Germany: Introducing the Book ‘The Persecution of Falun Gong’

On the 2nd of March 2006, a public introduction to the book The Persecution of Falun Gong was held in the cultural centre of Braunschweig city in Germany. The activity was co-hosted by the local student human rights group and the author of the book Manuel Horth.

The event lasted about two hours. Horth made the opening speech and then read out a few selected extracts from the book. Some of the people attending the activity were Falun Gong practitioners who had personally experienced the persecution in China. They shared their stories with the audience. Jack Aura played the piano. The musician is a member of “Playing Music for Human Rights” international group. He has been actively involved in opposing the persecution of Falun Gong for many years.

The book is an edition of documentary reports about the experiences of Falun Gong practitioners who suffered persecution by the Chinese Communist regime (published by Dexheimer, ISBN 3-932273-85-0). After the presentation, some audience members stayed to talk with the speakers.

One report in the book was about Mr Zhu Feng, he now lives in Hannover as a German government recognised refugee. Zhu used to be a very successful businessman. During the Chinese Communist regime’s persecution of Falun Gong, he lost his job. His wife could not bear the continuous pressure and divorced him. Zhu Feng’s sister, Zhu Hang, is also a Falun Gong practitioner. She was illegally detained and tortured many times in China.

Zhu Feng managed to send out to the western world photographic evidence of torture suffered by Hang. These photos became part of earlier evidences exposing the Chinese Communist regime’s brutal torture against Falun Gong practitioners. Hang is now being forcibly detained in a mental hospital where she is constantly forced to take nerve-damaging drugs. Her behaviour is like an eight year old child and she has totally lost her ability to comprehend things as a normal person would. Before leaving for Germany, Zhu Feng visited his sister in the mental hospital and secretly left with some of the drugs his sister was forced to take. The author of the book passed these drugs to doctor for testing, which revealed that they were nerve damaging.

Zhu Xiaoyan, a Japanese language student living in Gottingen, described her stories of being persecuted while she lived in China. As a Falun Gong practitioner, her university wanted to expel her under pressure from the Communist Party. Although she passed all her examinations, the university refused to give her a graduation certificate. She was also illegally detained and abused. It was following the principles of “Truthfulness, Compassion and Forbearance” taught to her in Falun Gong that helped her get through the tough times.

Florian Akbar from Hamburg told the audience his experience of peacefully protesting in Beijing’s Tiananmen Square in 2002. As a student of education who practises Falun Gong, Akbar and other western Falun Gong practitioners broke the western media’s silence about the Chinese Communist regime’s persecution of Falun Gong through their protest in Beijing.