Germany: The Story of Liu Guangrong, Sacked from a Chinese Owned Factory in Dusseldorf for Raising Awareness about the Persecution of Falun Gong

In the early morning of September 19th, 2008, Liu Guangrong was on his way to the European Headquarters of Huawei in Dusseldorf. He was not going to work because he had been dismissed by the company three days before. Why was he going to Huawei as he had already been dismissed? The story begins three days previously.

On September 16th, 2008, the leader of the company came to see Liu Guangrong and told him that he was dismissed because the company needed to reduce unnecessary employees. However, immediately afterwards, the company started to recruit people to fill Liu Guangrong’s post, and it became obvious that the company’s reason for redundancy was a pretext. Then what was the real reason for the dismissal of Liu Gangrong?

Two months ago, Liu Guangrong became an employee of the European Headquarters of Huawei. Huawei is a well-known enterprise in the telecommunication industry both at home and abroad with its home office based in Shenzhen, China. Well paid by the company, Liu Guangrong worked as staff of the company’s canteen which served food to over 140 Chinese employees. However, in this company which is well-known within the domestic telecommunication sector, one thing that made Liu Guangrong very disappointed was the lack of freedom of speech.

Liu Guangrong is a Falun Gong practitioner. He had suffered from neurasthenia since childhood. For more than a decade, both tinnitus and palpitations that had been like shadow following him made his life very painful. He had tried to gain health through running exercises, practising shadow boxing and taking Chinese medicine, but in vain. In 2001, he left China and came to work as a chef in Germany. Huge mental stress and hard physical labour made his neurasthenia even worse. In 2002, Falun Gong came into his life, which has brought Liu Guangrong much relief from his suffering. His neurasthenia that had accompanied him for years disappeared and he had freed himself from his mental stress through practising Falun Gong. From then on, he has often been seen in various activities exposing the persecution of Falun Gong by the Chinese Communist Party (CCP). He says, “I hope more and more people will no longer be deceived by the CCP’s lies and will take a positive attitude toward Falun Gong as I do.”

He had worked very hard since he came to work for the canteen at Huawei two months ago. He not only performed his own duty but also took initiative to do the dirty and tiring work that people did not want to do. His honesty and kindness was well-known to everybody who had met him. Liu Guangrong, a man of few words, has once said, “I just want to set high demands on myself with truthfulness, compassion and forbearance.”

Seeing so many elites coming from China’s telecommunications, he distributed the overseas newspaper Epoch Times to them during his spare time. He eagerly wanted them to know about the persecution of Falun Gong that was happening in China. He encountered all kinds of obstructions although he was here in a free and democratic German society. He felt that the company had a very strict control over the thoughts of its Chinese staff while making them work hard. The Chinese employees turned pale at the mention of scandal of the persecution of Falun Gong by the CCP, which was obviously a prohibited area.
At one time, Liu Guangrong met a Chinese worker of Huawei on his way to work on an underground train. He told him about the persecution of Falun Gong and the Quit-the-CCP movement. As a result, this colleague immediately reported it to the departmental chief of Liu Guangrong. The chief said to him, “You do not talk to the Chinese staff about Falun Gong and the quit-the-CCP movement. Our company has regulations which do not allow the staff to talk about these sensitive topics. It will do you no good if you talk about these".

At another time, he distributed Epoch Times Newspaper into his colleague’s mail-box. Upon learning about this, his chief came and said to him, “What you are doing would create a bad impression. Do you want to distribute the newspaper or do you want your job?”

Facing the threat of his chief, he made no change. He continued to do what he was doing. He said, “I don’t think I have done anything wrong. In China, so many Falun Gong practitioners keep telling people the truth about Falun Gong in a peaceful way although there are risks of losing their jobs and being arrested. Moreover, this is Germany.”

The departmental chief of the company tries to forcibly take the Display Board away with bad language.
Liu Guangrong with his Quit-CCP Display Board. On his left is the European Headquarters of Huawei
Liu Guangrong was telling the Germans about the truth of Falun Gong. The departmental chief of the company was trying to stop him at the site.

On September 16th, 2008, he was dismissed by Huawei. He says, “The company told me that it needed to lay off staff because there was too many staff. But the company recruited new employee immediately to fill my post. It was obviously a pretext to dismiss its staff because of excessive employees. I felt that the real reason was because I talked to the staff of the company about Falun Gong and the Quit-the CCP Movement in China.”

On an early morning three days later, he turned up again in front of the European Headquarters of Huawei. What was different from the past was that although he had lost his job here, he had had a Display Board beside him that he made by himself during the previous late night and on the Board was the information exposing the evilness of the CCP and the information about quitting the CCP Movement.
Soon after, his former departmental chief appeared. Suddenly losing his gentle manners as an urbane intellectual, he shouted at him by saying that he should not do that. But Liu Guangrong kept distributing the Epoch Times Newspaper to both the Chinese and Germans. Now the immediate leader could not threaten Liu Guangrong with losing jobs but he used the some way to threaten other staff of Huawei. The Chinese staff on their way to work passed by the Display Board set up by Liu Guangrong. But when seeing the departmental chief standing beside the Display Board and hearing him repeated saying in Chinese “Do not take”, most of the staff kept quiet out of fear and quickly walked away. Some of the staff returned the Newspapers already in their hands. Some other staff stole a quick glance at the Display Board only when Liu Guangrong was not in front the Display Board for a short while.

What was different from the Chinese staff was that, although the departmental chief was trying to stop people, most of the Germans took the leaflets about the truth of Falun Gong and some gave the thumbs up. What was moving even more was that, after becoming aware of the truth of Falun Gong, a German gentleman went back into the building and came out again together with a German lady, each of them having a cup of hot coffee in their hands, and gave the coffee to both Liu Guangrong and another Falun Gong practitioner.

When asked whether he felt hatred towards the dismissal of the company and the way the company leaders had treated him, he said, “They have also been deceived by the liars of the CCP. We cultivate ourselves with truthfulness, compassion and tolerance. We should not feel hatred towards them. The reason why I clarify truth to them is that I hope they will understand the truth, renounce the CCP and have a happy future.”

Falun Gong practitioners in overseas countries have been free to clarify the truth and there are few people like Liu Guangrong who has lost his job just because of clarifying the truth. Mr. Guo, a Falun Gong practitioner who went together with Liu Guangrong to distribute the leaflets about the truth of Falun Gong in front of the Headquarters of Huawei, said that it was understandable, “Because the CCP not only uses liars to control the ideology of the Chinese people at home but also spares no efforts to extend its control to overseas countries. Huawei, a company where Liu Guangrong had worked, has close relations with the CCP. Therefore, what happened that should not have happened. In a free and democratic society, every foreigner would find it incredible when an employee in a company takes the initiative to give up the right of information just because of the threats of the company.”

Having the experience of being illegally arrested and detained in the Forced Labour Camp in China for practicing Falun Gong, Mr. Guo held, “Although Huawei has done such a thing for fear of loss in its benefits because of offending the CCP, as an enterprise, especially as an enterprise registered in Germany, they have violated the freedom of speech of an employee. For this, this company cannot shirk its responsibility.” Mr. Guo also expressed his hope that it should be exposed by the media that the CCP is exporting despotism to free countries.