The six-day Berlin Gymnastics Festival, which has just been held in the capital of Germany with 120,000 participants, has a history of one hundred and forty-five years. Its goal is to improve the physical and mental health of children and adults. Four German words represent its motto: originality, piety, happiness, and freedom. Under the principle of this motto, the Berlin Gymnastics Festival invited Falun Gong practitioners in Germany to participate in the performance.

The Finnish practitioner has been the target of the Chinese Communist Party’s threat campaign. He received several hundred harassing phone calls, where English tape recordings were played defaming Falun Gong. Like other Finish Falun Gong practitioners who received the same type of calls, he sent crime investigation reports about the case to the local police and also had an opportunity to report about the harassment on the TV programme. Many people who had watched the programme told practitioners that they condemned the dirty tricks used by the Chinese Government and expressed support for Falun Gong.

Because he took part in Falun Gong activities in Germany, Mr. Jiang Renzheng, who was deported to China’s Liaoning Province in early March, was persecuted at once and was put in prison on the 8th of April. It is over a month since the incident occurred, which has been drawing the understanding and attention of more and more people in Germany.

In the morning, the reporter from SHOWTV interviewed Falun Gong practitioners who were doing the exercises in a park and the interview programme was broadcast in the news in the evening of the same day. In the programme, some practitioners talked about practising Falun Gong and introduced the five sets of exercises.

Falun Gong practitioner Jiang Renzheng and his family went back to mainland China from Germany at the beginning of March. As soon as they arrived at Benxi, Liaoning, they suffered continuos persecution from the police and the national security department. From the information we got on Friday, the persecution has increased again. Ms Tang, who has been actively working on this issue, introduced her most recent situation to a reporter last week. The information that Jiang Renzheng has been detained and his family is not allowed to visit him shocked Germany’s media and human rights organisations again.

On the 14th March, a Dutch national TV Station broadcast a programme about Falun Gong which was produced by “Network”. It was arranged to be broadcast during the “Current Affairs Review” programme. Network positively commented on Falun Gong’s first appearance in China, its popularity, the large number of practitioners and the persecution. After its introduction to the public in 1992, Falun Gong was immediately very popular all over the country and attracted almost seventy million practitioners, outnumbering the membership of the Chinese Communist Party. Therefore, the CCP saw it as a big threat. They banned Falun Gong in 1999.

Norway is a country which stretches far, even into the arctic regions, with many places that are quite isolated. Therefore, this was a good opportunity to tell many people about the persecution in China who might not have heard about it before. For almost six years, Falun Gong practitioners in China have been suppressed in the evilest manner by the Chinese Communist dictatorship: hundreds of thousands have been sent to labour camps, thousands have been murdered, countless have become homeless, robbed of their work and income because they wanted to live by Truth, Compassion and Tolerance.

It is reported that, although the German society and government recognises the persecution of Falun Gong practitioners in recent years and has protected many Falun Gong practitioners with political asylum, most of the time, the cruelty of this persecution is far beyond the imagination of the officials who deal with these cases. Mr. and Mrs. Jiang Renzheng started to practise Falun Gong when they went overseas. The official who dealt with their application for political asylum did not believe that they would be persecuted after being sent back to China. So they sent them back at the beginning of March. However, they were cruelly persecuted soon after they got back to China. The event caused a great shock to German society.

Lawyer Ansley, with the agreement of lawyer Guo Guoting, made a point that on the one hand China is violating lawyers’ rights, publicly scorning the legal system, while on the other hand it is hoping to obtain the recognition of the Association of Canadian Lawyers and the Canadian Government. He hopes that Canadian lawyers will work together to rescue Guo Guoting.

The broadcast revealed that Falun Gong, also known as Falun Dafa, is a spiritual movement. The movement counts 70 million practitioners in China alone, more than the Communist Party in that country. Therefore, Falun Gong is perceived as a threat by the people in power. The programme went on to state that according to Amnesty International, hundreds of Falun Gong practitioners are imprisoned in China and more than 1,500 practitioners have already died in custody. The figures are, however, difficult to verify, because the persecution takes place in secret labour camps.

