The Falun Gong movement demonstrated last Wednesday in front of the Palais des Nations in Geneva, outside the Commission on Human Rights, forms of torture to which its practitioners are victim in China. “Every day, thousands of people in China undergo torture, because they practise Falun Gong”, said Lee Kye Ja, organizer of the demonstration. In presenting the methods used and displaying photographs of the victims, the association wished to draw attention to the fate of its Chinese adherents.

A newspaper from Slavyansk city in Ukraine reported on Ms. Zhang Cuiying and her Chinese Painting Exhibition. Ms. Zhang preserved Chinese classical art and hopes to share her work and her love for China with people all over the world. This March, Chinese art master Ms. Zhang Cuiying’s work has indeed brought people in Slavyansk and its nearby cities great enlightenment.

The Epoch Times quoted a report made by the Central News Agency that Ms. Erika Mann, a Member of the European Parliament, published an article in the Wall Street Journal on March 17th, arguing that the European Union should not lift the arms embargo to China. In the article, she stressed that many legislators on both sides of the Atlantic firmly oppose the EU’s intention to lift the embargo.

'Banned in China in 1999 after mass protests at the illegal detention and beating of practitioners, the spiritual movement Falun Dafa will soon be represented in Bristol as Friends of Falun Dafa joins the list of official Union societies...It is this spiritual aspect of Falun Dafa, along with its huge size and ability to mobilise widespread support, that alarmed the Communist authorities. With members of Falun Dafa exceeding Communist Party membership, the government began to denounce the practice and eventually banned it, persecuting all those who continue to be associated with it.'

Dynasty TV and the French satellite communication Company Eutelsat is now a point of concern for the western media. The Wall Street Journal Europe featured an editorial article with the title “New Tang Dynasty TV Station causes a commotion” on 16th March, criticising the French company for stopping the broadcast of NTDTV to Asian areas and pointing out that the Eutelsat Satellite Company, which has always boasted itself as upholding freedom of speech, is displaying double-standards

New York-based New Tang Dynasty TV (NTDTV) and Reporters Without Borders held a joint press conference in Brussels on the afternoon of the 15th of March, condemning the European satellite operator Eutelsat’s decision not to renew the contract under which independent, Chinese-language broadcaster NTDTV uses Eutelsat satellites to broadcast to Asia and China.

The Epoch Times reported on March 16th that media lobbyists and European Union MEPs supported the independent station New Tang Dynasty TV in launching legal action against the Eutelsat satellite company, because Eutelsat was going to stop broadcasting NTDTV programmes to China. The International Journalists Union said Eutelsat has bowed to pressure from Beijing and was going to refuse the renewal of the contract to broadcast NTDTV’s programmes to China.

“Hundreds of thousands of Falun Gong practitioners have been taken to forced labour camps and many have been tortured to death”, reported one Falun Gong practitioner from Ettlingen. The practitioner further stated that it was not easy to explain why this is being done because the movement is not political and has about 100 million practitioners in sixty countries around the world. “We assume that the Chinese Communist Party became jealous and afraid of the great popularity of Falun Gong.” In Baden-Baden, signatures were collected to petition for an end to the brutal torture.

Supporters of Chinese meditation practice Falun Gong acted out scenes of torture in Liverpool. The group collected 1,700 signatures from shoppers on Church Street after the display to highlight persecution suffered by Falun Gong practitioners in China. The display, attended by practitioners from across the UK, lasted for more than three hours. Simon Gross, 32, a practitioner from Formby, said: "The human rights abuses going on in China against people who practise Falun Gong are inexcusable. It is a peaceful practice which has more than 70 million practitioners in China. But it has been perceived as a threat by the communist government."

Mignews in Russia published an article entitled “Shocking Internet Surveillance in China” on March 4th. The article described the astounding extent to which the Chinese Communist regime is monitoring Internet access in China. According to the Russian media, seventy-two “Warriors” work in three eight-hour shifts so that they can implement a non-stop surveillance over “sohu.com”, “Beijing Telecom”, “Beijing Netcom” and eleven other Internet portals. In addition, the “Warriors” also took the same measures against four major Internet cafes.

British newspaper The Belfast Telegraph published an article entitled “Show to focus on torture in China” on March 4th 2005. Marie Foy reported that Falun Gong practitioners held anti-torture exhibitions in fifteen cities in the UK to expose the brutal torture that the regime in China has conducted against them because they refuse to abandon their belief.

