The Wafangdian City Prison in Liaoning Province recently established a brigade especially designed to control and persecute all Falun Gong practitioners detained there. Guards from this unit gathered about thirty practitioners together and designated eighteen special guards to monitor them. The first thing these special prison guards did was to shave practitioners' heads bald to try and dehumanise them.

In May 2002, officers from Chenzhou Police Bureau and Hengyang Railroad Police Station illegally arrested her. She was taken to Hengyang city, where the police used the most inhuman methods to torture her. For instance, they handcuffed her hands and feet to an iron gate for more than six hours, stuffed live earthworms into her mouth, and even put a live eel into her underpants.

The temperature in the small cells was as cold as outside. Practitioners detained in these cells were fed with two bowls of watery corn soup a day, more water than corn. As for those who went on a hunger strike, a device was forced onto their mouths to keep them from closing, day and night.

Xiong Wei is a practitioner, who previously studied at the Berlin Technical Institute in Germany. After returning to China, she was arrested while distributing Falun Gong materials. She is currently illegally imprisoned in Beijing. This video has been made by German Falun Gong practitioners to appeal for her release.

Those who wanted to help could sign their names on an appeal letter that was to be sent to the Premier of Germany. Those who wanted to personally encourage Xiong Wei could also take a postcard. After signing their names, they could mail it to Xiong Wei, who is currently detained in China.

Xiong Wei studied at the Berlin Technical University and since January 2002, she has been detained in Xin An Female Labour Camp near Beijing. German Falun Gong practitioners and the International Society for Human Rights have also jointly initiated a rescue effort for Xiong Wei by asking people to write and send postcards to mainland China.

'The International Human Rights Association is also helping us with the rescue activities. They have organised a campaign to “send postcards to the German government”. Xiong Wei’s friends in Heidelberg are hoping that she will soon hear this special song. (Online listening available on www.friends-of-xiongwei.de).'

'Xiong Wei studied economics from 1993 to 1999 at Berlin Technical University...On 5 January 2002, while she was in Beijing distributing materials about the persecution of Falun Gong, the police arrested her. In March she was, without due process, sentenced to one and a half years of "Re-education through labour" in the Xinan Female forced labour camp in Beijing, which is well known for its cruel methods of torture.'

'The aims of this appeal are not only to help Ms. Xiong Wei, but also for people to express their concerns for all Falun Gong practitioners being persecuted in China, as well as the conditions of human rights in China. All citizens in Weinheim can appeal to the German government by signing their names on a Falun Gong petition. The Mayor has also already signed his name.'

Since Xiong Wei was illegally imprisoned, German practitioners have launched a series of appeals to rescue her, which have been widely reported by the media in Germany. The German government has also paid close attention to this matter. During Jiang’s visit to Germany in 2002, German Foreign Minister Joschka Fischer handed Jiang a letter urging the Chinese government to release several innocent people, including Xiong Wei.

"Given the evidence we have presented to you, we believe that Wei Xiong is a prisoner of conscience who was arrested only [because she is a Falun Gong practitioner], and as it appears, has not received a fair trail. We are concerned for her well-being, and are afraid that she is subjected to severe torture that might claim her life."

The success of the campaign was widespread; on December 19, 2002, Heidenheim Weekly, a weekly journal which is sent to every house in the area, reported on the postcard campaign. The report also contained photos of the front and back of the postcard, which allowed readers to cut them out and send them to the German Prime Minister.

From December 6 to 8, Israeli and German practitioners protested the Jiang regime's persecution of Falun Gong for 58 straight hours outside of the Chinese Embassy and called for the release of practitioner Xiong Wei.

The International Association for Human Rights (IGFM) appealed on Monday to Mr. Joschka Fischer, Germany’s Foreign Minister. He will meet Thursday in Berlin with his Chinese counterpart, Tang Jiaxuan, to intervene for the release of former Berlin student Xiong Wei. “We want to know that Xiong Wei is safe and beseech you to assertively bring about her release,”

Xiong Wei is a female Falun Gong practitioner and former student of the Technical University of Berlin. She is currently being held against her will in Xinan women’s labour camp of Daxing on the outskirts of Beijing, China.