Question Time is the premier political debating programme broadcast on the UK’s BBC One TV station. On Thursday 10th March, the programme did a special broadcast live from Shanghai in China. One Chinese man asked the question, “Do you endorse the description of the human rights situation in China made by the most recent U.S. annual human rights report.” The first speaker to address this issue was Isabel Hilton, who quickly agreed with the U.S. report, telling the Shanghai audience and millions of viewers that “there have been many deaths in custody of Falun Gong practitioners.” Ms. Hilton went on to list other human rights abuses happening in China and pointed out that it is not only the U. S. State Department that is critical of China’s human rights.

This film was broadcast via the channel “Essence and Vision”, which supports the protection of human rights and has 590 million Spanish-speaking viewers. Through watching the programme, millions of viewers had the chance to learn about the persecution against Falun Gong in China. The producer of the programme, who has also exposed China’s persecution of Tibet, didn’t know that the Chinese Government and Jiang Zemin had employed such cruel torture methods to carry out the persecution against Falun Gong practitioners who believe in “Truthfulness, Compassion and Forbearance.” Through talking to practitioners, she realised the severity of the genocide taking place in China.

TV channel “Nelonen” extensively reported on the second wave of harassment in its evening news on February 25th. A practitioner from the city of Oulu was interviewed in the report and suggested that the reason for this persecution campaign happening in western countries is that Falun Gong practitioners are exposing the CCP’s crimes against human rights to the world. The interviewee also stated that Falun Gong is a righteous practice encouraging high moral standards and the communist officials fear this due to the endemic corruption in China’s official state organs.

A national cable TV station called Diema 2 featured the conference in their evening news programme on 20th February 2005. The footage showed pictures of the exercises and the book Falun Gong (already published in Bulgarian). The reporter explained briefly about the practice and one of the practitioners was interviewed about the advantages of Falun Dafa. Bulgarian practitioners were happy that so many people had got the chance to learn more about Falun Gong.

On the 5th of February, an appeal in Hradec Kralove was visited by regional TV reporters, who came to shoot some footage and interview the practitioners. The report was broadcast that same evening in all three of the station’s news broadcasts and in a repeat the next day. The report on the Falun Gong activity was actually the first feature in that day’s news programme, so hundreds of thousands people who tuned in to watch the news got to learn about Falun Gong‘s appeal to stop the persecution in China.

Near the end of the interview, the famous presenter Andres Aberasturi said to the Falun Gong practitioner, “Thank you very much for letting us have a close look at Falun Gong. We also learned about the horrific persecution occurring in China. As you demonstrated in your anti-torture exhibition in Sun Gate Square, this persecution was pointless right from the beginning. I think all our friends who are listening to this programme will surely remember the name of this cultivation way: Falun Gong.”

The Canadian Prime Minister demanded that China provides an explanation for the cancellation of two Canadian reporters’ visas. China approved the visas initially for the two journalists, but dismissed the applications later. Both journalists were reporters of New Tang Dynasty TV and were gearing up for joining the reporters group with Prime Minister Martin. In fact, they had received the approved visas, which were recalled later. Martin told a reporter, “It was a serious matter for us. Freedom of speech and journalism are our values and principles. We have been in negotiations regarding this incident with the Chinese Embassy in Canada.”

The movie “Sandstorm” was shown at the Human Rights International Cinema Festival. On the 15th of December, a national Ukraine TV channel screened a brief report about “Sandstorm”. Scenes from the film depicting the torture used against Falun Gong practitioners were also shown.

