Hong Kong: Falun Gong Practitioners Stage Rescue Walk, Requesting Mainland China to Immediately Release Illegally Imprisoned Fellow Practitioners

On March 6, Hong Kong Falun Gong practitioners and a rescue group staged a 2-day rescue walk, demanding the Chinese authorities immediately release four Hong Kong Falun Gong practitioners Chu Ol Ming, Sun Zung Man, Cheung Yu Cheong and Fu Xueying who are illegally imprisoned by the Jiang group in Mainland China. Among them, the 28-year-old Ms. Fu Xueying was detained when she went to Shenzhen and distributed Falun Gong truth-clarifying materials. She will be interrogated in Shenzhen on March 9. Practitioners requested the Chinese authorities to call off the unlawful interrogation and set her free.

On March 6, the first day of the rescue walk, 50 people participated in the event. They set off from eastern Hong Kong Island, Wan Chai, passed through several crowded areas, and arrived at the China Liaison Authorities located at the west loop. The walk took more than 7 hours. Mr. Sun Zung Man's 70-year-old mother, Ms. Zheng Xiulan, Ms. Fu Xueying's husband Mr. Feng Zhiwen and some Falun Gong practitioners walked through the whole course. The orderly procession and the eye-catching posters displaying photos of the practitioners who are imprisoned as well as those perpetrators who started the persecution drew many people's attention. They also accepted practitioners' flyers.

Mr. Feng Zhiwen said at the press conference that since his wife, Ms. Fu Xueying, was abducted at the end of October last year in Shenzhen; she has been cut off from the outside world and received brainwashing. As a Christian, Mr. Feng deeply understands that it is extremely cruel to coerce one to give up his belief. He pointed out that his wife benefited greatly from her practice of Falun Gong. She wanted to tell her own experiences to people in Mainland China and she should have been protected by the Constitution which ensures the freedom of belief and expression. Ms. Zheng Xiulan also said that her son, Sun Zung Man, was illegally sentenced to four years of imprisonment and has been subjected to brainwashing everyday in the jail. He has been experiencing tremendous pressure mentally. Both Zheng and Feng pointed out that their family members are innocent and the Chinese authorities should unconditionally set them free.

In May 2002, simply because they carried with them Falun Gong truth-clarifying flyers and video CDs, Mr. Sun Zung Man and Cheung Yu Cheong were successively detained by Mainland police when they crossed the frontier at Luohu Bridge. In March 2003, they were sentenced to four and three years of imprisonment, respectively. In September 2000, Mr. Chu Ol Ming tried to sue Jiang Zemin for persecuting Falun Gong, but he was put into jail. It is said that he was secretly sentenced to 5 years of imprisonment. However, his family never received a formal verdict.

The Hong Kong branch of the Global Mission to Rescue the Persecuted Falun Gong Practitioners (GMRPFGP) published an open letter to the Hong Kong public, calling upon Hong Kong people to urge the Hong Kong government to request the Mainland authorities immediately release all illegally detained Falun Gong practitioners including the four Hong Kong practitioners.