Guardian: Australians Held After Falun Gong Demonstration

By John Gittings

Monday March 11, 2002

Two Australians were arrested in Tiananmen Square in the Chinese capital, Beijing, yesterday when they tried to stage a protest in support of the banned Falun Gong [group]. The couple were seized within seconds by security police and bundled into police vans. On Friday, China deported 10 other Australians after a similar protest a day earlier.

[...]

The confrontation between the government and the Falun Gong - which persists nearly three years after the movement was banned - has caused extreme sensitivity in Beijing. Chinese internet servers block any search inquiry containing the word Falun, unless it is conducted on an official media site such as that of the People's Daily.

Overseas supporters of the movement are elated by the hijacking of a state-controlled media channel and the transmitting of Falun Gong material in the north-east city of Changchun last Tuesday.

[...]

The US-based Falun Gong website claims that the Chinese president, Jiang Zemin, has issued orders for practitioners to be executed.

[...]

The movement's spiritual "master", Li Hongzhi, who lives in the US, said in a statement that his disciples in China are "using television to let people know the truth".

[...]

Chinese reports on detention centres for the Falun Gong quote inmates as saying that the police are "very polite and kind". However, Amnesty International and other human rights organisation say that claims of harsh treatment are persistent and credible.

The police are particularly vigilant in Tiananmen Square because China's annual national people's congress is meeting in the great hall of the people, which is situated on its western side.

http://www.guardian.co.uk/china/story/0,7369,665419,00.html

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