suddenly, three plainclothes policemen surrounded her. Xiong Wei’s flyers, which exposed the state-sanctioned persecution of Falun Gong adherents, were confiscated. The thirty-two year old Chinese lady was pushed into a police van. She was first taken to a pre-trial confinement centre and suffered humiliating re-education and torture. Finally, she was taken to and detained at the Daxing Female Forced Labour Camp. Here, she had to meet a daily quota of wrapping 6,000 chopsticks.

For two years, Xiong Wei’s daily companions were guards and security personnel who were loyal to the regime. No attorney! No trial! No judgement! Her father was granted one monthly visit and state-owned surveillance cameras recorded every meeting. Not just that, every move Xiong Wei made during her two-year detention was recorded. Two years of suffering among drug addicts and other political prisoners; it took until January the 5th 2004 for Xiong Wei to gain her freedom.

The young woman told us that two years of forced labour are the norm for Falun Gong practitioners in China. Today, Xiong Wei has returned to Germany, the country where she had lived before her imprisonment by the Chinese authorities. She diligently continues to practise Falun Gong in Germany. This time without fear of state persecution! Thanks to a postcard campaign by the International Society for Human Rights (IGSR), which internationally exposes the fate of Falun Gong adherents, she was able to emigrate from the People’s Republic of China.

Xiong Wei is busy travelling to all German states to “thank everyone for the many thousands of signatures that were instrumental in gaining her release.” But she also does not forget to expose the terrible miscarriages of justice in China.

Xiong Wei was born 1970 in Gansu, West China. Her mother was a paediatrician and her father a senior engineer. In 1992, Xiong Wei took up her economics studies at Germany’s TU Berlin and found a job after graduation. In 1995, she heard about the meditation practice Falun Gong. Since then, she has not stopped reading the books by Li Hongzhi, the founder of Falun Gong who immigrated to New York, and lives by the principles “Truthfulness, Compassion, Tolerance.”

Xiong Wei told us that the Chinese regime felt threatened by Falun Gong. Therefore, they banned this movement in 1999. The Communist regime specially created an agency (“The 610 Office”) that is in charge of persecuting Falun Gong. Xiong Wei wistfully told us that, “Adherents of this meditation school are persecuted by the state security agencies, who use psychological terror methods, beatings and torture.” Tens of thousands of adherents were sent by the regime to re-education camps.

Four years ago, her parents suggested that she should not return to China, as they were fully aware that their daughter had taken up the Falun Gong practice. This Chinese lady rejected her parent’s advice. Today, after nearly a year in freedom, a return to Beijing is impossible for the staunch Falun Gong adherent. She said sadly, “I want to live only in a free country.”

Originally published in German at http://de.clearharmony.net/articles/200411/20681.html