AFP: Hong Kong Falungong urge release of detained practitioners

Friday August 24, 4:21 PM

HONG KONG, Aug 24 (AFP) - Hong Kong members of the Falungong spiritual group staged protests Friday calling for the release of fellow practitioners detained on the Chinese mainland.

The group held group meditation exercises before handing a petition letter to police officers outside government headquarters which called for the release of Chu O-ming, 44, a Hong Kong businessman allegedly illegally detained in China on September 7 last year.

Falungong spokeswoman, Hui Yee-han said Chu was arrested in a late-night raid at the Beijing home of his friend, Dr Linda Duan, shortly after filing a writ against Chinese President Jiang Zemin to China's Supreme Court.

The writ called for an end to the persecution of Falungong practitioners on the mainland.

Duan told AFP: "Chu has never done anything wrong ... police just burst in and refused to say what he had done wrong ... then they dragged him off."

"The last thing we heard was that Chu was tried in China last year and sentenced to five years to prison," added Hui, saying Chu was believed to be languishing in a Tianjin prison, in northeastern China.

The charges levied against Chui were unknown, she added.

"The SAR should not avoid fulfilling its obligations with the excuse of 'interfering with the mainland's internal affairs', neither should the SAR government let the case slip through just because no family members have come forward to ask for help," the petition letter said.

The group also planned to hand in a petition to the Central Government liaison office and stage group exercises.

Hui said six group activists planned to start a hunger strike outside the Chinese liasion office here on Saturday, mirroring similar protests outside Chinese embassies in New York, Washington and London.

Their action is in solidarity with 130 activists who have launched their own hunger strike in Masanjia labor camp in China's Liaoning Province.

"The practitioners have been on a hunger strike for three weeks after they were illegally detained and had their basic human rights violated," she said, adding "they were close to death".

Two weeks ago a Falungong practitioner Chan Yuk-to, 35, who was arrested in his Beijing home in July was deported back to Hong Kong after protests here. He has been barred from returning to the mainland for five years.

The Falungong statement claimed 268 practitioners had been tortured to death, more than 500 received illegal sentences, 1,000 thrown into mental institutions, 20,000 sent to labour camps and 100,000 thrown into jail.

Falungong combines [...] slow-motion meditation exercises, and advocates say it promotes clean living and good health.

It was banned by the Chinese government in July 1999 in a move seen by many analysts as a sign top leaders feared its ability to mobilize vast numbers of protesters.

http://sg.news.yahoo.com/010824/1/1d2qg.html