Norway: Falun Gong Poster Exhibition in Bergen Public Library

A poster exhibition about Falun Gong has been set up at the public library in the city of Bergen, Norway. The exhibition includes around 30 posters that are well placed along the wall of the library’s main staircase and many people pass by them every day. Brochures containing information on Falun Gong are available to accompany the exhibition, which will be on display for a fortnight.

The exhibition starts off with an introduction to Falun Gong and the practice’s principles of Truthfulness, Compassion and Forbearance. The posters show a variety of scenes, such as many thousands of people practising the exercises in China before the persecution, an interview with Master Li Hongzhi and pictures of awards and proclamations that Falun Gong received for the benefits it brought to China before the persecution.

After the introduction, the viewer can learn about the persecution of Falun Gong in China, who’s behind it and facts about the horrific methods of persecution and torture that practitioners are subjected to in China. They are imprisoned in forced labour camps where they suffer sexual abuse, force-feeding and other inhumane treatment. The posters reveal that the persecution was initiated by former Communist Party leader Jiang Zemin in 1999, after the number of people practising Falun Gong outnumbered the Communist Party’s membership. Jiang Zemin saw the 100 million practitioners as a threat to his own power because they so vastly outnumbered the 60 million Communist Party members. The persecution includes use of propaganda to defame Falun Gong practitioners and turn Chinese people against the practice, thereby justifying the persecution in the eyes of many Chinese people.

At the end of the exhibition, statements from Norwegian Government officials and Amnesty International feature alongside a statement Master Li made when the persecution started in 1999:

”We are not against the government now, nor will we be in the future. Other people may treat us badly, but we do not treat others badly, nor do we treat people as enemies.”