China's recently appointed Commerce Minister Bo Xilai had planned a visit to Germany for March the 25th 2004. He would have encountered condemnation and the strongest possible protest for such a visit from Falun Gong practitioners in Germany, as well as human rights groups. They requested the German government to deny Mr. Bo entry. Following this, the Chinese Government postponed his visit.

On April the 25th 1999, about 10,000 Falun Gong practitioners appealed peacefully in Beijing. From beginning to end, everything was in order and there was no one making loud noises, raising banners, or shouting slogans. After the then Premier met with some representatives of the practitioners and reached a resolution, the Falun Gong practitioners left Beijing quietly. Later, Jiang Zemin used this incident as an excuse to initiate and carry out the brutal persecution against Falun Gong for more than four years.

Zhu Xiaoyan is a young girl from northern China, who is now studying in Western Europe. She started to practise Falun Gong in 1996 in China, and her hobby is dancing. Earlier this year, she once performed a solo dance dubbed "Dunhuang’s Dancing Rhythms" at the Chinese New Year Gala organised by the New Tang Dynasty Television company in Paris and at a concert organised by a human rights organisation in Geneva. The audience was carried away by her graceful and elegant performances with classic flavours, and perceived the holiness, harmony as well as the gracefulness and beauty of the paradises.

Lisa Liang, an Australian citizen, came to Geneva in early March, during the Human Rights Conference and appealed for the release of Tang Yiwen, her younger sister who was imprisoned in China. Due to great international pressure, Tang Yiwen was released several days later. On April 14, Lisa Liang came to Geneva again to continue to appeal for those Chinese Falun Gong practitioners still imprisoned and persecuted in China. She accepted a telephone interview by our reporter.

"Please realise that if it had not been for Dafa practitioners telling me, "Falun Dafa is good!" the life of a person like me with an incurable illness may have already been snatched away by the illness and by the lies! Therefore, I will use my life, which has been extended by Falun Dafa, to tell all people, "Falun Dafa is Good!" and, "Falun Dafa is the Righteous Fa [Law and principles]!""

Although little Fadu is only four years old, she is already a frequent visitor to Geneva. In March 2002 when she wasn’t even two years old, she and her mother came to Geneva for the first time. On the day of the grand opening of the Human Rights Commission, lots of Falun Gong practitioners from all over the world gathered in front of the United Nations and held a press conference in Places des Nations, where people heard Fadu and her mother’s story for the first time.

Chen Guohua is a practitioner who started practising in early 1999. Currently he lives in Germany. He has a passion for the arts, especially playing the flute. Three years ago, he started to compose Dafa music – solo pieces for the flute. Using unique melodies, he extolled the new beginning and beautiful future brought to all matter by Dafa and the noble state of Dafa practitioners; he also expressed his deep concern about practitioners in China being persecuted and portrayed respect for their courage in the face of violence. Here is an interview with him.

Falun Gong has always been taught for free at practice sites that are now in over 60 countries around the world. Falun Gong is often practised outdoors and this has allowed many people to learn more about the practice. Here are some short stories of how people discovered Falun Gong.

On March 9th, 2004, "Friends of Falun Gong" and “The World Organisation to Investigate the Persecution of Falun Gong” (WOIPFG) submitted a list of 102 key responsible persons who actively participated in the persecution of Falun Gong to the U.S. government, including Jiang Zemin, Luo Gan, Liu Jing, Zhou Yongkang, Li Lanqing, Wang Maolin, etc., and urged the U.S. government to prohibit these people from entering the U.S. Bo Xilai's name was on both of the lists. In the criminal lawsuit filed with the Federal Prosecutor’s Office in Germany by forty Falun Gong practitioners, Bo Xilai was one of the defendants on charges of genocide and crimes against humanity.

Micheal is a 37-year-old Falun Dafa practitioner from Germany, who has sung touching songs one after another for more than a year now. Using music, he has told people about the persecution of Falun Gong practitioners in China. His music’s subjects are very vivid ranging from the opposition of the persecution of Falun Gong; calling for people to rescue imprisoned practitioners and suing Jiang Zemin.

As Falun Dafa becomes better known in Germany, more and more German people are seeing and coming to understand the emblem of Falun Dafa, known as the Falun symbol. However, an incident recently took place that causes one to think carefully about the situation.

