Employee of French Company PCM Arrested in Beijing

PARIS - March 13th, 2007. He was supposed to take part in a managers’ meeting of the French company PCM on March 14th, in Angers, France but Ma Jian, manager in charge of the PCM Beijing office, selling oil pumps, was arrested on February 28th in Beijing as he was working.

The witnesses present during the arrest say they saw six plain clothes policemen arriving and asking for Ma Jian. After a heated discussion with the employees, the policemen remained alone with Ma Jian in his office. Then he disappeared and his whereabouts are still unknown. The secretary recounts that after much violence, the officers took away Ma Jian and a book of Falun Gong he had. They ransacked the whole office and when they left there only remained his shoes. The phone line had been torn from its socket.

Ma Jian’s wife, now living in Montreal Canada, appealed to the French Association of Falun Gong, the company PCM and any institution or person able to help free him because his life is in great danger. "In the current context of organ harvest and widespread torture in China, practitioners of Falun Gong die every day, reminds the President of the Falun Gong Association, Alain Tong. We are very worried for Ma Jian’s safety".

As soon as they heard of the arrest, the company PCM took the necessary measures with the French Embassy in China to free their employee, known to be an honest, righteous, competent and very much appreciated by his superiors for his human qualities as well as professional. His kidnapping has stopped all economic activity at the Beijing PCM office.

The company was told that the Chinese police had thirty days to give an answer but that they could take three additional months. After contacting their lawyers, the company was discouraged in taking any legal action, given the absence of rights existing for the victim in this kind of case.