By British Falun Gong practitioner Xu Hongyan

(Clearwisdom.net) I arrived in Paris on January 23rd. At about 12:30 p.m. on January 24th, I was chatting with a lady while waiting to watch the parade on Champs Elysees Ave, when a man came up to us, saying something in French. The lady thought he was asking for directions, so she told him that we could only speak English. To our surprise, this man grabbed my arms and pushed me towards a police van parked nearby. I asked in English what he was doing. He answered that he did not understand English. I asked him to let go of me as I could walk on my own. However, he simply shoved me into the van. Altogether 10 people were sent to the van, seven of them being Falun Gong practitioners.

At around 2:00 p.m. in the afternoon, we were taken to the 17^th District Police Station. After registering, I was taken to a room and handcuffed to a chair. Others who came in later were handcuffed in the same fashion.

At around 4:00 p.m. that afternoon, I, along with two other gentlemen, was taken to a different room. A policeman said he needed to record something. He claimed that we had violated the law by handing out Falun Gong brochures without permission. I said I did not hand out anything since I was just chatting with friend at the time of arrest. The policeman then said that it was because I wore a yellow scarf. I asked him why the police arrested us, as we did not violate any law. He said the arrest was a mistake and he apologized to us. He then told us he knew we were good people. After asking for instruction from his supervisor, he told us they could release us by 6:00 p.m.

I was released at 5:30 p.m. that afternoon.

Posting date: 2/2/2004
Original article date: 2/1/2004
Category: Eye Witness Accounts
Chinese version available at http://www.minghui.org/mh/articles/2004/1/30/66216.html

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