Luo Gan was the Secretary of the Political and Legislative Affairs Committee of the Chinese Communist Party (CCP) Central Committee. He is also the founding member and Chief Executive Officer of the Jiang regime's specialised agency to persecute Falun Gong - "the Leadership Team Office on the Issue of Falun Gong" of the CCP Central Committee - that is also called the "610 Office." During nearly five years of brutal persecution, Luo Gan has thoroughly planned, deployed and directed Jiang's annihilation policies and plays a major role in the Jiang regime's persecution of Falun Gong.

On August the 27th 2001, Zhou Yongkang was sued on charges of crimes against humanity while visiting the U.S. Human rights lawyer Terri Marsh and 36-year-old Boston resident He Haiying delivered the complaint to Zhou. The complaint, submitted to the district court in Illinois, listed crimes including torture, abuse and punishments, crimes against humanity, and wrongful arrest. Zhou was also accused of violating the Torture Victims Protection Act and the Alien Tort Claims Act.

As one of Jiang Zemin's main accomplices to persecute Falun Gong, Liu Jing directly led the way in fabricating and spreading lies, publicising hatred, defaming Falun Gong, and is responsible for Falun Gong practitioners being brutally tortured and killed. Liu Jing has so much blood on his hands. The crimes he has committed are monstrous. He should be brought to justice together with Jiang Zemin, Luo Gan and Zhou Yongkang.

"These people are all genuine, they come from all around the world, because from their hearts they really want the leaders of the world to look at and position themselves in the right way regarding this persecution. It’s not just about a bunch of people in China who are being persecuted. The reason they are being persecuted is because they practise Truthfulness Compassion and Tolerance. We’re giving the international community the chance to stand up and say, “these three principles of Truthfulness Compassion and Tolerance, you can’t persecute them. Don’t do that”"

I often hear people say that infants begin to cry loudly right after their birth. That is to say that life is bitter right after birth. This is very true! Before I learned Dafa, I never had three consecutive good days. I had pain in my abdomen, pain in my waist, dizziness, sleeplessness, stuffy chest, and my ankles were so swollen and so heavy so that I had difficulty walking as if they were filled with lead. One day in December 1996, I received a Falun Gong pamphlet. My life was changed.

It is obvious that Falun Gong's current situation is quite different from what it was four year ago. Falun Gong has gained support from the international community, spread all over the world, attracted widespread attention, and the status of Falun Gong in China has also changed dramatically. The assumption that Jiang's regime could eliminate Falun Gong has by now been completely shattered.

"I was a criminal imprisoned in the Dalian Forced Labour Camp. I have finished my term and been released. While there, I witnessed the persecution inflicted on Falun Gong practitioners. I sympathise with them from depths of my heart....Due to slander from the television programmes I felt that all Falun Gong practitioners were bad people. However, once I had personal contact with them, I gradually realised that they all were very kind people."

"After Jiang Zemin launched the persecution against Falun Gong, I went back to China again and again to call for justice, inform the Chinese people about the persecution and urge them to help end the persecution. What I got in return was eight months of torture in four prisons. I had to experience a lot of torture just because I wanted to say one sentence: "Falun Gong is good." I was beaten to the extent that my whole body was swollen; my body was black and blue. The pain kept me from sleeping."

"I stand before you today to give the most difficult speech I’ve ever had to give. Because at this moment, even as we speak, millions of children in China are suffering. They are suffering because they and their parents are upholding one of the very basic human rights, the freedom of belief. Their freedom came under attack more than four years ago in 1999, when the former Chinese leader, Jiang Zemin, banned Falun Gong."

"If one truly exercises a Constitutional right such as the freedom of press, the freedom of conscience, the freedom of expression, and the freedom of association, this person will end up in jail, if not dead. The cases of Falun Gong practitioners we have heard here are typical examples. They don’t cheat, they don’t steal, they don’t commit any criminal wrongdoing; instead they have been trying to follow their ancient teachings of Truthfulness, Compassion, and Tolerance to be good people. But in today’s China, it becomes wrong to be right, and it is right to be wrong."

"Falun Dafa practitioners in China are losing their jobs, families, and even lives in order to protect their righteous belief in the best human qualities. Hereby I sincerely ask once more for all kind-hearted people, governments and media to reach out a helping hand and stop Jiang Zemin from persecuting Falun Gong practitioners. Let’s end this tragedy now. Let the Chinese people enjoy the same freedom of belief as people in the rest of the world and enjoy their belief in Truth, Compassion, Forbearance."

"This ongoing persecution of Falun Gong practitioners in China has destroyed countless families that were happy and harmonious; a lot of children have lost their mother or father. In China, thousands and thousands of children are still suffering just like my daughter. They have no human rights, no voice and nowhere to ask for help."

