Columbia Daily Tribune: Columbian free after being held in Beijing hotel

February 16, 2002

A Columbia woman returned to Missouri yesterday after being detained in Beijing for more than 20 hours for trying to protest China's treatment of Falun Dafa followers.

Since the Chinese government banned Falun Dafa in 1997, thousands of members have been detained and activists have reported that 358 practitioners have been killed. [...]

Sara Effner of Columbia, a 25-year-old Falun Dafa practitioner, and David Snape of Kansas City were stopped and searched by Chinese police as they headed to Tiananmen Square on Thursday for the fourth and largest protest by foreign Falun Dafa followers. Snape was also detained and has been released.

While searching Effner, police found a video camera and a banner with the universal principles of Falun Dafa - truth, compassion and forbearance - written in Chinese, she said. They placed Effner in a van and drove her to a detention center where she was held with others until guards moved them to a hotel near the Beijing airport. Effner and 15 to 20 others were held in a conference room as 15 guards videotaped them, offered them food and silently watched as they practiced Falun Dafa breathing exercises, she said.

After a sleepless night, Effner said, she was dragged out of the conference room and brought to the airport, where she boarded a Northwest Airlines flight. Effner landed in St. Louis at 4 p.m. yesterday.

"I never felt completely afraid," she said in an interview last night. "I felt kind of taken off guard and shocked first of all that I was caught without even doing anything, and I was shocked that they were always taking pictures and video."

Educating the Chinese about Falun Dafa - not getting arrested - was the purpose of the trip, Effner said, but she conceded the protesters' detention increased their visibility.

Effner knew there was a "definite possibility" she would be detained and did not feel it was unreasonable to expect her congressman, Rep. Kenny Hulshof, R-Mo, to help free her.

Hulshof wrote to Chinese Ambassador Yang Jiechi on Thursday asking for Effner's release. U.S. Rep. Ike Skelton also intervened at the request of Effner's father, Randall Effner.

President George W. Bush will visit China next week; Effner said that might have prompted the release.

Levi Browde, a practitioner from New York who was detained earlier this week after he held a news conference with Western media, said Bush's visit and media attention were not the focus of the trip. "I think it's important for the Chinese people to see a Westerner stand up and say 'I'm for the Falun Gong,' " Browde said.

Sue Jiang, a former Columbian detained in June 2000, said the Chinese need to know Falun Dafa is practiced in other nations and is not an "evil cult" as the Chinese government claims.

"I think it is really necessary to appeal to the government and tell them the truth," said Jiang, now of Brookings, S.D., said. "Outside of China people have a chance to know the truth, but inside China it is very hard to tell the truth."

Columbia practitioner Kailiang Jia said followers who protest in China are heroes. "I admire her courage and her compassion," Jia said of Effner. There are about 10 Falun Dafa practitioners in Columbia.