Germany: Anti-Torture Exhibition at Cologne Cathedral (Photos)

By a German practitioner

(Cleariwsdom.net) On June 18-19, 2005, practitioners from Nordrhein-Westfalen in Germany held an anti-torture exhibit in front of Cologne Cathedral to expose the Chinese Communist Party's (CCP) brutal persecution of Falun Gong. An anti-torture exhibit involves re-enactments of the torture methods used in attempts to force Falun Gong practitioners in China to renounce their beliefs. Here I'd like to share with everyone several things I experienced and saw during the activities on June 18.

On June 18, the weather changed from cloudy to fair with scorching sun. Our exhibition booth was visible to all cathedral visitors and the area was crowded with tourists.

At around 11:30 a.m., one practitioner demonstrated the small cage torture, where the victim is kept in a cage that is too small for him or her to stand up or lie down. After about one hour, I suddenly saw a westerner gently place two red roses in front of the cage. His touching action originated from the fact that he was moved by the practitioners' great efforts to clarify the truth to the world's people after listening to a practitioner explain the facts to him and several other western tourists.

When practitioners talked to a middle-age German lady, she found it hard to believe that such terrible human rights abuses are occurring, even though she had already heard about the CCP's persecution of Falun Gong. After accepting some leaflets in German, she still said, "Please give me some Chinese materials as well. My baby sitter is Chinese. I will give her the Chinese materials to read." She then took her child to watch the anti-torture exhibit and to view the information display boards.

The practitioners handed out a lot of leaflets and collected many petition signatures calling for an end to the persecution. At some points, many people crowded around the petition table and waited to sign their names and sometimes people actually had to queue up for a while before they could sign.

Towards the end of the afternoon, at about 3:00 p.m., a person appeared holding a big video camera and started to film our anti-torture exhibit. He also shot close-ups of the practitioner who was trapped in the small cage. I noticed there was a press card with a photo hanging in front of his chest, and a few people around him were also wearing the same card. The team revealed that they were actually from a TV station in Mexico.

I was really pleased to see more and more people show concern over the persecution of Falun Gong in China. After learning the truth, almost all of them condemned the persecution and signed the petition calling for it to end.

Source: http://clearharmony.net/articles/200507/27504.html

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