Dagens Nyheter (Swedish newspaper): Swedes on their way home from China

By Göran Leijonhufvud

November, 22, 2001

Hongkong

Nine Swedes were expelled on Wednesday from China for participating in a demonstration on behalf of the meditation movement Falungong. They were put on an
ordinary SAS-plane to Copenhagen after 48-hours in detention.

“They are harassing us all time”, said Lilian Staaf, one of those who was later expelled, on Wednesday morning through a mobile phone call to Dagens Nyheter. She said she was lying under a blanket on the floor and rang on the sly. Half of the room was
full of policemen and the other half of arrested demonstrators.

When Lilian Staaf rang, the Chinese media several hours earlier had reported about the decision to expel the 35 falungong adherents from ten countries who participated in the protest in Tiananmen Square in Beijing.

“They haven´t told us that we are to be expelled. On all the questions from the police we are answering that we want to be in contact with the Swedish embassy, but they ignore it,” says Lilian Staaf.

She said as soon as she sat to meditate the policemen where there trying to push her over, and others had been kicked.

[…]

Lillian Staaf is 25 years old and shares her time between London and Stockholm. She works with visual film effects. She has practised falungong for five years.

Not until the demonstrators were on the plane that the Swedish embassy got in contact with them for a very short time.

Sweden and others countries involved have protested to the Chinese Ministry for Foreign Affairs against the fact that they did not get access to the arrested people.