Falun Gong Information Centre Germany: Xiong Wei - Released From Detention But Not Yet Free!

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12th. April 2004

German friends want to get Xiong Wei back to Germany

Help requested from the German Chancellor and the Foreign Minister

On January 4th, Mrs Xiong Wei was released after two years detention in Daxing women’s forced labour camp (formerly Xinan women’s labour camp). She was arrested on January the 5th, 2002, while distributing information about the persecution of Falun Gong in China. Right away she was illegally detained without trial for two years of forced labour, the so called “re-education through work” system. Mrs Xiong Wei, aged 32, is a former student of the Technical University Berlin (TU-Berlin) and began an additional apprenticeship as assistant for China-businesses in the education centre Mueggelsee GmbH in Berlin. She then worked at the branch office of the German Company Buderus AG in Peking. To enable her return to Germany her German friends have asked the Chancellor and the Foreign Minister for help. Her release could not be taken for granted and is due to the public’s attention that her case came to the notice of the German Government, the media and the international community.

Immediately after her detention, Falun Gong-Practitioners in Germany, Friends of Xiong Wei(http://www.friends-of-xiongwei.de/), as well as the International Society for Human Rights actively worked for her release and asked the German Government for help. Her name was then added to a Government list, which was handed over by Chancellor Gerhard Schröder during the state visit of the former Chinese president to Germany in April 2002 (http://www.faluninfo.de/142.0.html). Furthermore her case was documented responded to in the report of Mr Abdelfattah Amor (G/SO 214 56-15) on China from March, 28th 2002, who is the special correspondent at the UNHRC for freedom of Religion and Belief.

Out of eight cases, four are now deceased

Commenting on the report of Mr Abdelfattah Amor, China’s claims concerning Xiong Wei are as follows: "In its work, the Beijing women's labour re-education facility strictly abides by the principles that inmates should be re-educated, guided by persuasion and thus reformed. The management methods that it applies are legal, civilised and scientific and no form of corporal punishment or ill-treatment is ever used against those undergoing labour re-education." Out of the eight documented cases of Falun Gong practitioners there are only four still alive.

What does “re-education“ in China really mean?

This sort of brainwashing, in China called “re-education”, is hard to grasp by western society’s people. It is a drastic psychological method, which has been developed by the communist party during years of harsh political campaigns that shook China throughout the last fifty years and it has been perfected since then. It includes violence and torture, deprivation of sleep, insults, humiliations, forced labour and forced watching of propaganda videos that defame Falun Gong. It is a strong intervention into one's personality, during which the will of the person concerned is broken and his thinking and his ideals are completely replaced by the communist leader’s ideology; it is “thought smashing”. It is one of the basic methods of how the former leader of China Jiang Zemin wants to attain the “destruction of Falun Gong”. (http://www.faluninfo.de/131.0.html)

Constant observation burdens the whole family

Immediatelyy after the release of Xiong Wei, she was, according to reliable information, repeatedly asked by the police and officials of the „610- offices“, a political institution which is installed to persecute Falun Gong practitioners in China, whether or not she wanted to go abroad. She and her family are being controlled and monitored, telephone and E-Mail activities are spied on. The fear that she might arbitrarily be arrested again worries the whole family.


The Chancellor and the Foreign Minister are being asked for help to bring Xiong Wei back to Germany.

Once more the friends of Xiong Wei and other organisations turn towards the Government to demand her unconditional return to Germany.

They remind us of the words of one of the most famous Chinese dissidents, Harry Wu, "When I was released after spending 19 years within the hellholes of the Lao Gai (Chinese Labour camp) I just exchanged a small cage for a bigger one. Only when I was allowed to visit my relatives in San Francisco and I had passed the custom officers, I fell crying on my knees and I knew: I was free!” (http://www.laogai.org) We hope that Mrs Xiong Wei can experience this freedom.

Concerning Xiong's freedom, Mrs Renate Lilge-Stodieck of the Falun Gong-Information centre says: "I knew Xiong Wei from her time in Berlin and I still keep a very good and amiable memory of her; including me there would be many people who would be glad to have her among us and not being exposed to the threats in China any longer. Thus we invited her to Berlin. We are all aware that this evil persecution cannot last much longer, but till that day the Chinese practitioners need so much support from all over the world. We want to thank the ten of thousands of people who expressed their support throughout signature collection, petitions, postcard-campaigns and reports. We ask the German Government once again from the bottom of our hearts to demand the security and safe journey back to Germany of Mrs Xiong Wei."


For further information please contact: Mrs Waltraud Ng Tel.: 06201-15672, Mobile: 0173-3135532 or Mrs Monika Weiß Tel.: 069-614392, Mobile: 0163-143922, Mrs Renate Lilge-Stodieck Tel.: 030-802 81 80, Mobile: 0162-1345478 or Mrs Andrea Fischer Tel.: 030-7523594, Mobile: 0160-95012757

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