The presenter asked why Falun Dafa is persecuted in China. The practitioners explained that after estimating the number of practitioners to be 70 to 100 million in 1999, the former Chinese leader Jiang Zemin personally ordered a campaign of persecution despite the disagreement of the other Politburo members...The practitioners went on to talk about how the Chinese Communist Party has never showed any regard for human life and has continually persecuted and oppressed the Chinese people since it came into power.

“You may remember listening to BBC Radio Leeds a few weeks ago when we featured the moving case of a Chinese woman who now lives here in West Yorkshire, in fact in the city of Leeds. She fled China because she says she was being persecuted there. She claimed that it was because she practised Falun Gong, a kind of self-improvement technique which its followers say is based on the three principles of Truthfulness, Compassion, Tolerance."

According to the Reporters Without Borders and AFP, eleven Falun Gong practitioners in China were arrested when they used photos to expose the brutal torture they have suffered...Falun Gong’s Clearwisdom.net reported that these Falun Gong practitioners acted out the brutal torture they had suffered in prisons and made public the photos they took. Like articles, these photos were produced to expose the brutal torture taking place in China.

Radio Free Asia reported on December 28, 2004 that Mr. Liao Yuanhua, former Discipline Committee Secretary of Wuxue City, Hubei Province has been imprisoned because of his practice of Falun Gong. According to news exposed on the Internet, Liao Yuanhua has been beaten and tortured during his imprisonment. However, the official People's Daily denied this statement. At the same time, Falun Gong practitioners from Hubei Province revealed inside stories about the mistreatment experienced by Falun Gong practitioners in Fanjiatai Prison, Hubei Province.

In China, Falun Gong is slandered and practitioners are persecuted by the regime; some have even been tortured to death. Three practitioners from Jilin Province, Yu Lixin, Liu Hongwei, and Song Yanqun, went to Beijing to appeal for Falun Gong many times. Recently, their family members said that they were either sentenced to prison or labour camps. One of them was tortured to death, one was serious ill and another one was forced to stay away from home to avoid persecution.

"Facing the Chinese Communist regime's brutal persecution, practitioners in many countries have made significant progress in working for practitioners' human rights. As it is the French judiciary system sending an International Rogatory Letter to its counterpart in China, requesting an investigation and explanation on the abuses of French practitioner Hélène Petit and many other practitioners, we feel this shows substantial progress because an objective judiciary investigation of this kind would be impossible in China, where the media and Justice System and all other organs are controlled by the Chinese Communist Party."

A lawyer on behalf of French Falun Gong practitioners said on Thursday night that a local court has accepted four Falun Gong practitioners’ lawsuits against the Head of the Chinese Cultural Department Sun Jiazheng and the former Deputy Premier Li Lanqing. In addition they demanded the relevant Chinese judicial departments to offer assistance and help to investigate the on-going persecution against Falun Gong in China.

Falun Gong practitioner Ms Xiong Wei, who was interviewed by Radio Free Asia during activities for World Human Rights Day, said that two years of detention in a forced labour camp made her realise that the Chinese Communist Party not only abuses human rights but does something even worse; the Chinese Communist Party makes the Chinese people completely forget their basic rights as human beings through years of propaganda and suppression.

The Falun Gong movement filed a law suit against Jiang Zemin, Bo Xilai and Li Lanqing to the Dutch Court on Thursday, accusing them of torturing two Dutch citizens who are Falun Gong practitioners. The Dutch Court will decide whether or not to start investigating this case in a few weeks time.

Jiang Zemin, who stood down last year, is the brain behind the persecution. He altered the law for that purpose and established the Gestapo-like ‘6-10 Office’, with the aim of eliminating Falun Gong. This systematic way of eradicating the movement can be qualified as genocide according to the lawyer for the Dutch Falun Gong Association. Confirmation and documentation are available for about 1200 cases of Falun Gong practitioners who have been tortured to death by Chinese authorities.

"Falun Gong is not limited to borders; genocide is not limited to borders either. It’s a global problem and today, because we have the International Criminal Court here in The Hague and we have the Yugoslavia Tribune, these penal facts - these serious penal facts - should be recognised by all countries. Otherwise, we cannot handle the problem."