Hackmayer and his friends, fellow Falun Gong practitioners who meet for group practice in the Baden area, thought it was only natural to take steps to raise awareness about the human rights violations in China. He thought it would make sense for him to use his talents: ballads, songs and communally produced CDs...“I am taking a stand for human rights. If there is anything I can do, I am happy to do it.” Currently, he is celebrating his next CD with some of his fellow musicians. It is scheduled to appear in the summer.

"Despite the evening rain, wind and cold weather, Falun Gong practitioners were at their stall on Sunday in Gifthorn’s pedestrian zone. They were there to expose the brutal persecution happening in China, the land that this “cultivation practice” originated from, and to tell people about the suffering of their fellow practitioners in China."

Practitioners from Cham city in Germany and a local representative from the International Society for Human Rights held a seminar entitled “The Current Situation of Human Rights Violations in China”. Local newspapers reported on this event, including an article entitled “Lies cannot withstand exposure” in Chamer Zeitung and another entitled “Experiencing Injustice” in Bayerwald-Echo.

China is the only country that has banned the Falun Gong practice. A large number of human rights organisations in various countries all came forward to support Falun Gong. It is widely recognised that the Chinese leader, Jiang Zemin, violated human rights...At the exhibition, other than the artwork of the famous painter, there were various paintings and sculptures by Falun Gong practitioners in Ukraine on display. The atmosphere at the exhibition was very harmonious, showing the peaceful inner world of people living by the beliefs of “Truthfulness, Compassion and Forbearance”.

Starting from February 6, Falun Gong practitioners from countries all over the world became the target of a Chinese Government phone harassment campaign. In Finland and other countries of Europe, as well as in the United States and Canada, practitioners’ home, work and mobile phones received continuous pre-recorded phone calls. The content of the recordings was identical to the propaganda that Jiang Zemin and his cohorts have used as a part of their persecution campaign against Falun Gong.

People who were passing through the centre of Znojmo today witnessed an uncommon scene. Three men in meditation positions were performing the Chinese practice of Falun Gong. This silent protest was to raise awareness about the brutal persecution of practitioners of this method in distant China. Their fellow practitioners were distributing material informing the public about and describing the shocking methods of torture that the Chinese police utilise against Falun Gong practitioners.

Across Europe and North America, people received coordinated waves of pre-recorded phone calls on Sunday. The content defames Falun Gong, in both English and Chinese language. “This is harassment, it’s a provocative act,” said Falun Dafa Infocenter spokesperson Erping Zhang, who personally received six of the calls. The Epoch Times first learned of the calls in Europe. People in Austria, Denmark, Finland, Germany, Holland, Latvia, Lithuania, Norway, Russia, Sweden, United Kingdom and Switzerland all reported the calls.

While she suffered, German friends and acquaintances had mounted a rescue effort. They collected signatures demanding her freedom and distributed postcards, asking that people send them directly to the slave labour camp. On January 4th 2004, Xiong Wei gained her freedom. She is now in Germany.

In the centre of Brno, a several-hour-long activity was held to show the kind of torture being waged against people who practise Falun Gong in China. Organisers of this event wanted to raise awareness about the inhuman torture Falun Gong practitioners in China are exposed to and also introduce the Falun Gong practice to the public.

On January 9th, “The State” newspaper published a photo showing the anti-torture exhibition demonstrated by Falun Gong practitioners. The report revealed the practitioners displayed and exposed the various torture methods inflicted on their fellow practitioners in China. According to their introduction, thousands of Falun Gong practitioners have died of torture in Chinese prisons and labour camps.

On the morning of January the 8th, Spanish Falun Gong practitioners at Puerto del Sol in the centre of Madrid acted out the torture methods which have been commonly employed by the Chinese Jiang group to persecute Falun Gong practitioners in prisons and forced labour camps since it started to implement its policy of genocide against Falun Gong in 1999.

Hong Kong's Ming Bao reported that Mr. Gao wrote an open letter to Chairman Wu Bangguo of the Chinese People's Congress. He said in the letter that he had received many appeals and letters from Falun Gong practitioners who were tortured in prisons or labour camps. Mr. Gao pointed out that the local government abused Falun Gong practitioners by imprisoning them in labour camps. He said that he "felt extreme sorrow" in his letter to Wu Bangguo.

Encounters with the “Re-education staff” were the worst. They beat, abused and cursed her. She was forced to listen to the indoctrination while squatting for long periods. She told us that she had to endure this without being charged with anything and without due legal process. She was ordered to sign a document, promising to renounce this spiritual practice. She did not relent and wrote, “Falun Gong is good.”

Falun Gong practitioners in Sweden exposed the crimes of China's former Head of State, Jiang Zemin, by re-enacting some of the torture methods used by his regime against Falun Gong practitioners in Mainland China. This attracted the attention of several Swedish newspapers.

