South Korean Tourists Sit Cross-legged on Tiananmen Square, Armed Police Arrest Them Supposing They Are Falun Gong Practitioners

My friend is a tour guide for an overseas international travel agency. I once spoke to her about Falun Gong, letting her know that the persecution is completely illegal, ill-based and inhumane and thus persuaded her to quit the Chinese Communist Party (CCP) and its affiliated organisations. She accepted what I said but she did not fully believe in the severity of the persecution of Falun Gong. She felt that I was exaggerating things. But later, when she was hired to work in China, she said to me, "The CCP is really horrible. What you told me is actually true."

Then she told me about her trip to China. This time her company assigned her a group of sixty tourists composed of overseas Chinese from Beijing. When her group went to Tiananmen Square to take pictures, she saw a colleague leading more than twenty South Korean tourists to Tiananmen Square as well. She decided to go talk to her colleague. Korean people have the habit of sitting cross-legged on the ground to talk. She noticed that those South Korean tourists were tired, so they put their travel bags on the ground and sat cross-legged, forming a circle to chat to each other.

After no more than five minutes, a long police vehicle and many armed police and plainclothes police rushed towards them. The tourists were terrified. The police hastily pushed all the South Korean tourists to the ground regardless of whether they were men or women, then they started loading them into the police vehicle. At the same time, the armed police were constantly shouting, "Do not move!" But since the Koreans could not understand Chinese, two young Korean students refused to go in the police vehicle, asking what the police wanted to do. The armed police trampled their legs, hit them in the abdomen and covered their mouths at the same time. Within a few seconds, the police threw the students into the vehicle and the vehicle drove away very quickly. The rest of the plainclothes police started to interrogate the other frightened tourists one by one. The police asked their names, nationality and whether they were Falun Gong practitioners. When the police made sure they were not Falun Gong practitioners, an official warned them, "You are not allowed to speak irresponsibly. Forget everything that happened today, otherwise you will be responsible for all the consequences." Then they let the tourists go.

When my friend talked about this, she became frightened. I asked her what happened to the South Korean tourists. She said very angrily, "The police finished the investigation and found they were not Falun Gong practitioners. Then they released the South Korean tourists. But the police did not even apologise for what they did to the tourists. I heard from the South Korean tourists that the police did not allow the tourists to speak in the police vehicle. As soon as the tourists started to speak, the police beat them. The tourists were all really scared. On their way back to South Korea, they constantly talked about how the Chinese police are horrible, too horrible to imagine. The police also threatened the tourists, telling them that they were not allowed to speak of this to anyone. The police also said they had the tourists on file and they would be responsible for any consequences if they happened to reveal what they experienced to anyone."

After my friend described what happened in China, she said to me, "After this, I realised that what you told me about the persecution of Falun Gong is true. The CCP is really evil. They do not have any humanity. I sincerely hope that your fellow practitioners in China will be safe. I hope that God can see your tribulation and end this as soon as possible. You should not return to China -- it is too dangerous there. It is so easy for a person to disappear in China. I am afraid that you will be hurt."