Austria: Anti-Torture Exhibition on World Human Rights Day Receives Widespread Support

On December the 10th 2004, World Human Rights Day, Austrian Falun Gong practitioners took the opportunity to organise an anti- torture exhibition on Vienna’s Stephansplatz. The low winter temperatures did not prevent an incredible number of tourists and Viennese citizens from visiting downtown Vienna. At the same time, they were able to hear about the persecution of Falun Gong.

Large tourist groups, entire school classes and numerous passersby heard about the five and a half years of cruel persecution that Falun Gong practitioners are suffering in China. Shocked by the scenes of torture being re-enacted in front of their eyes, many of the onlookers wanted to find out more. They read the flyers being distributed by the practitioners and many stopped at the information table to chat with the practitioners.

One young man spoke for more than twenty minutes with one of the practitioners. He wanted to know everything about Falun Gong and why it is being persecuted in China. He couldn’t believe that people are being tortured in China because they practise Falun Gong, especially after he found out that Falun Gong is a peaceful meditation practice with five sets exercises that is deeply rooted in the culture principles of “Truthfulness, Compassion and Tolerance.” He thought it very confusing that people who try to live by those principles are suffering such terrible human rights abuses.

The practitioner continued to tell him the history of Falun Gong. She spoke about 1992, when Mr. Li Hongzhi brought this practice to the public and how it rose in popularity until 1999 when one hundred million people were practising. She spoke of the sudden turn of events in July 1999, the time when Jiang Zemin, the former leader of the Chinese Communist Party, launched the persecution. He also heard about the “6-10 Office”, the Gestapo-like agency that Jiang Zemin created solely for the purpose of persecuting Falun Gong that is above all laws in China.

The practitioner told this man how the Chinese regime exports the persecution to western countries. One example the practitioner gave is how Vienna’s Chinese Consulate refused to extend her husband’s Chinese passport for no other reason than he practises Falun Gong and publicly calls for an end to the persecution. The young man was deeply engrossed in all that the practitioner said and before leaving he signed a petition calling for the release of Charles Li, an American Falun Gong practitioner who has been imprisoned for two years after he visited China. The man took several articles that he wanted to share with his Chinese acquaintances.

People stopped at the information table to get free postcards, bookmarks and badges reading, “The Whole World Knows the Persecution is Wrong.” During the entire day at Stephansplatz, many people recognised the stark contrasts between the peaceful Falun Gong exercises and the cruel persecution against the practice in China; they were deeply touched.