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The Price of Conscience--I Lost My Citizenship Because of My Faith in "Truth-Compassion-Forbearance"
By a Practitioner in Germany, Chen Gang
(Clearwisdom.net)
On May 21, 2000, I went to the Chinese Consulate in Munich, Germany to renew
my passport. On May 23, one of the staff there called me and asked me to come
over to the Consulate. An officer in the visa application department interviewed
me. He put my old passport before me and asked me, "Are you the person in charge
of Falun Gong in Munich?"
I replied, "Falun Gong practitioners don't have an organization, so we don't
have anybody in charge. It is just that whoever has the time and the heart
contributes more of his or her efforts voluntarily."
The officer asked again, "Do you know China's policy on Falun Gong?"
I replied, "I have never acknowledged that Jiang's policy of persecuting
Falun Gong represents China's policy."
He raised his voice and said, "I'm asking you if you know about China's
policy on Falun Gong?"
I said, "And I answered you precisely. Jiang alone cannot represent China or
the one and a half billion Chinese people."
He said, "With this kind of attitude, just take your old passport home with
you. Think hard and clearly before you come back again."
I replied, "I've already thought it over for a long time. I can answer you
right now. No threats will change my belief in 'Truthfulness, Compassion,
Forbearance.' Jiang has persecuted over one hundred million Chinese people who
believe in 'Truthfulness, Compassion, Forbearance.' He is the one who has
endangered the country and the people."
He interrupted me and said, "Do not talk about this here. This is Chinese
territory. Please leave!" Thus, just because of my belief in "Truthfulness,
Compassion, Forbearance," I was deprived of my rights as a Chinese citizen and I
was forced to leave this piece of overseas Chinese territory. Lacking a valid
passport has already caused a lot of problems with my school and work in
Germany.
This was the second time I had been persecuted for upholding my conscience.
The first time was after the massacre in Tiananmen Square. On the morning of
June 4, 1989, I saw with my own eyes many civilians and students being killed or
injured by gunshots. I saw the windows and walls of a subway station filled with
bullet holes. I saw bodies spread thinly on the ground after being crushed into
meat patties by tanks.
After that, for twenty-four hours a day, the news on the TV kept lying about
what happened. It said that Beijing citizens had rioted, that only soldiers from
the People's Liberation Army had died or been injured, and there were no
casualties among civilians and students. Just like the persecution of Falun Gong
today, what the TV said was nothing but lies. Not only did they lie about it,
they also forced everyone else to lie about it, requiring all Chinese people in
all industries, businesses and schools to express their support for opening fire
on the students and civilians. This is exactly the same as today's "millions of
signatures opposing Falun Gong" (a petition drive launched by the Jiang
regime in an attempt to justify its persecution of Falun Gong, in which
schoolchildren and workers were intimidated into signing their names). The
school I was attending, the Beijing University of Science and Technology, also
forced all college students to explicitly show their support for the
government's so called action of "putting down a rebellion." Except for me,
everyone in our Electrical Engineering Department submitted to the pressure and
against their will lied to express their support for the government. I was the
only one that stayed silent from the beginning to the end because what the TV
had publicized was different from what I had seen.
Because I was the only one in the department who had not expressed my stand,
I immediately became a key target. The secretary of the Party's Branch Office
colluded with the Martial-Law troop to find an excuse to arrest me. The
Martial-Law troop had already gone to our school with machine guns in their
hands and arrested about a dozen students, but they couldn't find any excuse to
arrest me, so they planned to punish me by expelling me from school. I was
forced to ask a doctor to issue a statement for me that would allow me to take a
one-year sick leave. I stayed home in hiding for a year to avoid the heat of the
political situation. Because of what happened, I started thinking about going
abroad to continue my education, for I felt that I was deprived of the dignity
of a human being in China.
With this wish of going abroad in mind and also with the wish to learn
something related to traditional Chinese culture before leaving the country, I
thought about qigong. At the time, many different kinds of qigong were
practiced in society. Falun Gong was the only one that didn't charge money, so I
decided to try it. The first day I learned the exercises at a practice site. As
soon as I finished doing "Penetrating the Two Cosmic Extremes," I felt very
unusual. Then I learned the sitting meditation exercise. After just moving my
hands a little bit, I could feel my palms becoming very warm and I felt energy
radiating out from my palms. I thought to myself, "This Falun Gong is for real!"
What Teacher Li Hongzhi said answered all the questions about life that I had
pondered throughout my life. The principle that Falun Gong promotes,
"Truthfulness, Compassion, Forbearance," was just what I had been searching for.
After I started practicing Falun Gong, I held myself to the standard of
"Truthfulness, Compassion, Forbearance" and both my body and mind have benefited
immensely. The relationships among my family members have also become more
harmonious.
However, Falun Gong, which created so much good for our country and did not
pose any danger, has been cruelly persecuted by Jiang's corrupt political gang.
Moreover, this persecution has already extended to foreign countries. In
Germany, I was threatened with my Chinese citizenship just because of my
personal belief. In 1989, I was forced to choose between my conscience and my
status of being a student. Today, I am again forced to face the same choice;
should I be a man of conscience or should I keep my Chinese citizenship?
From the bottom of my heart, I admire Falun Gong practitioners in Mainland
China. In the face of being arrested, beaten--even beaten to death--they put
aside their personal interests in order for others to understand the truth. They
are courageous enough to say something for justice; this includes my mother who
lives in Beijing. Through practicing Falun Gong, she has been freed of many
stubborn illnesses that she used to have and has a very healthy body now. Not
willing to cooperate with the evil, she refused to sign her name on the
so-called "millions of signatures opposing Falun Gong;" therefore, the police
wanted to arrest her, and it has been more than a year since she was forced to
become destitute and homeless in order to avoid being illegally arrested at
home. The police have gone to her hometown in Hebei Province many times to
arrest her. This is how a group of kind-hearted Chinese people, with their
belief in "Truthfulness, Compassion, Forbearance," are safeguarding the truth
with their lives, writing the most solemn and compassionate pages in Chinese
history, and creating the future.
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