FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE - 11/20/2001 [ http://www.faluninfo.net/ ]

BEIJING, November 20, 2001 (Falun Dafa Information Center) -- At 2:00PM Beijing time, approximately 33 citizens from 10 different countries, including the US, Canada, Germany, Switzerland, the UK, and Australia, staged a peaceful appeal on Tiananmen Square in Beijing for the rights of Falun Gong practitioners. The practitioners were immediately detained and held at the Tiananmen Square Police Station.

Today's demonstration consisted of practitioners sitting quietly in meditation and displaying a banner stating "Truthfulness, Compassion, Forbearance." They were then set upon by police after only a minute or two.

Eyewitnesses report that police kicked some of the practitioners to the ground, slapped one woman unconscious, and then dragged them all into a van. One CNN reporter was also detained.

According to one reporter, as of this release, officials at the Tiananmen Square Police Station stated that they "have nothing to say" about this matter.

In a statement issued by the practitioners shortly before the demonstration, they stated that they gathered to appeal for the tens of thousands of Falun Gong practitioners persecuted in China over the past two and a half years, and to show that the international community is deeply concerned about this atrocity. Among the practitioners taking part in the demonstration were a CEO, a nuclear engineer, college students, a medical doctor, a housewife and mother, a technology consultant, and many others.

The statement went on to say, "... we call upon China's government to abolish the '610 Office' and other administrative offices that were created for the sole purpose of directing violence against Falun Gong practitioners."

"We have traveled to Beijing from Australia, Canada, France, Germany, Ireland, Israel, Sweden, Switzerland, the United Kingdom, and the United States. We... are here to appeal to China's leaders and to seek an end to the violence and terror they have waged against Falun Gong for two and a half years," the statement said.

The protest on the square today took the exact same form that the almost-daily protests by Chinese Falun Gong practitioners have over the last two and a half years: a peaceful meditation accompanied by banners bearing the principles of the Falun Gong practice. What was different about today's demonstration, however, was that the participants were virtually all westerners from outside China.

Gail Rachlin, a spokesperson for the New York-based Falun Dafa Information Center, said of the event, "The significance of this is clear: the persecution of Falun Gong is not just a China issue. Those people out there today aren't Chinese, yet they realize that the existence of this persecution in China is a grave injustice to humanity, and therefore, an injustice to all the world's people. Jiang Zemin's regime has actually declared that it's going to 'eradicate' and 'smash' Falun Gong. That's tens of millions of lives at risk. This must end now."

As of this report, the status of the thirty-three detainees is still unknown. The embassies of Australia, Canada, France, Germany, Ireland, Israel, Sweden, Switzerland, the United Kingdom, and the United States in Beijing have been informed of the names of the detained.

Posting date: 11/20/2001
Original article date: 11/20/2001
Category: News & Media Reports

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