A peaceful appeal to the Chinese government and the greater world at Tiananmen Square in Beijing:

Whereas: Falun Gong practitioners have for the past 2-1/2 years undergone gruesome torture, have endured slander, are subject to shunning from the rest of society and have been murdered;

Whereas: Thousands of Falun Gong practitioners have been interned in forced labor camps without due process of law, and many peaceful people have died as a result of torture;

Whereas: The principles of Falun Gong, "Truthfulness, Compassion and Forbearance," are the foundations for world peace and the Chinese government tramples these;

Whereas: Our friend, Mrs. Xiong Wei, a former student at Berlin's Technical University, has been arrested in Beijing on May 1, 2001, merely because she had appealed peacefully for Falun Gong;

Whereas: A small group of government insiders in China uses their powers to misuse the police apparatus and the media to delude her own people;

Whereas: China, despite having ratified the Declaration of Human Rights at the United Nations ignores her obligations and persecutes peaceful and innocent people;

Whereas: We as responsible German citizens do not want to allow German history to repeat itself in China;

We appeal to the Chinese government to guarantee freedom of conscience, to observe basic human rights and to immediately release all incarcerated Falun Gong practitioners.

We therefore appeal to the world at large to condemn the persecution of Falun Gong and assist those Falun Gong practitioners in China who are in danger of being tortured or killed.

German practitioners February 14, 2002

(Original text in German)