24 Nov 2001

Los Angeles

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Two California college students expelled from China for joining a Falun Gong demonstration by 35 visitors in Tiananmen Square this week declared in Santa Monica on Friday they had gone to Beijing to demonstrate foreign support for the Chinese people.

"I went to China to give people a chance for freedom, freedom from the lies they are forced to hear," said Brad Carson, a 20-year-old Sonoma State University student from Lake Forest.

He said he had paid his way on the three-day trip, which included two days of sightseeing in the Chinese capital and a demonstration immediately interrupted by Chinese police. Also joining about 50 members of the movement in a parade in Santa Monica on Friday morning was Leeshai Lemish, 23, an Israeli citizen who is a student at Pomona College.

Both men described themselves as practitioners of Falun Gong, which they described as a peaceful belief "in the magnificent principles of truthfulness, compassion and tolerance."

After his arrest in Tiananmen Square, Lemish said, a police officer "took me to another room, slapping me in the face along the way."

Later, Lemish said, he and others were unceremoniously pushed aboard an Air Canada flight to Vancouver, in his case partly barefoot, without one shoe he lost in Tiananmen Square.

Scott said he felt gratified by being able to make a point. Though others were beaten, he was not, he said. He recalled witnessing an Australian participant in the demonstration whose hands were badly hurt.

"What we planned on the trip was entirely legal according to human rights declarations of the United Nations," he said.

http://www.latimes.com/news/local/los_angeles_metro/la-000093665nov24.story?coll=la%2Dcommun%2Dlos%5Fangeles%5Fmetro

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