Practitioners Legally Registered as Beijing Residents Are Being Arrested Prior to the Olympic Games

All hotels in Beijing, whether they be large or small, require a scan of their customers' ID cards at check-in. The scanned information is then entered into a database and forwarded electronically to the Beijing Public Security Branch. There, the customers' names are compared with the list of Falun Gong practitioners they have collected, and shared with other police departments, so that the practitioners staying in the hotels can be arrested. If the hotel accepts people who do not have ID cards, the police will levy a heavy fine on the hotel owner.

Recently a practitioner went to Beijing with his colleague on business. At around 11:00 p.m., local police officers came in two cars to arrest them. They searched both men and their possessions, paying special attention to their laptop computers. Many police officers in Beijing still are not clear on the facts regarding Falun Gong and the persecution, and these officers didn't permit the practitioner to explain the facts about Falun Gong to them. They were very hostile toward Falun Gong. They claimed that all Falun Gong practitioners would be taken to the police station, where the authorities would collaborate with the practitioners' local police stations to have their homes ransacked for evidence before having them sentenced to forced labour camps or prisons. The goal is to detain practitioners at least until the end of the Olympic Games.

The practitioner found an opportunity to call fellow practitioners in his home town for help. A colleague then went to request his release. The practitioner had done a good job informing people in his home town about the true nature of Falun Gong, and people on the street committee went to his home to see if he was on a business trip. Officers with the local police station also acted in a positive manner. They called the police in Beijing and said many good things on behalf of the practitioner and recommended that he be released. On the second day of his detainment, the practitioner was released, and the Beijing police deleted the records pertaining to his case.

Apparently the practitioner who was arrested this time had once gone abroad with his passport, and there was still a record of him on the Chinese Communist Party (CCP) blacklist.

Chinese version available at http://www.minghui.org/mh/articles/2008/6/7/179872.html