The Experiences of a Practitioner, one of the 36 Westerners who went to Appeal in Tiananmen Square

I went to Tiananmen Square in Beijing on November 20, 2001. It could be said that this trip actually started in July, 1999, when Falun Gong was banned in China. I had always dreamed of going there to tell those who forbade the practice of Falun Gong, “You are absolutely wrong.”

The Chinese government wanted to exterminate Falun Gong. The police were not restrained, they were allowed to do whatever they wished to Falun Gong practitioners. The Chinese Falun Gong practitioners don’t have human rights. We knew the shameful acts performed by the Chinese police through the reports from practitioners in China. Whenever I read the news regarding the illegal arrest, torture and murder done to practitioners, I was heartbroken. Those practitioners simply wanted to be better people. They believed in truthfulness, compassion and forbearance. The way the Chinese government treated them said out loud that people in China were forbidden to try to become better persons. In the western world, we tried our best to tell the local governments and officials the miserable situation the Chinese Falun Gong practitioners were in. We went to the streets and public squares to tell people that Falun Gong is good. We unveiled what Jiang Zemin and his accomplices did to the practitioners who cultivate truthfulness, compassion and forbearance. They even wanted to make this precious practice disappear from China.

Those who are in power: politicians, prime ministers, kings and queens all understand the human rights situation in China. China herself signed all those treaties regarding the protection of human rights, yet simply neglected her duties of obeying them. We know Falun Gong practitioners don’t have any human rights. The Constitution was changed to justify the crackdown of Falun Gong. This made the situation more difficult for westerners to help Chinese practitioners.

I am a 55-year-old Finnish, have been living in Sweden for 30 years. What could I do to help the practitioners in China? We used up all the resources of the media to do what we could to stop China killing her own people. Apparently, those appeals were not enough. In order to force practitioners to give up their practice of truthfulness, compassion and forbearance, China modified her Constitution. The killings have been ever increasing. Falun Gong has been banned for two years. Outside of China, acts to stop the persecution in China seldom occur. It seemed that, except fellow Falun Gong practitioners, not many people cared about what happened in China.

When I learned the plan of going to China to support our fellow Chinese practitioners, I felt it was the right thing to do. We thought of this before – then it was the right time. We booked the tickets, went to China as tourists. We got a touring map of Tiananmen Square on the first day when we were there. The Square was huge. Also present were those notorious police vehicles.

We met at the Tiananmen Square as scheduled. It was a bit unreal. It was like in Sweden when we were performing a public display of the exercises. Each one of us took his/her own place. As soon as we sat in the lotus position [one leg folded atop of the other, used in the sitting meditation practice] and showed the banner, the police car came right toward us. They took a very short time to get us into the car. I was tangled with another practitioner, but she was taken right away. I felt I was the only one left. Then came three or four policemen. Two policewomen began to drag me toward the car and dropped me beside it. They went forth to grab another Swede. After he was pushed into the car, a man yanked my hair and pushed me into it as well. My fellow Swede lay motionless on the floor of the police car. The police waited for me to step over the swede. Before I figured out how to avoid stepping on him, I was punched hard on the face. I was thrown off balance and fell right on top of the Swede. I bumped into the seat. Bruises are everywhere on my arms and legs. In the mean time, a female practitioner stretched out her head from the window and shouted “ Falun Gong is good!” Two policemen and the driver in the car grabbed her hair and threw her to the floor in front of me. The driver was the one who beat us. I saw him raise his hand to hit her. The policeman squatted down to press the female practitioner against the floor. I told them I would report their brutality to our Embassy. They thus stopped their violence towards us. The driver raised his fist but I stopped him. The driver then drove us to a nearby police station and didn’t say a word to me.

It is complete chaos in the police station. We were detained in a room with the presence of several policemen. I asked them to contact the Finland Embassy, yet got no reaction. Later, They asked for our passports. I showed them mine for the purpose of informing the Embassy. A policewoman came to take me to another room. Because I wanted to stay with others, I rejected and told her, “I won’t follow you, you policemen beat people up.” They then asked me questions and took notes in front of everyone. The policewoman intended to search my backpack for camera and cell phone. I stopped her and asked again to meet with personnel from the Embassy. She had no choice but to back away and do nothing. After a while, they wanted to take us all to another room which was right in the basement. We tried in vain to persuade them to let us stay where we were. We were forced to go down and found half of our group there already. We were filmed in the prison as well as in the room we stayed before. Moments later, we were asked to go up. They said they would take us to a hotel. On the way up, we saw one of our fellow practitioners, and asked him to go with us. He told us he was beaten up. Each practitioner was escorted by a policeman on his right. There was another one standing beside the windows. We just couldn’t do anything.

We were brought to a hotel near the airport. They put 15 practitioners in one room, another half of the group in the other. All the Swedes stayed together. They brought us something to eat and filmed us again. We knew quite well the filming was to show that we were well treated [for false propaganda]. Some of us went back to our own hotel to retrieve the luggage and tickets. While coming back to the airport hotel, 5 practitioners were escorted by 15 policemen. We either sat on the couch or lay on the floor. We could only drift into sleep for a very short period of time. The police sit right in front and watched us. At the same time, they questioned us about the purpose of going to Tiananmen. One of us was beaten because she refused to sign a piece of paper full of Chinese words. The brave practitioner was brutally handled again for her unwillingness to hand over her cell phone. They finally took away her phone from the place where she hid it. I was not questioned by the policeman. They did nothing to me. Two policewomen followed me to the toilets. It seemed that Chinese had an abundance of policemen. When we were taken to the airport, 40 of them were present to watch 15 of us.

I understood that the brutality I received was nothing compared to what the Chinese practitioners got. I read from the Internet that some Chinese practitioners were shocked with electric batons in the same prison where we were detained. I guessed they didn’t get much water to drink.

In the western world, many people were touched by this event. Even many newspapers reported the incident. In the workplaces, colleagues had new perspectives regarding what is going to happen in China. China was not that far beyond reach anymore. The media reported our return and the way China treated Falun Gong. In the discussion among colleagues, they showed sympathy and interest in this matter.

We hope the thing we did helped our fellow Chinese practitioners in some way. We hope people will once again be able to practise Falun Gong freely.

Translated on January 1, 2002 from
http://www.yuanmingeurope.net/articles/3850.html