Tourist Reports Brutal Incident in Tiananmen Square on Saturday, 11/24/01

By a Western Tourist in Tiananmen Square

(Clearwisdom.net) I just wanted to notify you of an incident our tour group witnessed in Beijing just last Saturday.áMy family was traveling for our first trip to Beijing with 3 other families that we know all living in Tokyo as expatriates.áOur family is Australian and the others are American.á We were walking towards the main gate of the Forbidden City when a middle aged Chinese couple (male and female)áran through our group (and the other Chinese around us) unfurling a small banner of yellow material with red writing as they went past.á They were also calling out something which, although I don't speak Chinese, sounded like the name of your [group].áOur tour group continued walking towards the main pathway to the Gate. We stopped to try to organise a group photo, when suddenly some Chinese police came past "frog marching" the lady who had previously run past us.áThey put her into a van and she kept trying to open the van's window and call out.áThe police were shutting the window but from what we saw it was very obvious to us that the lady was being beaten severely.áThis was very distressing to witness, but as foreign tourists with 11 children ranging in age from 11 yearsádown to 15 months, there was little we felt we could do to stop what was happening. We felt that our presence so close to the police van was only making the situation more difficult for the lady inside the vanáso we moved on. Upon returning home I looked up your website and noted that only 4 days before this incident took place, there was a major incident involving 35 foreigners.á

However, her small protest was certainly not in vain asáit has certainly caused at least 8 foreign adults to be more aware of botháthe Falun [Gong] and the brutal repression of it's members in China.áI greatlyáadmire that lady for her courage and bravery and pray for her safety.

Yours sincerely,

Name withheld to protect the authorá

[Editor's note: this is a report sent to us by the tourist through email.]
Chinese version available at http://www.minghui.cc/mh/articles/2001/11/29/20563.html

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