Travels to Tiananmen: A Westerner's Appeal For Justice

My Experience of Travelling to Tiananmen Square by Monika Weiss

Shared at Florida 2001 Conference
Tampa, Florida, 12/29/01

Honoured Teacher!
Dear Fellow Practitioners, Dear Guests!
My name is Monika Weiss and I come from Germany. I am 60 years old and began my cultivation in June of 1999. I belong to the group of the 36 Western practitioners who united on November 20th for a peaceful appeal at Tiananmen Square, the same group that was afterward detained by the Chinese police for 23 hours. I would like to share with you my experiences in conjunction with this peaceful appeal. But first a few words to answer the question about why I wanted to go to China in the first place.

In light of the escalating persecution, the inhumane treatment of Chinese practitioners and seeing photographs of those practitioners who had been abused, tortured, and sentenced to death, my wish to contribute somehow to the effort to end this gruesome persecution became stronger and stronger. China is the very country where Falun Dafa became first known and was quickly and highly appreciated. For the past 2-1/2 years, China has been the only country in the world where the spread of Falun Dafa is massively prohibited through defamation and by committing the worst injustices against Dafa practitioners. Hindering people from obtaining correct information about Falun Dafa by forcing them to give credibility to government propaganda and misinformation blocks their way of learning Falun Dafa. My desire is to have as many people as possible learn about Dafa and profit from that knowledge and also to shield them from the lies and untruths. By means of a public campaign we will be most effective to work against the lies and let the truth stand on its own, so that the Chinese [government] cannot hide the fact that Falun Dafa is treasured and practised worldwide from the scrutiny of her own citizens, and that western Dafa practitioners as well as their Chinese fellow practitioners are intervening for their beliefs.

Participating in this campaign is also a continuation of my visit to Beijing last year. After I had read in our newspaper recurring reports of misinformation about Falun Gong, another practitioner from Frankfurt and I went to the source of this propaganda. While there, we sought out German newspaper correspondents in Beijing to transmit to them a better understanding of Falun Gong and the persecution in China. We impressed on them the urgency that they must realize how negative an effect their reports will have if they casually and without reflection repeat the lies and misinformation dished out by the Chinese government about Falun Gong. We also impressed upon them the wonderful impact Falun Gong has had on us.

As it was last year, it was a travel brochure that was the deciding force [for this trip]. At first we were two, and then twelve and soon thirty-six from many countries who bonded together, sharing the vision and the strong will to clarify the truth on Tiananmen Square. I soon had an image in my mind of us as a group on Tiananmen Square, full of dignity, full of serenity and strength, and retained this completely natural feeling, an image that carried me through to the end. I wanted to categorically put a stop to the evil persecution, wanted to show the Chinese people the presence of Falun Gong which has no borders, wanted to show the Chinese people our strength and to give a voice to those who in their own country don't have a voice any longer.

Another practitioner and I had already arrived in China a week prior to our planned appeal. We rode on the Yangtze River for several days, besides doing other activities. The weather was grey and rainy. Our preparation time was good, marked by inner peace, and an increasingly harmonious travel group. I read a lot and performed the exercises. I was looking forward to the approaching date; I felt no fear, but rather some puzzlement about the absence of fear. Then came the meeting in Beijing with our group of twelve Germans and Swiss. We did not entertain the question "what do we do if...” Instead, we pre-purchased subway tickets to be able to disappear immediately after we had accomplished our purpose. I think that action gave us strength, although we were not so well prepared for that which followed after. At the same time I also thought if something should happen to me I want to be as steadfast as the Chinese practitioners. And should I lose my life for my convictions, my son has all the necessary legal powers of attorney.

The 20th of November on Tiananmen Square was brilliantly beautiful, completely different from the previous days on the riverboat. No doubts, only inner peace. It was all so self-understood. Only one question remained unanswered: “would I really not hit back if someone hit me?” We sat in pairs not too far from the flag where I watched people in the square, seeing them without recognition. One can easily single out the plainclothes policemen, but they didn't interest me. What I came here to do, I will do. The group has formed. I stood exactly where I imagined I would stand. My eyes are open; perceptions are clear, no distracting thoughts or feelings. Begin. Someone next to me unfurls the banner bearing the lettering "Truthfulness, Compassion and Forbearance," the highest principles of Falun Gong; many Chinese tourists observe, and then I see the police vehicles drive directly toward us.

My feeling tells me I am protected. With surprise I become aware that someone is grabbing me by the arms, I resist. We are not somehow mere demonstrators, and my heart is calm. That is my posture during the whole arresting incident, and I achieve several things with this attitude. I don't want to cooperate, but want to display good manners and will demand the same of them. My personal information, my passport? Please. My cell phone? No way. Down into the cellar? Only if the other two Germans from the next room are joining us again. It seems to work. But behind bars? No, no way. Indeed I am the only one who remains out. I did set limits. Would Chinese practitioners be able to do that in my situation? I sense that here, in this place, they would not have even the slimmest chance. Nobody witnesses, nobody sees, nobody hears what happens down here, where acts of torture take place; tortures that were related to us by victims who told us at the risk of their lives. To change that, to bring an end to it, that's why I am part of this campaign. But I have to be vigilant to keep my strength in balance so that my action does not become some sort of sporting event.

The interrogation. I am pressured for it twice; and twice I simply say "no." Then my German tour guide appears and asks me to speak with him. What immediately follows is an interrogation by two state security agents. Instead of answering their questions I declare unmistakably that I am here for those thousands if not millions of Falun Gong practitioners who for the more than the past two years have been subjected to the worst abuse and have been threatened with death. A cutting voice barks, "No politics." I regretted later that I followed that order and therefore missed my chance to further expose the lies. At the beginning I look upon the female interrogator with tolerance and attempt to raise the kernel of good that might still be inside her. I refuse any responses as well as my signature to a document written in Chinese; it is brief; it is chilly; it is over.

Together with some others we later form a group and do the fifth exercise. A practitioner presents me with a "Falun" badge which I pinned [on me] and since have kept. We read "Zhuan Falun"(the main book of Falun Dafa) under the watchful eyes of our captors, something that is forbidden in China. We did all this unhindered and as a matter of course. They did not dare to disturb us. Unfortunately I recognized that too late and did not exploit this opportunity.
What kind of an impression of us will all those young police officers take away with them? I wish that they may have seen from our conduct the power and peace of our path and how little of that they had seen correlates with the lies of Chinese propaganda. If we were able to move their hearts, then they in turn will move the hearts of other people in China. If so, we have breached a wall and our effort in China had been the right choice.

Source:
http://www.clearwisdom.net/emh/articles/2002/1/13/17675.html
Chinese version available at http://minghui.cc/mh/articles/2002/1/8/22772.html