Hong Kong Police Use Force to Deport Taiwan Falun Dafa Practitioners

My name is Cai Jingchun. My wife and I took the 5:30 plane from Kaohsiung, Taiwan to Hong Kong on February 21st to attend the Hong Kong Falun Dafa Experience Sharing Conference on the 22nd. Upon arrival at Hong Kong, after the customs official checked my name he called in security guards who took my wife and I to separate rooms, saying they would conduct a security check.

In July last year, I was violently deported by Hong Kong Customs, so I was sure that the custom officials were preparing to deport us again. This time I hoped that at least I could have an opportunity to ask the responsible customs official to give me a reasonable explanation. We were detained in separate rooms for about two hours. Then a group of armed policemen rushed in and began to use force to take us to a waiting airplane. About 12 armed policemen brutally lifted me up and carried me out of the room. Then they forced me to the floor and wrapped me up in a canvas bag. As a result of their brutality my right palm was injured and bleeding, as well as my neck from the over pulling. They also broke my leather belt. When I was carried onto the plane I could not find my shoes. I told the cabin attendant about the violent force used to get me to the plane and asked him not to cooperate with a practice that violated human rights. However, the cabin attendant revealed that the Hong Kong government forced them to cooperate and they had no choice in the matter. During the incident I recognised the young man who carried me onto the plane from last year. I tried to talk to him about the true situation of Falun Dafa. He replied, "You don't need to say anything. I know Falun Dafa is good and that many become free of illness after starting to practise Falun Dafa." I asked him to change his job so that he could avoid helping Butcher Jiang to persecute kind-hearted people. He could not help but hoped I would show understanding and sympathy for his "job".

I was carried onto the plane and followed by another ten Falun Dafa practitioners. It was hard to believe that among the ten practitioners five were women. They too were brutally stuffed into canvas bags and carried onto the plane. They were all injured due to the extremely rough treatment. The hand luggage of three children who were brutally repatriated was lost. Another Falun Dafa practitioner found that he had been mistakenly identified when he reached Kaohsiung. This is because the Hong Kong customs officials never communicated with the Dafa practitioners during the entire process. Only at the last minute, when they used force to send the Dafa practitioners onto the plane, did they hurriedly check the photo in the passport. As a result a practitioner from Taipei was sent to Kaohsiung in place of a practitioner from South Taiwan. Even their passports and luggage were exchanged. Only when the airline boss helped to arrange a temporary ID could this practitioner enter Taiwan. The practitioner could not find his luggage and had to travel five hours from Kaohsiung back to Taipei. Another practitioner from South Taiwan had a similar experience and was sent back to Taipei by mistake. From the entire incident I can see that the degree of rudeness and unreasonable behaviour of the Hong Kong Authorities in handling Falun Dafa practitioners from abroad has only gotten worse compared with last July when I was first deported.

After arriving back in Taiwan, we all had heavy hearts. This is because every one of us had personally experienced the brutality of the persecution of Falun Dafa by the Chinese totalitarian regime. In Hong Kong, which boasts the "rule of law", the policemen can treat Falun Dafa practitioners this way so it's not hard to imagine the difficult plight the Dafa practitioners in China's Mainland are experiencing. Another point I would like to make is that after Article 23 is passed into law, the Hong Kong authorities can arrest Falun Dafa practitioners in Hong Kong at will. They can even secretly interrogate Dafa practitioners without the presence of a lawyer. This is to say the Falun Dafa practitioners in Hong Kong could be treated as brutally and unjustly as their fellow practitioners in the Mainland China. All this is hard to understand and accept.

We appeal to all kind-hearted people to support us and expose the persecution of Falun Dafa by the Jiang clique. Prevent the ill-intentioned Article 23 from passing into law and safeguard the freedom of belief and basic human rights together.