Ottawa Citizen: Chinese police arrest 35 in Tiananmen Square Protest

November 21, 2001

By Mike Shahin

As Chinese police surrounded three dozen Falun Gong practitioners in Beijing's Tiananmen Square yesterday, a Canadian broke free of the group, grabbed a yellow banner carrying the words "Truthfulness, Compassion, Forbearance" - and ran around in a last gesture of defiance. "America knows, China knows, the world knows! Falun Gong is good," Zenon Dolnyckyj yelled.

Mr. Dolnyckyj, a 23-year-old from Toronto, was promptly tackled by police officers, hit and carried away under arrest. In all, 35 foreigners from 10 countries were arrested and taken to jail for boldly defying the government's 2 1/2-year-old ban on Falun Gong.

The group of mainly western residents went to Beijing to publicly protest the government's violent treatment of Chinese Falun Gong followers and to send the message to Chinese citizens that "Falun Gong is good." It will depend on how the Chinese government deals with the prisoners, but yesterday's events have the potential to escalate into a major diplomatic incident.

If China chooses to hold and charge the foreigners, it will have to answer to the governments of Canada, the U.S., Britain and several other nations. Falun Gong supporters worldwide have said the government has tortured more than 300 Chinese citizens to death, and sent thousands to labour camps and psychiatric hospitals for practising what it calls an "[slanderous words omitted]."

A report on state-run radio late yesterday, however, suggested China would expel the protesters rather than risk holding them.

Given the world's focus on terrorism, "I don't think the [Jiang Zemin] government wants to be in the limelight ... or create an international incident," Orysia McCabe, Mr. Dolnyckyj's mother, said in an interview from Toronto. "I look at what the [Jiang Zemin] government is doing as an act of terrorism on its own people."

A second Toronto man, real estate agent Joel Chipkar, was also with the group, videotaping the peaceful sit-in. He was not detained and managed to get on a plane that was due to arrive in Toronto late last night.

In a video made days before going to China and released yesterday by supporters in Ottawa, both of the Canadians said they thought their trip would send a powerful message about Falun Gong, also known, as Falun Dafa.

"When (Chinese citizens) see a western face holding up a banner in Tiananmen Square saying Falun Dafa is good," said Mr. Chipkar, "I think that alone will shock them to really think- What is going on here? What is [Jiang Zemin's] government holding from us?"'

Mr. Dolnyckyj, a Ryerson student, said he didn't think it was dangerous to go to Beijing. "I will not be breaking any laws, so I should have nothing to fear!" He said Falun Gong saved his life 3 1/2 years ago when it helped him turn away from an aimless life of drugs, alcohol and a sense of failure.

The demonstrators, who included Americans, Europeans and Australians, posed as tourists before raising a banner and sitting in meditation, eyes shut and hands together in prayer.

Given the history of torture and intimidation against Chinese members of Falun Gong, it was a brazen move: foreigners rarely attempt to hold protests in China, much less in Tiananmen, the political heart of the Chinese nation and the symbolic site of a brutal crackdown on anti-government protests more than 10 years ago.

Within seconds, police vans surrounded the group and uniformed and plain clothes police moved in. Dozens of officers struggled to carry away the passively resisting protesters, dragging some along the pavement. Three officers chased Mr. Dolnyckyj, who was wearing a T-shirt displaying a maple leaf, when he broke away; one of them brought him down with a flying kick to the stomach.

At least one police officer punched a protester repeatedly in his back as he forced him onto a van, and could be seen continuing to pummel and kick him before the van drove away. Mr. Dolnyckyj, in a brief phone call to a friend in Toronto, later said that he was punched by police.

But despite the show of force, most reports from the scene characterized the police response as careful - and much more restrained than their usual treatment of Chinese members of the movement.

[...] Some Chinese bystanders in Tiananmen yesterday [...] expressed bewilderment: "Foreigners believe in Falun Gong too?" one asked.

The Falun Gong practitioners came from Australia, Canada, France, Germany, Ireland, Iserael, Sweden, Switzerland, Britain and the U.S., said Falun Gong supporters. Among them were college students, a doctor, a nuclear engineer and the chief executive officer of an unidentified company. Supporters describe Falun Gong as a self-improvement practice for the mind and body [...].