(Clearwisdom.net) On March 2, 2006, a public introduction of the book, The Persecution of Falun Gong, was held in the cultural center of the city of Braunschweig, Germany. The activity was co-hosted by the local student human rights group and the author of the book, Manuel Horth.
The activity lasted about two hours. Manuel Horth made the opening speech and then read from a few selected chapters from the book. Among Falun Gong practitioners attending the activity, many of them had personally experienced persecution in China. They shared their stories with the audience. Jack Aura played piano. Mr. Aura is a member of the international group, "Playing Music for Human Rights." He has been actively involved in opposing the persecution of Falun Gong for many years.
The book is a compilation of documentary reports about the experiences of Falun Gong practitioners who suffered persecution by the Chinese Communist regime (published in German by Dexheimer, ISBN 3-932273-85-0).
One report in the book was about Mr. Zhu Feng, who now lives in Hannover as a refugee admitted by the German government. Zhu Feng used to be a very successful businessman in China. He lost his job during the Chinese Communist regime's persecution of Falun Gong. His wife could not bear the continuous pressure of the persecution 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 the torture suffered by his sister. These photos became part of the earliest evidence exposing the Chinese Communist regime's brutal torture of Falun Gong practitioners. Zhu Hang is now being forcibly detained in a mental hospital where she is constantly forced to take nerve-damaging drugs. Her behavior is now like that of an eight-year-old child and she has totally lost her ability to understand like a normal person. Before leaving for Germany, Zhu Feng visited her sister in the mental hospital and confiscated some of the drugs that his sister was forced to take. The author of the book passed these drugs to a doctor for testing.
Zhu Xiaoyan, a Japanese language student living in Gottingen, described her experiences of being persecuted when she lived in China. As a Falun Gong practitioner, her university tried to expel her under the pressure from the Communist Party. Although Ms. Zhu passed all her examinations, the university refused to give her a diploma. She was also illegally detained and abused. It was 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 about his experience of peacefully appealing for justice for Falun Gong in Beijing's Tiananmen Square in 2002. As a student of education who practices Falun Gong, Mr. Akbar and other western Falun Gong practitioners broke the western media's silence on the Chinese Communist regime's persecution of Falun Gong through their protest in Beijing.
After the talk, some audience members stayed to have in-depth conversations with the speakers.
