With brute force they were put onto buses; they were interrogated in a cell and they were barely able to sleep. Four young Swiss citizens tell the tale why they went to China anyway to protest the persecution of followers of the Falun Gong meditation movement.

November 23, 2001

There was this uncertainty. What will they do to us? That question was raised again and again by these four: Richard Kleinert, age 31; Daniel Ulrich, age 28; Silvan Fedier, age 28 and Victor Fernandez, age 28, prior to their experience on Tiananmen Square in Beijing. They met there last Tuesday, together with 30 other foreign followers of the Falun Gong movement. "Our aim had been to meditate for 15 minutes," said Fedier. Perhaps the Chinese authorities could have tolerated that, but it must have been the banner that was too much for them. "As soon as we had unfurled the banner, we heard screeching tires and much honking of car horns," remembers Kleinert. "Within seconds we were surrounded by police officers." The banner proclaimed only three words, in Chinese and English: Truthfulness, Compassion and Forbearance, the three principles of Falun Gong. The movement has been outlawed in China since 1999.

Suddenly the uncertainty no longer existed. Now they had clarity. China does not allow protests, not from her own citizenry and not from foreigners, either. The police officers, some of them in uniform, some of them plain-clothes, pushed, pulled, shoved, threw and manacled the four Swiss and the other members of Falun gong into small buses. "I did not expect or calculate in an actual arrest," said Ulrich, " but what surprised me was the brutality of the security forces." In spite of the [rough handling], Ulrich managed to jump out of the bus and sit once more on the ground. Things went very fast the second time, too. "I don't know how many there were, but they roughly grabbed my arms and legs and lifted me off the ground. I tried to passively defend myself, rolled back and forth," he said, "but they grabbed me by the collar and dumped me into the bus. I could barely breathe."

Later on, at the police precinct building. The whole group is detained and cramped together in a room measuring 2 meters by 5 meters (approximately 6 ft. x 15 ft.) "This was a real dungeon, a cellar, dank, dark and sinister," said Fedier, "that really got to me. I know that our Chinese Falun Gong friends undergo torture in rooms such as these." And always the repeated intimidation efforts, the threats, the humiliations. And beatings. "I witnessed how a police officer, with the flat of his hand, repeatedly hit an American physician about the head, because the man had refused to sign the interrogation-document. It was written in Chinese."

Twenty-three hours later it was all over. The four Swiss were put onto a plane and flown out. "At that moment I was relieved that everyone got out safely," said Ulrich. "I had half way expected that we would be deported, but still, the whole situation was unpredictable."

Now they are sitting here in a restaurant at the Zurich/Switzerland main trains station and give the impression that they have just returned from a class trip with their school, telling their story and forming their conclusions. "We had no intention of becoming martyrs or heroes there," said Fernandez. "It was important to us to demonstrate [to the world] that in China, human rights are trampled on. And we also wanted to show the Falun Gong practitioners in China that they are not alone." That message, the Swiss are certain, has been sent loud and clear.

With their action the Falun Gong followers are attempting to somehow work at cross- purposes to the Chinese propaganda machine. The Chinese regime classifies Falun Gong as "an undesirable organization, [slanderous terms omitted]" that threatens the Chinese system. Fedier sees it differently: " We have no political ambitions or aims and do not wish to influence our surroundings." The four Swiss try to clarify and defuse the accusation of belonging to a sect by pointing out that Falun Gong does not charge any membership fees, that there are no religious rituals and there is no hierarchy nor any leadership elite. Besides, Falun Gong counts among its members people from all kinds of religious backgrounds. The most important aspect of Falun Gong is to live according to the principles of Truthfulness, Compassion and Forbearance. "We want to work on ourselves, to morally better ourselves," said Fedier.