Western Tourist's Eyewitness Account of Brutal Incident in Tiananmen Square

By a Western Tourist in Tiananmen Square

I just wanted to notify you of an incident our tour group witnessed in Beijing just last Saturday, 11/24/01. My family was travelling for our first trip to Beijing with 3 other families that we know all living in Tokyo as expatriates. Our family is Australian and the others are American. We were walking towards the main gate of the Forbidden City when a middle aged Chinese couple (male and female) ran through our group (and the other Chinese around us) unfurling a small banner of yellow material with red writing as they went past. They were also calling out something which, although I don't speak Chinese, sounded like the name of your [group]. Our tour group continued walking towards the main pathway to the Gate. We stopped to try to organise a group photo, when suddenly some Chinese police came past "frog marching" the lady who had previously run past us. They put her into a van and she kept trying to open the van's window and call out. The police were shutting the window but from what we saw it was very obvious to us that the lady was being beaten severely. This was very distressing to witness, but as foreign tourists with 11 children ranging in age from 11 years down to 15 months, there was little we felt we could do to stop what was happening. We felt that our presence so close to the police van was only making the situation more difficult for the lady inside the van so we moved on. Upon returning home I looked up your website and noted that only 4 days before this incident took place, there was a major incident involving 35 foreigners.

However, her small protest was certainly not in vain as it has certainly caused at least 8 foreign adults to be more aware of both the Falun [Gong] and the brutal repression of it's members in China. I greatly admire that lady for her courage and bravery and pray for her safety.

Yours sincerely,

Name withheld to protect the author

[Editor's note: this is a report sent by the tourist through email.]

Source: http://www.clearwisdom.net/emh/articles/2001/11/27/16236.html