Charles Lee sits unmoving on a wooden stool. His heart is beating fast, his breath is short, his back is straight, and his eyes look straight ahead at the television. He is not allowed to move. After seven hours or longer, he may be taken into a room to make Christmas tree lights for export. For Lee, this is another holiday season away from his fiancée as a prisoner of conscience in China.

Organisations such as Amnesty International and the International Society for Human Rights (IGFM) have called on Beijing to stop the persecution for years. However, Xiong Wei’s case is apparently only one of many others. She returned to her home country in 2002 and was arrested by police while she was distributing printed materials about the persecution of Falun Gong. She was taken for “re-education” to a forced labour camp without trial. She talks about beatings, humiliation, and sleep deprivation. “We had to wrap 6,000 disposable chopsticks every day.”

French Lawyer William Bourdon, through the French Justice System, has sent China a request to investigate the role of former Chinese Vice-Premier Li Lanqing and current Minister of Culture Sun Jiazheng in the persecution of Falun Gong. The European Chinese media outlet, European Daily carried a report on this progress on the front page of its weekend edition.

"After three sessions of one and a half hours I had learned the exercises ... nothing simpler, no need to do your head in! There are only five exercises, four standing and the fifth, if possible, in the meditative lotus position (which everyone does according to his or her capability)...This practice brings you harmony and inner strength and allows the energy to circulate in a marvellous way throughout the body."

Xiong Wei told us that the Chinese regime felt threatened by Falun Gong. Therefore, they banned this movement in 1999. The Communist regime specially created an agency (“The 610 Office”) that is in charge of persecuting Falun Gong. Xiong Wei wistfully told us that, “Adherents of this meditation school are persecuted by the state security agencies, who use psychological terror methods, beatings and torture.” Tens of thousands of adherents were sent by the regime to re-education camps.

“Falun Gong advocates ‘Truthfulness, Compassion and Forbearance’ but the Chinese Communist Party promotes vicious struggles. Therefore, they are fundamentally different. Secondly, belief holds people in awe, but the Chinese Communist Party maintains its political power by terror. After it took over power, the Chinese Communist Party has launched a variety of campaigns to continue its ruling position. This persecution did not end in the wake of Jiang Zemin’s step-down..."

[Irish Premier] Mr Ahern said that when the Chinese officials visited Ireland in recent years, he had raised the issue of human rights."We actively called for the release of the Falun Gong prisoners two years ago, which was deeply appreciated by the Chinese community in Ireland," he added. "We succeeded in a number of high profile cases. When Ireland held the EU presidency earlier this year, we gave a commitment to the protection and promotion of human rights and fundamental freedoms."

She was taken to a women’s labour camp without trial, where she regularly suffered torture to re-educate her. Hearing about her arrest, her brother turned to the public with the help of the International Society for Human Rights (IGFM). They managed to collect more than 40,000 signatures, write support letters and inform the media. They also informed the federal government. Thus, the Chancellor personally wrote a letter to the Chinese President pleading for Xiong Wei’s release.

Xiong Wei’s friends, as well as the International Society for Human Rights (ISHR), became active in gaining her freedom as soon as they heard about her arrest. Chancellor Gerhard Schröder of the Social Democratic Party (SPD) presented the former head of state and head of the communist party Jiang Zemin, during his Aril 2002 state visit in Germany, with an appeal letter, requesting the freedom of all imprisoned Falun Gong practitioners, including Xiong Wei.

Report from Falun Gong Information Day in the Town Hall of Cham: To introduce Falun Dafa to visitors who had not previously heard much about it, performers presented and explained the basic exercises on stage; its elegance and beauty were represented in the lotus and fan dances.

"I’m extremely pleased that the judgment was based on the truth. It was even discussed in the media that the first unjust ruling by Hong Kong’s court was brought about because of pressure by the People’s Republic of China’s regime. It is important to publicise the persecution of Falun Gong in China. Therefore, we keep up our campaign to raise awareness in Switzerland."

The head of the Chinese Communist Party, Jiang Zemin, decided to ban this non-violent and non-political meditation exercise in 1999 and initiated a nationwide brutal persecution campaign against Falun Gong practitioners. He established a special organisation called the “6-10 Office”, which was named after its establishment date of June the 10th 1999, to carry out this persecution.

”Ruin their reputation, bankrupt them and eliminate them physically!” “Every Falun Gong practitioner beaten to death is to be counted as suicide!” These are orders from the former head of China. Since then the people who are known to practise Falun Dafa, as well as their relatives, have been thrown in labour camps, prisons and psychiatric hospitals. They are tortured and even killed by the most inhumane methods – beating, forced feeding with a tube into the trachea, deprivation of sleep and toilet facilities, burning with cigarettes and branding, beating with electric-shock batons and mind-altering drug injections.

