On April 25th 2005, exactly six years after 10,000 Falun Gong practitioners in China went to peacefully appeal for freedom and justice, North German practitioners held activities to call attention to the persecution of Falun Gong in China. To expose the human rights abuses happening to Falun Gong practitioners at the hands of the Chinese Communist Party, they re-enacted some of the torture methods used in cruel attempts to force practitioners to renounce their beliefs. Pictures detailing the torture also attracted many people’s interest. Many people offered messages of support and encouragement. It has been a long time since practitioners encountered such a sympathetic public as the one they found that day on Hamburg’s Mönckebergstraße.
Most of the passersby who stopped to view the pictures were deeply shocked and appalled to see the abuse and torture happening in Chinese slave labour camps. Many recognised a similarity with Hitler’s torture methods used in concentration camps. They could hardly believe that history is being allowed to repeat itself. Petition signatures were collected to bring Jiang Zemin, former communist leader and instigator of the persecution, to justice in a court of law. Another petition was for a family of practitioners who were recently deported from Germany and are now suffering persecution in China to be rescued to Germany.
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| People watch as the practitioners re-enact torture methods | |
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| People came to find out more by viewing the posters and talking to practitioners | |
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| Showing the exercises and telling passersby about Falun Gong |
One salesman was disgruntled about the activity and worried about his sales, so he called the police. A practitioner talked to him and told him why they were there. After some time he calmed down and became sympathetic. This clearly showed the importance of telling people in our immediate surroundings, whoever they may be, about the persecution of Falun Gong. A Bavarian newspaper editor, holidaying in Hamburg, took a lot of pictures of our anti-torture exhibition. He told me, although he was unable to immediately publish them, he was certain that he would find the opportunity to use these pictures in the future.
Originally published in German at http://de.clearharmony.net/articles/200504/23645.html
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