Chinese Regime Interferes with Hamburg's Fesitval of Culture

At this year’s Festival of Culture, celebrated on Saturday September 15th in Hamburg, Falun Gong practitioners participated amongst traditional Chinese participants, just as in the previous year, and called for attention to the persecution of Falun Gong in China with banners and flyers. Although the police has been advised in advance about this and the activities were approved by the organisers of the event, Falun Gong participants were informed, just before the parade neared the Chinese market at the Jungfernstieg (location), that they could not distribute flyers (this prohibition applied only to Falun Gong participants and not to other participants) and two banners were confiscated, claiming that the information on the banners was politically motivated. The banners said, “China’s rich culture overshadowed by torture and death” and ‘Falun Gong is inhumanly persecuted in China.”

Incidences like this have been quite regular and happened in the past because of pressure by China’s Communist Party. For example, the Chinese Embassy tried to stop a proclamation for Falun Gong during the Dresdner anniversary in 2006.

“With our participation in the Festival of Culture we wanted to show the beautiful traditional Chinese culture and at the same time tell people about the persecution in China,” said Waltraud Ng, spokeswoman for the Falun Gong Association. “Falun Gong is one of the venerable Chinese cultures and is persecuted with inhuman methods by the Chinese Communist Party since 1999. The significance of a cultural festival is to promote culture. To stop torture and death, all that is suffered by culture bearers like Falun Gong, is to help prevent a part of Chinese culture from being expunged.”


Falun Gong at the parade

Falun Gong at the parade.	One of the banners before it was confiscated. It was not confiscated until the parade neared the Chinese onlookers (who complained about it and badmouthed Falun Gong).