San Francisco Dafa Practitioners Warmly Welcome the Western Practitioners Returning from Their Appeal in China

November 23, 2001

Nearly 100 Dafa practitioners from the San Francisco Bay area finally met the three western practitioners who went to Tiananmen to appeal for tens of thousands of Falun Gong practitioners being brutally tortured by Jiang Zemin's regime. We were very pleased with their courageous action. Outside the San Francisco International Airport, the three practitioners described their experiences of detention in China for their peaceful appeal.

One of the practitioners said that he unfurled the banner in Tiananmen Square and police rushed in to grab the banner and drag him. He saw the police beat a female Australian practitioner to the point of unconsciousness and drag her to a police van. Another practitioner said that several policeman dragged him at the same time and forcefully pulled him into a police van, though he struggled to get free for a short while.

One practitioner showed a photo he secretly took while in detention which demonstrated the cells with iron bars in which he was detained. They were interrogated separately after being taken to a police station near Tiananmen. The police took his passport away during the interrogation, and he was not allowed to speak freely, but only answer questions. After the interrogation, the police asked him to sign on the forms. He suddenly realized that he should not sign documents that he could not read. He then got the forms back and crossed out his signature. At this, the police beside him became furious and punched his head fiercely.

The practitioners said that the Chinese police forcefully pushed a Swedish female practitioner down a flight of stairs for refusing to answer any questions or have photos taken. Some policemen punched, kicked and knocked her down.

After the interrogation, the practitioners were taken to a conference room in a hotel near the airport. The police turned kindly toward them, brought water and tried to videotape the scene. The practitioners said, "The Chinese police apparently received pressure from the international community." "The police tried to show the outside world that we were treated kindly." "All practitioners requested to contact their respective embassies, but were denied. The police did not think that we had the right to contact our embassies or lawyers."

On the plane coming home, a couple sitting beside one of the practitioners witnessed the event on Tiananmen Square. Chinese police on the square had warned them not to take any photos, "Otherwise, you'll run into trouble."

Many Chinese and English media from the Bay area, including newspapers, TV stations, and radio stations covered the experiences of the western practitioners.