MSNBC: China expels Canadian protester

Plainclothes agents lead away a Canadian supporter, center, of the Falun Gong spiritual movement who protested Wednesday in Tiananmen Square.

Jan. 24 -- áA Canadian Falun Gong practitioner who protested on behalf of the spiritual movement's jailed members in Beijing's Tiananmen Square has arrived in London after being arrested by Chinese authorities and expelled from the country.

CONNIE CHIPKAR, 61, who spoke with reporters in London, was arrested on Tuesday in Beijing's central city plaza, singing and wearing a sash emblazoned with the words "Falun Gong" and "S-O-S."

She says Chinese police ripped off her sash, dragged her to a police car and pushed her in. She was later expelled.

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Chipkar's son Joel, also a Falun Gong practitioner in Canada said from Toronto that Canada's foreign affairs department confirmed that his mother had been taken into custody.

The younger Chipkar said his mother told him by telephone on Tuesday that she had arrived in China and intended to try to tell as many people as possible that Falun Gong was good.

"She said she was going to Tiananmen Square and if I didn't hear from her by 2 a.m., then something had happened," Chipkar, who runs a real estate business in the Toronto area, said in a telephone interview.

A STRUGGLE WITH DEPRESSION

Connie Chipkar had struggled with depression since the death of a 9-year-old son from brain cancer years ago, Joel Chipkar said.

"She reeled with that depression and pain for many, many years," he said. "When she started to practice Falun Gong, I saw her face just lift and she became very, very peaceful and compassionate."

Joel Chipkar, 33, said he began following Falun Gong practices himself after seeing how it helped his mother, a former teacher from Welland, Ontario, who learned of the group in Toronto in 1998.

He took part in a November protest on Tiananmen Square against Beijing's treatment of Falun Gong followers. It was the first Falun Gong demonstration on the square to involve Westerners exclusively.

THOUSANDS DETAINED

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Falun Gong followers accuses Chinese authorities of torturing and mistreating detainees. It says 350 followers have been killed by authorities.

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