Falun Gong practitioners have utilised both the UN Convention Against Torture and international law to file a complaint against the officials and other persons who have actively participated in persecuting Falun Gong practitioners in China and trampling on human rights in recent years. These lawsuits have attracted a lot of attention from European societies and law circles. Many Chinese officials and persons who have been involved in persecuting Falun Gong practitioners in China encounter problems and trouble at different levels while visiting Europe.

As World Human Rights Day is approaching, the Munich Branch of the International Human Rights Association, Falun Gong practitioners and the Tibet organization held a series of activities in Southern Germany to expose the human rights violations and torture methods used in China. We interviewed Mr. Jurgen Thierack, spokesman of the Munich Branch of the International Human Rights Association.

'From a report on the Epoch Times website on the 21st of October: Information was released from a senior level of the Chinese Communist Party that it is now preparing to reinstate the good name of Falun Gong. The operation has already been started. The State Security Department secretly dispatched investigators to Shanghai previously to collect opinions from people about the 610 Office, in order to prepare for reinstating the good name of Falun Gong.'

With the help of German human rights organisations and the German Government, Ms. Xiong Wei, a Falun Gong practitioner who recently returned to Germany after two years imprisoned in China for distributing Falun Gong leaflets, continuously meets with German media to expose the cruel persecution she suffered in labour camps and thank the German people and the international community for helping her gain freedom.

'The U.S. House of Representatives passed a resolution, condemning the Chinese Government’s oppression of Falun Gong in both the United States and China. The resolution also expressed that the Beijing Government should immediately stop interfering in the exercise of religious and political freedom within the United States, in particular the right to practise and spread Falun Gong in the United States.'

'“Sandstorm”, a film depicting Falun Gong, won the best film prize at the International Houston Multicultural Film Festival...The report published on Clearwisdom on the 30th of September says the Chinese Consulate put pressure on the USA Houston Film Festival Committee, but was unsuccessful.'

Mrs Xiong Wei, who worked in the Beijing branch office of a German company after completing her study in Germany was arrested in January 2001 and imprisoned for two years because she distributed flyers about the Chinese government's persecution of Falun Gong. The release was made possible by the joint efforts of German human right organisations, the German government and Falun Gong practitioners.

“The moon looks brilliant and round in my hometown,” goes a Chinese poem. Though the Chinese Mid-Autumn Festival was not celebrated as a holiday, overseas Chinese in all parts of Europe came up with various ideas and activities to celebrate their festival during the weekend around Mid-autumn. Last weekend, Irish Falun Gong practitioners took to the streets to introduce the traditional Chinese festival to locals. A reporter interviewed a practitioner coordinating the activities in Dublin.

Immediately after hearing the news of Jiang Zemin’s retirement from the post of Chairman of China’s Central Military Committee, The Global Coalition to Bring Jiang Zemin to Justice promptly released a statement. The statement declared thet he age of Jiang Zemin’s reign has ended, and that the age of suing Jiang Zemin has begun.The announcement also says that Jiang Zemin’s culpability will not end because of Jiang Zemin’s resignation.

'Thirty year old practitioner Wang Xia was brutally tortured and steps were taken to prevent the disclosure of the facts inside Huhhot Female prison in Lin Her City in inner Mongolia. After the spread of the news by international media, a lot of people were concerned and expressed their sympathy for Wang Xia and her family.'

Jia Qinglin, the chairman of the Chinese People’s Political Consultative Conference, was met with protest by Falun Gong practitioners in Madrid yesterday. According to a spokesman, the Spanish Falun Gong Association has filed a lawsuit accusing Jia Qinglin of participation in the persecution of Falun Gong practitioners while City Secretary of Beijing. The indictment says that Jia is responsible for the persecution of up to a hundred thousand Falun Gong practitioners in China.

