Western Falun Gong practitioners brutally treated in China

EUROPEAN FALUN GONG INFORMATION CENTRE

PRESS RELEASE 17/02/02
Over 30 practitioners have returned to Europe over the last few days and most of them were brutally treated by the Chinese authorities. Six practitioners from Germany and Sweden are still in police custody. The practitioners had not been allowed to contact anyone else throughout their ordeal. Even the journalists covering the events in Tiananmen Square over the last week have been badly treated and seven were arrested.
One Zimbabwean tourist was expelled from China just for speaking to a Falun Gong practitioner. The Zimbabwean was refused access to his own money and despatched to Paris with just a tiny amount of non-negotiable Chinese currency: his fate is not known.

Three Swedes have been detained for more than 80 hours. For the first 3 days and nights they were denied the right to contact the Swedish embassy! This is against international law. An 18 year old schoolboy from Leeds in the UK, Alex Rostron, was tackled to the ground, beaten with fists, kicked in the stomach and his neck was squeezed in order to choke-off his appeals to the Chinese citizens.

The German practitioners said that each one of them had been beaten, some brutally. Steffi, a 17 year old German girl, was hit twice on the face. An American practitioner who refused to be filmed by CCTV was beaten in a separate room and he started to bleed. A female German practitioner was pushed to the floor from behind and then the policemen had stamped on her back.

A German practitioner, Bernhard Aurnhammer 38, was subject to so much violence that when he arrived at the Frankfurt airport yesterday he still suffered pain in various parts of his body. He came out from the plane with a pair of torn trousers which were torn when he was knocked down by the police at Tiananmen Square.

We are very worried for the Swedish and German persons who still are not released.
The three Swedish people that are being detained are Ulrik Dahlgren, 32, Petter Schiller, 32 and Christian Nilsson 21. (For pictures see:http://www.faluninfo.net/bilder/svenskar.htm)

We appeal to the Western governments, media and public to help us obtain the release of the European citizens who are being kept in China so that they return home as soon as possible.

All Falun Gong practitioners stayed peaceful in spite of their brutal mistreatment. The "reasons" that they were beaten was usually their refusal to answer a question, or repeatedly telling the police how good Falun Dafa is.

FOR MORE INFORMATION, please contact Peter Jauhal on 44 7712 197567 or 44 20 8332 6313 or Man Yan Ng on 49 172 621 1890 or 00 49 6201 15672 or visit the websites www.clearharmony.net, www.faluninfo.net