Due to firmly believing in the principle of “Truthfulness, Compassion and Forbearance”, Zhao Ming and thousands upon thousands of Falun Gong practitioners in China maintain their peaceful protest under enormous pressure without resentment or hate. In a lawless country, under a campaign of nationwide propaganda launched by Jiang’s regime through the state-controlled media, they are constantly in danger of losing their jobs, education, homes families, freedom and lives.

'Truthfulness, compassion and forbearance are the three virtues Sterling Campbell, the drummer of David Bowie, strives for. He is a practitioner of the old Chinese meditation system Falun Dafa. ‘Falun Dafa keeps me on the rails. It made me into a better person,’ he says, when we meet him in a hotel in Brussels.'

Jiang's group has been persecuting Falun Gong for more than four years, during which time countless Falun Gong practitioners, their families, friends and colleagues were targeted and suffered various losses. As Jiang's group tries to destroy the evidence in trying to escape punishment, can they also undo the anguish and torment they caused Falun Gong practitioners and their families and friends?

The International Conference on “Genocide in the New Era”, organised by “Friends of Falun Gong Europe” and “International Advocates for Justice”, took place in Sweden’s capital, Stockholm from January 26th to January 28th 2004. This is one of the conference speeches by New York Bar attorney Theresa Chu entitled "Justice against the Crime of Genocide", which was given on the morning of Tuesday January 27th.

Ever since October 2002, when Jiang was sued in the United States for crimes against humanity, genocide, and torture, Jiang and his regime's brutal persecution of Falun Dafa practitioners who believe in Truthfulness, Compassion, and Tolerance, has been exposed to the world, causing wide-spread concern. Each country's government and various organizations are condemning the persecution and calling for an end to it through diplomatic or legal channels.

NTDTV attracted the attention of many overseas Chinese people for having hosted the Inaugural Chinese New Year Global Gala in New York's Manhattan Center. Then it broadcast an exclusive interview with Falun Gong founder, Mr. Li Hongzhi. This was the first time since 1999 that the Falun Gong founder has accepted a media interview. Addressing people who are not practitioners, the Falun Gong founder spoke on a few topics of interest to many people. Clearwisdom reporters interviewed some NTDTV viewers and asked them to talk about their impressions after having watched the interview.

Jiang Zemin's group never passes up a chance to attack Falun Gong, but it's remaining silent when the media around the world are reporting Mr. Li's interview. It seems that the contents of the interview struck at the Jiang regime's biggest weakness: he ordered the persecution of millions of innocent people out of jealousy and paranoia. Jiang Zemin's own statement that "I just don't believe I can't fix Falun Gong" is a transparent show of his resentment.

The latest incident in France is a replay of the Jiang regime's reprehensible behaviour in Germany and Iceland. They are using economic interests to entice and threaten democratic governments. Of course, the relevant members of the Chinese government delegation must also bear responsibility for this act that sold out conscience for personal gain. Their actions are helping Jiang's dictatorship to persecute good people. France is a democratic country, and the actions on the part of a few French officials are going against the trust placed in them by the French people

Liu Chengjun was one of the Falun Gong practitioners who tapped into the Changchun City cable TV system. During this incident, Liu Chengjun and other Falun Gong practitioners successfully tapped into eight channels and broadcast [documentaries about Falun Gong] for an uninterrupted 40-50 minutes to an audience estimated to be more than one million. This heroic incident brought strong reactions from not only within China but also around the world.

The Chinese television media are maintained and supported by the hard-earned money of the Chinese people, and the media should speak for its people. At the same time, the media should play the role of supervising government officials. However, the fact is that the majority of Chinese media is television and it is completely controlled by the dictator Jiang Zemin. Jiang sold his "three representatives theory" on prime time television and turned the daily "news report" into his own personal show.

Since the villains who followed Jiang's Regime began persecuting Falun Gong, they have used every base means and constantly escalated the intensity of the persecution against Falun Gong practitioners. However, all of their lies, brainwashing, violence and torture failed, and now this group of villains is at the end of their wits.

"The cold night falls on Germany. It is so peaceful and tranquil. However, my thoughts find no way to stay calm. Tomorrow morning, Falun Gong practitioner Mr. Wang Weiyu, who is a Tsinghua University alumnus and a good friend of my husband, will stand on illegal trial in Beijing with two other Tsinghua University alumni, Mr. Yu Chao and his wife Ms. Chu Tong, because of their belief in truthfulness, compassion and forbearance."

