AFP(Agence France-Presse): Falun Gong urges Hong Kong legislators to ask police to drop charges
Tuesday, 19-Mar-2002
HONG KONG, March 20 (AFP) - The Falun Gong is seeking help from Hong Kong
legislators to get the charges dropped against 16 members arrested during a
protest in front of Beijing's liaison office. "We hope that through our petitions to the legislators the police will
drop the charges," said Hui Yee-han, spokeswoman of Falun Gong in Hong
Kong. "It is totally irrational," Hui said of the police charges,
maintaining that if the practitioners were obstructing pedestrians in front of
Beijing's liaison office, then they would have done so even at the nearby
police-designated protest zone. "It was a peaceful petition," she said, denying they were causing a
public disturbance, and accusing the Hong Kong authorities of bowing to pressure
from Beijing, which outlawed the Buddhist-inspired group in 1999. The petition to the legislators come after four Swiss nationals and 12 Hong
Kong Falun Gong members were charged last week with two counts of obstruction
after they refused police requests to move to a nearby area to continue their
sit-in. The Falun Gong group will also ask legislators in their petition to offer
assistance to their practitioners on the mainland whom it claimed were being
"heavily and wrongfully prosecuted." Meanwhile, the Falun Gong spiritual movement has also petitioned the Human
Rights Commission in Geneva calling for immediate action to stop the persecution
of the Falun Gong in China. [...] But it is not banned in Hong Kong, which returned to Chinese rule in 1997
under the "one country, two systems" agreement which guarantees its
autonomy for 50 years. Since the ban, Falun Gong [...]says tens of thousands of its followers have
been jailed or sent to labour camps. It alleges that as many as 300 followers have died from brutality in police
detention.
Yearly Archive
Printer Version
feedback@clearwisdom.net