Stuttgart News: German Falun Gong Followers Tell of their Deportation – 24 Students Incarcerated

February 18, 2002

By Susanne Janssen

2/18/2002 – Four of the German Falun Gong followers, who had demonstrated in Beijing for their belief system and had been deported, visited last Saturday’s information day event held at Koenigstrasse. A Stuttgart citizen who wanted to document the events [at Tiananmen Square] was arrested.

Only a few hours ago Mr. Hubert Koerper (from Heidelberg) and Mr. Bernd Aurnhammer were still on an aeroplane flying out of Beijing to Frankfurt am Main. The two men survived turbulent days during which time the Chinese police authorities had arrested, beaten and then deported them. Presently they are sitting calmly on a mat on the Koenigstrasse pavement, doing their meditation movements.

Without taking a long rest, they arrived at the Stuttgart Falun Gong group information day event. The main purpose for the trip of the fifty plus foreign “practitioners,” as they call themselves, was to bring awareness to the plight of the practitioners in China. “Falun Gong is beneficial and good. We learned the movements partly from Chinese friends, those friends who are now incarcerated in Re-Education-Ttrough-Forced-Labour-Camps and are being tortured,” declared Mr. Koerper, a citizen from Heidelberg who had demonstrated together with his 17-year-old and 22-year-old daughters. He wanted to plead, on Tiananmen Square, his cause for freedom of conscience and demand for the release of Falun Gong followers.

The whole action lasted only a few minutes, related Mr. Koerper. “An unusual number of police officers were present on Tiananmen Square on February 14th.” Every 10 feet there was an officer, confirms 37-year-old Mr. Aurnhammer from Augsburg. Promptly at 2:00 P.M. the attention shifted and concentrated on another group [assembled at the square], that’s when the Germans were able to unfurl their banners. “Falun Dafa is good,” they called out loudly in Chinese (Falun Dafa hao). As soon as they had said that, six police officers rushed over and took them to the police van, Mr. Aurnhammer recounted.

Annett and Steffen Munter, two siblings from the town of Oehringen near Heilbronn/Neckar told of their experiences of being brutally slammed to the ground by several Chinese police officers. Nonetheless they had no fear, said the 26-year-old office worker. She had already said two years ago, when news about the persecution reached her, she knew that “some day I will go there and shout out loud, ‘Falun Gong is good’. And to look those policemen in the eye who kill babies.”

After their arrest the group was taken to a guarded police hotel, so said Mr. Koerper. Some were separately questioned, beaten and the police officers stole from them. The practitioners were denied contact with the German ambassador. Then everything proceeded very quickly. “The government was required to deport us within 24 hours.”
And after 23 hours they were sitting in a plane that was held for them, bound for Frankfurt.

None of them had any fear. “My fear had been not to able to be present,” said Mr. Aurnhammer who had had difficulties obtaining a visa. “The risk was calculable,” said Mr. Koerper, “ because prior to the Olympic Games and the state visit by the American President Mr. Bush the Chinese could not afford a scandal.”

Another Stuttgart native, Mr. Walther Krickl, who had flown to Beijing to document the action of the Falun Gong followers had been arrested during his departure attempt from Beijing. He also has been deported in the meantime and is on his way to Frankfurt.

(Original text in German)