In the last four years, under the brutal persecution, practitioners have behaved according to Dafa's principles of "Truth, Compassion, and Forbearance" and used compassionate, peaceful and tolerant hearts to clarify the truth to people who are under the influence of the Jiang regime's slander campaign. We hope people can have a clear mind to tell the truth from the lies and the kind from the evil.

Every time Jiang Zemin's group of political cohorts instigates people's hatred toward Falun Gong by using slander, they fabricate a variety of lies, which are essential, as they can not quote directly from any of the Falun Gong books. Why couldn't they quote directly from Falun Gong's books to support these slanderous reports? Because Falun Gong texts clearly forbid Falun Gong practitioners from killing lives or committing suicide.

I recently relocated to another city for a new job. I got in touch with an old classmate from primary school. When I began to clarify the truth to him, I discovered he already understood about the persecution, and had even more inside news since his brother works in the National Security Bureau. He shared information rarely heard by the public... I felt it was necessary to write down what I know to expose the persecution of Falun Dafa and practitioners by the Chinese National Security Bureau.

Jiang Zemin has never followed any law in dealing with Falun Gong. All of his actions in the persecution were illegal. The Chinese legal system is not at all unbiased, and the so-called law is only the dictator's butcher knife. If tapping into a TV system is illegal in China, it's the same as saying the dictator is allowed to kill, but the people are not allowed to cry their voice.

Practitioner: We can tell from the high quality that the incident wasn't videotaped accidentally. The cameramen must have been well prepared. Did you know there would be an immolation incident happening in Tiananmen Square?
Policeman: We might have known that. Therefore, we got prepared to videotape it.
Practitioner: Then why didn't you stop the immolation? Why did you still let it happen?
Policeman: (With a smile of embarrassment.) We needed the shocking effect.

On International Human Rights day, Swedish Dafa practitioners gathered together at Gustaf-Adolf square in Gothenburg. In order to let more people know about Falun Dafa and understand the facts about the persecution, practitioners handed out leaflets to passers-by.

It is very urgent that we stop the persecution and murder of innocent and kind-hearted people conducted by Jiang Zemin and his gang of followers. The Chinese people have the right to know the truth about their own countrymen being maltreated and wrongly persecuted. They have the right to know through TV and other public media the truth about Falun Gong practitioners being tortured to death.

Since Jiang's regime claims, "the majority of Chinese people support the persecution of Falun Gong," we have a proposal in this Chinese new century. Hold a public referendum on the issue of Falun Gong. Jiang Zemin has persecuted Falun Gong for more than 1,000 days. He can give Falun Gong practitioners two hours and allow Falun Gong practitioners to select their representatives and go on CCTV, to talk about the facts and give reasons why the persecution should end.

Upon learning of the torture death of Mr. Liu Chengjun on December 26th, my tears kept running down my face. No words can express my deep sorrow. I can only suppress my sadness and write this short article to commemorate our hero. For the past year, I've seen news about him. At the time of his arrest, the police shot him in the leg, knowing he was already injured. He suffered numerous tortures in jail. Two months ago, he fell into a coma. Now he is gone, after suffering 21 months of torture.

I thought of my motherland – China, where people are deprived of this kind of spiritual aspiration. In the Great Cultural Revolution 30 years ago, all kinds of pursuit of spirituality and ancient culture were banned. Buddhists, Daoists, Christians and so on were all demanded to transform their faith, to believe in the the Party, and it’s doctrines and ideal such as “Communism liberates people heavily burdened under Capitalism”,

Recently when I was browsing China's news web, I noticed that there have been several reported self-immolation incidents in Tiananmen Square in recent months. It is interesting to note that the media and related governmental departments have dealt with these recent incidents in a completely different manner from how they handled the 2001 self-immolation incident, which they attributed to Falun Gong. I have compared these two different types of self-immolation incidents from several perspectives.

China has a 5,000-year-old culture, one which emphasizes kindness, righteousness, civility, wisdom, trust, and harmony. To suppress "Truthfulness, Compassion, and Tolerance," Jiang's regime has endeavoured to create a "hate culture" and a "culture of terror." It is equivalent to infusing a slow acting toxin into the bloodstream of the Chinese culture. It is truly degrading our cultural spirit.

"In the maze of the Christmas commerce and holiday glitter, my thoughts go out to those who are in the labour re-education camps in China. There are at least a hundred thousand Falun Gong practitioners imprisoned there. As my wife and I mingled in the crowd of Christmas shoppers, I wondered how many of the goods in those shops are made partly or wholly by Falun Gong practitioners, democracy activists, clandestine Christians and others."