Former Beijing City Committee Secretary Jia Qinglin was sued for crimes including torture by human rights organisations and Falun Gong practitioners separately in Austria and Spain during his visit to three countries in Europe. AFP published news on September 7th regarding this incident, mentioning that on Tuesday, a spokesman of the Falun Gong spiritual group said that their group has filed a lawsuit to the Superior Court of Spain against high-ranking Chinese official Jia Qinglin.

On the 7th of September, Radio Free Asia reported that the lawyer for the Falun Gong Association revealed that Falun Gong had filed a lawsuit against Jia Qinglin, the chairman of the Chinese Political Consultative Conference, for crimes of genocide and torture. Jia is visiting Spain at present. According to the Reuters News Agency, fifteen people submitted the lawsuit together, appealing for their relatives who were persecuted in Beijing while Jia was the City Secretary.

"Today it is verified through Amnesty International and the UN that there are more or less 100 thousand people incarcerated, thousands of people have been sent to mental hospitals, healthy people, and as of today there are 1022 verified cases of practitioners who have been tortured to death in Chinese jails. Amnesty has also verified the torture methods. I have seen photos of people that have been burnt with hot irons; they use electric batons on their bodies for hours, even on the women's intimate parts."

"The practise improves the physical health a lot, for example it relieves tensions and anxiety and increases energy and vitality very much. There are plenty of studies that have been done at different hospitals around the world, with impressive results. Falun Dafa has received many recognitions around the world. For example, Master Li Hongzhi has been nominated for the Nobel Peace Price for the last three years for having introduced the practise to society."

On the night of August the 29th, Radio France Internationale stated that Clearwisdom.net reported a Falun Gong practitioner’s release from Daqing prison after being tortured until close to death. The Clearwisdom report stated that Zhang Zhong had plastic bags put over his head impeding his breathing, he had garlic juice and chilli sauce poured over his face, he received kicks and punches, jabs on the hands with the tip of a sharp pen, and he was stripped to the waist and freezing or boiling water poured over his body. He suffered other kinds of torture in addition to these.

'We have reported several times on activities held by Irish Falun Gong practitioners and human rights organisations, calling on the Chinese Government to release Liu Feng immediately. Recently our reporter learned that Liu Feng has finally regained his freedom and returned to Ireland to continue his studies.'

According to RFA’s report, two Greek Falun Gong practitioners have already sued three Chinese officials, including former Chinese President Jiang Zemin and the former Chinese Vice-President Li Lanqing, accusing them of persecuting Falun Gong practitioners. Falun Gong’s lawyer says that they demand the Athens judiciary gives orders to arrest the three officials if they set foot in Athens to watch the Olympic Games.

On Wednesday August 4th 2004, Radio France Internationale broadcast a report in Chinese to Mainland China and Metropolitan Paris. The French Falun Dafa Association recently sent a message claiming that on Tuesday the Tanzanian Judiciary fixed the case of Falun Gong suing China’s State Councillor Chen Zhili for crimes of persecuting Falun Gong as a criminal case. Related proceedings are listed for hearing.

'According to news from Paris, the European Falun Dafa Association held a press conference announcing that two Greek lawyers, on behalf of three Falun Gong practitioners from Australia, Ireland and Greece, filed a criminal lawsuit against former Chinese Dictator Jiang Zemin as well as former Vice Premier Li Lanqiang and another top official Luo Gan.'

On 20th July 1944, Claus Schenk Graf von Strauffenberg planted a bomb in a briefcase in a conference room where Hitler was meeting with top military aides. The bomb exploded but Hitler escaped with only minor injuries. Later on, about 180 to 200 plotters were rounded up, tortured and executed by the Gestapo. By coincidence, on 20th July 1999, millions of people’s lives were turned upside down due to the brutal persecution against Falun Gong, orchestrated by the Chinese Communist Party dictator Jiang Zemin.