Radio France Internationale (RFI France): International Community Concerned over Unreasonable Arrests and Mistreatment of Falun Gong Practitioners by French Police

(Clearwisdom.net) During the recent visit of Hu Jintao, unjust arrests, detention and brutal treatment of Falun Gong practitioners occurred in Paris. This kind of thing happening in a democratic and free country is astounding, and it aroused the international community's attention. Behind this incident the Jiang group was obviously spreading lies overseas that slander Falun Gong; also, some specific persons in the French government with economic interests have damaged France's traditional principles of "Freedom, Equality, Humanity".

Below is RFI's broadcast to the Parisian Chinese community and Mainland China on the morning of the 7th of February:

On the 27th of last month, during the visit to France of Hu Jintao, the President of China, it was reported that the French police treated some Falun Gong practitioners in an uncivilized manner.

The "International Organization for the Investigation of the Persecution of Falun Gong", which is based in Canada, and some other international human rights organizations wrote a letter to Mr. Chirac, France's president, expressing serious concern over this incident. They made duplicates of the letter for the attention of France's Members of Parliament.

The letter says that France's police locked up and brutally treated Falun Gong practitioners for no reason; they even regarded banners with the symbol of Falun Gong and "Truthfulness, Compassion, Tolerance" on them as illegal. These things actually happened in democratic, free France. It's unbelievable and it's also most disconcerting.

Nevertheless, people might ask, in what brutal ways did the French police treat Falun Gong practitioners in Paris? Could there have been some sort of mistake during this period of time? This reporter interviewed a female tourist from Taiwan. The lady said that she witnessed this incident with her own eyes. Then let's hear this Taiwanese tourist's testimony of this incident.

The Taiwanese tourist said, "We just came up from the underground metro, and only were standing there for less than a minute. Suddenly there were some policemen in plain clothes. At first I didn't know that they were policemen, and then I saw that they wore matching clothes and their shoulder pockets stuck out, suggesting that they were police, I was certain they were the police. Then, starting with two or three very rough [undercover police], they surrounded us in a circle with barriers like criminals, and no one was allowed to go out from the enclosed circle of barriers. Then in an instant, a swarm of policemen - at least forty to fifty - suddenly emerged, every one of them with weapons, telling us to follow them to some place or other.

Afterwards, we were escorted along the road. We thought, we aren't bad people, what have we done wrong? I told them, I am a Taiwanese teacher, my husband is a Taiwanese policeman, and my husband is also a practitioner of Falun Gong. Here, every one of us is a good person, how can you treat us like this? It's like now we are all criminals.

During this time, there might have been a practitioner behind who was pushed over by the riot police. Because she was behind, I didn't see, but she fainted on the ground, and ended up in the hospital. The other practitioners didn't follow them anymore. We didn't commit any crimes, why do we have to follow them as if we were being prosecuted?

A bit later, I talked to a policeman. He said to me: It's because you have problems with Mainland China, we cannot do it any other way. He knew that we were good people, but he must do his duty.

Some people started to meditate and did not want to compromise or go with the police, and also that practitioner who was pushed over lay on the ground and couldn't get up. Only now were the police scared, only now did they stop. Eventually, French practitioners came to help us, and thereafter the police didn't interfere with us again.

I thought, today, in a free country, we wanted to go somewhere; do we really need the police to protect us? We didn't move much, I didn't have any weapons on me, they also didn't see me doing anything wrong, then the swarm of riot police appeared, as if we were vandals.

At one moment I counted the police vans, there were altogether six big police buses, eight medium-sized police vans. It was really like an army trying to sort out a riot, yet those practitioners were so tranquil, peaceful. How on earth did we need them to protect us?

Source: http://www.clearharmony.net/articles/200402/18033.html

Chinese version available at http://minghui.ca/mh/articles/2004/2/9/66991.html

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