SCMP: Falun Gong mass arrest worries Bush

MARK O'NEILL in Beijing, FONG TAK-HO and AGENCIES

Saturday, February 16, 2002

US President George W. Bush is concerned about China's mass arrest of foreign Falun Gong followers in Tiananmen Square and will raise the issue of religious freedom during his Beijing visit next week, the White House says.

Fifty-three of the 59 arrested on Thursday had been expelled by last night, Xinhua reported. It said the other six had refused to give their names and nationalities and were still being held.

"The President remains very committed to taking [religious freedom] up, personally and directly, with Chinese officials," Bush spokesman Ari Fleischer said.

Asked for Mr Bush's reaction to the arrests, Mr Fleischer said: "The President obviously is concerned with any arrests for religious purposes in China."

Mr Bush is due in Beijing on Thursday for a 30-hour visit.

The Falun Gong activists threw Tiananmen Square into chaos when they unfurled banners and shouted slogans defending the banned spiritual movement before they were seized by police. Earlier reports said some followers were arrested in their hotels.

"It has now been ascertained that of these 59, 53 came from 12 countries. Their nationalities and identities had been confirmed and they were escorted to leave China by 6pm on Friday," Xinhua said. "Beijing public security organs are holding the other six foreigners who refused to make known their nationalities and identities."

Those arrested included 33 Americans, a US Embassy source said. Others came from countries including Britain, Sweden, Poland, New Zealand and Brazil.

A spokesman for the British Embassy in Beijing confirmed four Britons had been expelled. "The four are back in Britain. We have not heard any official complaint from them about their treatment. We are satisfied that they were dealt with according to law," British Embassy spokesman Alex Pinfield said.

US National Security Adviser Condoleezza Rice said religious freedom was a key concern for Mr Bush. "The President will clearly raise with President Jiang specific cases as well as the broader issues of religious freedom and of human rights," she said.

Ms Rice said Mr Bush did not plan to meet separately with Vice-President Hu Jintao, Mr Jiang's expected successor, but he might see Mr Hu at a group meeting, as he did last autumn in Shanghai during the Asia-Pacific Economic Co-operation forum.

Thursday's protests were part of a campaign by Falun Gong members abroad to have Beijing's ban on the group placed on the agenda of Mr Bush's visit.

One of the Britons expelled before the protest, Rosemary Katzen, described her treatment as "outrageous". "I was arrested in my hotel the day before the Tiananmen Square appeal," she said, referring to the Zhaolong Youth Hostel in western Beijing.

"We asked to see the [British] embassy officials and they refused. I refused to go and I sat on the desk and they grabbed me by the hair, making me leave the hotel room," she said.

"I sat on the ground and they picked me up and they [police] grabbed me violently by the hair and pushed me into the bus."

Falun Gong's headquarters in New York quoted other practitioners as saying they had been beaten. "Many practitioners were bleeding and they were denied food and water," Gina Sanchez, of Los Angeles, said.

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