Germany: International Human Rights Day in Bremen

On International Human Rights Day, practitioners from Northern Germany held an appeal to raise awareness of the persecution against Falun Gong amongst the citizens of the coastal town of Bremen. The appeal took place in a square in front of the train station. The topic of the day was the plight of the people in China who are suffering torture and slave labour in forced labour camps because of their belief in “Truth, Compassion and Tolerance”, the principles of Falun Gong.

This persecution violates and disregards basic human rights that are guaranteed by the Chinese constitution, including the right to basic human dignity and freedom of religion. The persecution is directed against kind people who want to freely practise their faith in peace.

The north German practitioners called on the citizens of Bremen to stand up for human rights and sign a petition supporting the lawsuit against the former Chinese head of state, Jiang Zemin, who is personally responsible for the persecution.

As the former German President Johannes Rau remarked last year during a state visit to China, human rights have a “universal meaning”. He further stated that “concerning basic human rights, life and freedom, and the arbitrary deprivation of freedom and discrimination, our basic attitude has to be without compromises or prevarication.”

Live demonstrations of the torture methods used to force Falun Gong practitioners to renounce their beliefs graphically showed the daily horrors suffered by practitioners in China. Passersby were shocked by the brutality of the scenes and the depiction of torture victims on the posters and banners was able to touch even the most hardened of hearts.

The citizens of Bremen recognised the consequences of their support when they heard about the fate of former Berlin University student, Xiong Wei. Xiong Wei was released and allowed to return to Germany in September after serving two years in a Chinese forced labour camp. She had been arrested illegally while distributing flyers. During those two years, many of Bremen’s citizens signed petitions and sent postcards to the forced labour camp in order to ensure her freedom.