Germany: Sunny Weather and Bright Spirits in the Old Coastal Town of Rostock

Early in the morning of May 28th 2005, we arrived at the ancient University Square in Rostock and chose a shady spot for our Falun Gong information stall. We quickly finished setting up and soon the first passers-by received flyers with information about the persecution of Falun Gong by the Communist Government in China. We took turns demonstrating the five sets of Falun Gong exercises. We informed some of the nearby tradesmen about our activities and one of the practitioners walked around the busier shopping streets while distributing flyers.

Apart from the Falun Gong information stall, we also held a small anti-torture exhibition re-enacting a few of the many torture methods used in attempts to force Falun Gong practitioners to renounce their beliefs. One practitioner was dressed as a policeman, while another two took turns sitting on a tiger bench or in a small cage to demonstrate torture methods used in Chinese labour camps and police stations. A tiger bench sees the victim tied on a narrow wooden or iron bench by the thighs and knees, with hands tied behind the back. The legs are bent in the opposite direction by adding bricks under the heels. The torture creates excruciating pain.

Some people even started to worry about the well-being of the actors in the cage and on the tiger bench because the hot sun had become almost unbearable by noon. We explained that they were willing to accept a bit of discomfort if it would let more people know what is happening to the practitioners in China. Several people studied our small exhibition carefully and expressed their shock at the human rights abuses carried by the CCP. We carefully explained the truth about Falun Gong to those who took the time to ask us for additional information and we asked them to sign our petition calling for the abolishment of diplomatic immunity for Jiang Zemin in Germany. The persecution against Falun Gong was instigated by Jiang in 1999 when he was head of the CCP. He used the vicious nature of the Chinese Communist Party, which is responsible for the deaths of 100 million Chinese people since it came to power, to carry out his personal vendetta against Falun Gong.

At the same time as our activity took place, a professional advertising agent was preparing a commercial for a mobile phone provider next to our stall. We explained to him what we were doing and handed him a flyer. Soon, he began to support us through his public address system, asking everyone on the square to help us. The whole atmosphere on the square became very positive and strong.