Mannheim Morning News (Germany): Compassionate helpers are turned into victims

February 15, 2002

Shortly after 2:00 p.m. Beijing time (7:00 a.m. in Germany) the contact was broken off. Until then, Steffi Koerper was able to keep the Berlin Falun Gong Information Center up to date via her cell phone. The seventeen-year-old Heidelberg native, together with her 22-year-old sister Caroline and her father, Mr. Hubert Koerper and four other Falun Gong members from Germany had flown to the Chinese capital to demonstrate for religious freedom at Tiananmen Square. Merely a few minutes later, after Steffi Koerper had reported how another group of Western practitioners were loaded into a police vehicle, we heard sirens through her cell phone, then a brief scream -- and then nothing.

Mrs.Edith Koerper had remained at home in Heidelberg with her two youngest children and is in contact with the Foreign Office. But even they do not yet have any news of the incarcerated Germans. "They will undoubtedly be interrogated and then hopefully be sent home to Germany by the next available airplane," Mrs. Edith Koerper told our paper. At least that was what took place last November (2001) when 35 Western Falun Gong members protested against the persecution and slandering of Falun Gong, which began in 1999. Barely had the group displayed a banner with the Chinese and English wording, "Truthfulness, Compassion and Forbearance," when the usual mass showing of police forces at Tiananmen Square sprang into action. There were scuffles, and the demonstrators were herded into a bus, incarcerated.

"We knew that it might be dangerous to fly to Beijing, but we had to do something," said Edith Koerper. This family has practiced Falung Gong for the past four years. Hubert Koerper, a trained and certified massage therapist, found out about qigong through acupuncture massage, a traditional Chinese art of breathing techniques, and finally found Falun Gong. The name is a combination of "Fa Lun," the law wheel, and "Qigong." These traditional methods of exercises include three principles, which are the pillars upon which the whole system of teaching is based: namely "Truthfulness, Compassion and Forbearance." There are no outside precepts to follow. Except in China, the meditation movement is freely practiced worldwide and considered completely harmless.

Germany has approximately 2,000 Falun Gong followers. The numbers worldwide are said to be 100 million, 70 million of them in China where the movement was founded in 1992. Only seven years later 10,000 Falun Gong followers [...]created complete confusion for Beijing's leaders when they demonstrated in front of the seat of government. In 1999, China declared Falun Gong a dangerous, undesirable group. Since then, almost daily, followers of Falun Gong are arrested in China. Some human rights representatives even speak of brutal abuses and tortures [against these people].

As many others who had been incarcerated before her, so it happened on January 5th, 2002 to Mrs. Xiong Wei, former student at the Technical University/Berlin and a friend of this Heidelberg family. "The persecution has escalated during the past few months; the only help anymore can come from abroad," said Edith Koerper. In the end, more than 40 practitioners challenged the Chinese government "to guarantee freedom of conscience and to effect the release of all incarcerated Falun Gong practitioners."

In the meantime they have to deal with their own release. "We hope that all will end well," added Edith Koerper.

(Original text in German)