First Ever Anti-Torture Exhibition in Western Australia Moves People’s Hearts (Photos)

To thousands of Western Australian citizens, the last weekend of August was
not just a beautiful holiday after a week of rain and cold wind. It also was the
first time that people in Western Australia witnessed the anti-torture exhibition,
reenacted with real-life models depicting the cruel tortures being perpetrated
on Falun Gong practitioners in China.

On August 28 and
29, practitioners held an anti-torture exhibition at the intersection of the Perth
Culture Centre and the Provincial Library in Perth, the capital of Western Australia.
While the anti-torture exhibition was underway, practitioners in yellow exercise
suits demonstrated the Falun Gong exercises. The peaceful exercise demonstration
and the brutality depicted in the anti-torture exhibition formed a sharp contrast,
and the unyielding faith of practitioners demonstrated during the fives years
of brutal persecution deeply impressed and moved many passers-by. People took
fliers one after another, signed the petition to call for an end to the persecution,
and asked how they could better help Falun Gong. Many Chinese people from Mainland
China also stopped to view the exhibition and the exercise demonstration and asked
questions. Media outlets, including Western Australia's largest newspaper,
The West Australian, ABC, the Public Broadcasting Program of Murdoch University,
free-lance reporters and photographers, as well as New Tang Dynasty TV and
Epoch Times came to cover this event.

“Many people viewed our
exhibition with tears,” a female practitioner who demonstrated brutal force-feeding
said. “There were also many people who signed our petition after viewing our exhibition…Children
asked me, 'Madam, is this real?' I told them, “What we show here is
just the tip of the iceberg. What is happening in China is far worse than this
and it is happening right now.' ” This practitioner was illegally arrested
in Mainland China for going to Beijing to appeal for Falun Gong. She was force-fed
in a detention center after she conducted a hunger strike to protest her illegal
detention. “You just can't imagine an older lady in her 50s being stripped
naked and force-fed with a thick rubber hose inserted into her nose and her limbs
held by several big thugs,” the practitioner said.

A woman in her 40s wept
the entire time that she viewed the exhibition. She held a practitioner's
hand and said, “This is too brutal; you take care, be strong!” After viewing the
exhibition, another woman gave a long hug to the practitioner who explained to
her about the exhibition. An older couple told practitioners that they had received
truth-clarification fliers before and knew the persecution shouldn't be taking
place. However, that was only understanding gained from the written word. After
they viewed this exhibition, they were shocked. The couple said that practitioners
should go to every community and every school. “From now on, we will pray for
you every day,” the couple said.

After taking a flier, a young couple who came from Wuhan, China said that all
people who came from the Mainland had heard about the persecution because it has
affected almost every family. “The Internet blockade can't block the news
completely. We know about the persecution, including the South Africa shooting
incident,” the couple said. They came to the exhibition with the question: “Is
Falun Gong really so good for people's health?” They also wanted to know
the content of Master Li's works.

A Malaysian girl studying at Edith
Cowan University said she was looking for topics for her homework project. By
chance, she had run into the exhibition on August 28 and was shocked to find that
such an inhuman persecution was happening in the 21^st century. Right
away, she decided to take Falun Gong as her next project topic. On the second
day, she came back to the exhibition site to conduct interviews with practitioners
of different backgrounds. “Some of my classmates also came from Mainland China,
and I found that their understanding of Falun Gong were very shallow and they
can't explain why Falun Gong is being persecuted. However, I now completely
understand.” The young woman also decided to borrow some Falun Gong books from
practitioners for her academic study.

The appearance of David Liang, the
victim of the South African shooting incident, also attracted many people's
attention. Though badly injured with both feet fractured during the incident,
as a Falun Gong practitioner, David has continued to practice the exercises every
day and thus has recovered quickly. He can now walk slowly which is a medical
miracle. A Chinese came to the exhibition on both days. He said that he had a
long-term interest in qigong and had practiced other forms of qigong. He was delighted
to have the opportunity to meet with Falun Gong practitioners and was amazed by
David's quick recovery. He talked with David for more than half and hour
and then decided to practice Falun Gong. He said, from his experience of practicing
qigong for years, that it was the arrival of the Falun Gong practitioners that
brought good weather and good fortune to Western Australia.

“This is the
first ever large-scale exhibition of this type in Western Australia, to expose
the persecution taking place in China,” Mr. Chen said. Mr. Chen, the organizer
of the anti-torture exhibition, is the owner of an Italian fast food restaurant
located in a Perth shopping center. “Many practitioners from Sydney, Melbourne
and Southern Australia voluntarily flew here with their own money to help with
this event. Local practitioners bought all the materials to make the props and
posters, and they made everything in their spare time over the past several months.
Knowing the truth is everyone's right. We hope that our activities will help
more people learn about the truth of Falun Gong and we hope that they will thus
come to help us end this brutal persecution,” Mr. Chen said.

Posting
date: 10/Sep/2004
Original article date: 4/Sep/2004
Category: Australian
News