The Garda Commissioner has been asked to investigate allegations against the Chinese Premier that he has been implicated in torture by Falun Gong practitioners, write Daniel McConnell and Carol Coulter. Lawyers for five members of the group living in Ireland asked the Garda Commissioner at the weekend to investigate and arrest Mr Huang Ju , who is on a three-day official visit to Ireland, and discussions were still taking place between the lawyers and the Commissioner last night. Diplomatic immunity does not apply to allegations of torture. It is understood that late last night lawyers representing the Chinese group were also considering other avenues of pursuing their objective of having Mr Ju arrested.'

'She was held for three months in an interim holding prison in North Beijing. She shared a cell with twenty other women. She was allowed a wooden bench for sleeping, but had to share it with three women. For food she was given highly salted Chinese cabbage full of maggots. During that period Xiong Wei was held in an apartment for two weeks with so-called re-education personnel who talked to her day and night, forbid her to sleep, beat her up and threatened to break each of her fingers, one at a time, if she would not sign a document renouncing Falun Gong.'

On September 29th she finally regained her freedom, after the efforts of the German government and a number of human rights organisations. She is presently traveling throughout Germany to thank everyone for all the efforts on her behalf, for regaining her freedom and at the same time to tell everyone about the Chinese labour camps and the persecution of Falun Gong adherents in China.

"The Austrian Government, outraged with the Chinese officials’ action, expedited the request by the thirty two year old economist. Wang experienced, as an admitted Falun Gong adherent, political persecution. Falun Gong, also called Falun Dafa, is a meditation practice banned by the Chinese regime."

In some extreme cases, Falun Gong practitioners were pressurised by the police to beat other practitioners. “There are only two choices under such circumstances, physical death if you insist on your belief, or spiritual death if you are forced to abandon the belief. The only way to survive is to distort your personality, dignity and belief. Such suffering is actually more painful than death.”

The young man explained, “I came here today to let people know that even in these modern times persecution exists. This persecution exists only because one wants to live by the principles of Truthfulness, Compassion and Tolerance.” These simple and fundamental values represent for the former Chinese President Jiang Zemin a dire threat to the regime’s existence.

'Amnesty International and Human Rights Watch have denounced this persecution as an attack on human rights. On the 24th of October 2002, the Parliament of the Canton of Geneva passed a resolution against persecution in China, particularly against that of Falun Dafa practitioners. Some 15 countries have instituted legal proceedings against those who are covering up what is considered to be one of the most large-scale persecutions in the world since 1945.'

'Falun Gong, also known as Falun Dafa, was introduced in China in 1992 by Master Li Hongzhi. It is a traditional meditation practice that consists of five sets of exercises. According to the practitioners, the exercises promote good health and develop the body, the mind and the spirit. This process is called cultivation.'

When talking about the support from abroad, Xiong Wei said, “I was lucky. The police did not treat me as brutally as they did the others.” This is due to the pressure from Germany. The German Government and Premier appealed for Xiong Wei’s freedom in Beijing. There were also petitions against the detainment of Xiong Wei and a large-scale activity of sending postcards to the labour camp where she was detained. As soon as Xiong Wei was released, the German Embassy dropped some diplomatic hints and Xiong Wei was able to come back to Germany last week.

The report said that Xiong Wei was arrested on January the 5th 2002 because she distributed flyers in Beijing to appeal for a stop to the persecution against Falun Gong. Falun Gong practitioners in Germany expressed their sincere thanks to the German Government and all of the parliament members who have provided help in rescuing Xiong Wei. They were also grateful to the international human rights organisations and those compassionate people who provided their signatures, mailed postcards or wrote songs to voice their support for Xiong Wei throughout her illegal imprisonment.

'The lawsuit was filed for accusations of genocide and torture against millions of Chinese and western citizens who practise Falun Gong, a practice based on exercises and meditation similar to Tai-Chi and Yoga, and some spiritual principles. In this lawsuit, Jia Qinglin is accused by fifteen victims from different nationalities of various crimes he committed as Secretary General of the Chinese Municipal Communist Committee in Beijing.'

The report quoted Xiong Wei’s account of the persecution, forced education (brainwashing) and humiliation she has experienced in China’s detention centres and labour camps. Xiong Wei said, “The police have learned how to beat prisoners without leaving any scars on the body’s surface.” On several occasions, she was forced to stand still for hours without taking any food or water. She was imprisoned with several people in a small cell, which had only one toilet.