BBC Monitoring: Taiwan protests against Hong Kong entry bar to Falun Gong practitioners

03/01/2003
BBC Monitoring

Text of report by Maubo Chang, carried in English by Taiwanese Central News Agency web site

Taipei, 1 March: Vice-President Annette Lu protested Saturday [1 March] Hong Kong's "crude" treatment of a group of Falun Gong practitioners from Taiwan, describing it as a violation of human rights as bad as the 228 Incident in Taiwan 56 years ago.

In a news conference called to denounce the Hong Kong authorities' deportation of 80 Taiwanese Falun Gong followers on 20 February and 21 February, [Vice-President Annette] Lu said the former British colony has rapidly lost its shine as the Pearl of the Orient and a "beacon of freedom" since it was handed back to Beijing in 1997.

The Falun Gong practitioners visited Hong Kong 20 February and 21 February separately but were denied entry at the airport and forcibly turned away by Hong Kong police.
If this method of deporting persona non grata is anything to go by, the vice-president said, Hong Kong's human rights record is deteriorating.

She noted that she was turned away by Hong Kong customs authorities "politely" in 1991 when she tried to visit mainland China through the British colony, but said the Hong Kong police used riot gear to force the Taiwanese Falun Gong followers to leave [on the] 20 February and 21 February.

Although the Mainland Affairs Council issued a formal protest over the episode, the vice-president said she hopes other government agencies will keep turning up the heat on the Hong Kong authorities.

Many Falun Gong practitioners joined Lu at the news conference and called on the Hong Kong authorities to apologize for the crude treatment meted out to them.

Chang Chin-hsi, a professor at National Taiwan University and chairman of the Association of Taiwan Falun Gong Followers, said 400 members of his association visited Hong Kong 20 February and 21 February in two different groups. All of them with the proper travel documents, but 80 of them were denied entry.

Since his association has a list of its members posted on its Web site, he said, the Hong Kong authorities probably learned the followers' names from the site and blocked their entry.

Originating in mainland China, Falun Gong now has millions of adherents around the world. Beijing [...] banned it in 1999.