February 20, 2002 - A Victoria woman practicing Falun Gong says she was bruised and manhandled by police guards after being apprehended while in Tiananmen Square in China.

"I was shocked," Andrea Dawn Hayley, 26, said in Vancouver Monday.

"They left bruises on my wrists with their grip and bruises and redness on my arms."

Hayley was one of six Canadians, along with other westerners, who went to China last week to protest the 2 -year crackdowns against the Falun Gong spiritual movement in that country. Millions of followers around the world support its meditative exercises and melding of Chinese beliefs with the teachings of its founder, Li Hongzhi, a former Chinese government clerk.

The Chinese Communist government banned the Falun Gong movement in 1999, seeing it as a threat to public safety and the rule of its regime.

Hayley is due back in Victoria today and will resume work as a cook at the Re-Bar Restaurant on Thursday.

Another woman, Sophia Bronwen Palfrey, 51, of Vancouver was also detained. Palfrey, who moved to Vancouver after working as a teacher in Victoria for 20 years, estimates there are eight Victoria practitioners of Falun Gong, also known as Falun Dafa.

Palfrey and Hayley each said they were followed in China by men they believed to be plain-clothes police officers. They also had their pictures taken while in custody.

Hayley never made it into Tiananmen Square last Wednesday where she planned to raise her yellow satin banner with red Chinese characters stating "Falun Dafa: Truthfulness, Compassion, Tolerance." She was stopped at the edge of the square, put in a van and taken to the police station where she planted her feet. "They forcibly picked me up and searched me." When she wouldn't walk forward, a guard twisted her arm behind her back, Hayley said.

After the search, she was carried along a hall and dropped on concrete stairs. " I yelled out 'Falun Dafa is good' at that point."

A police bus ride took Hayley to a hotel detention center where she was questioned for one hour. Hayley said she refused to sign a document, which she could not understand, written in Chinese characters.

She spent the night in a room with 16 other Falun Gong supporters from several countries, along with guards. When Hayley demanded to see a representative from the Canadian Consulate and be allowed a telephone call, "The guard just laughed and said, 'You are in China.'"

The next day, she was taken to the airport. Guards carried and dragged her up the stairs to the plane. "I felt I should resist because I had done nothing wrong."

A waiting United Airlines plane brought her to Vancouver Friday. "I'm glad that I went at this point because I know without a doubt the nature of this persecution."

Palfrey traveled to China independently of Hayley. With her own banner hidden in her coat lining, she made it into Tiananmen Square to meet other Falun Gong practitioners. As she pulled out her banner, six police officers threw her to ground and then pulled her into a van.

"I was trying to shout Falun Dafa Hao (good).'"

In the van, one officer was hitting a screaming woman and another was kicking a man, said Palfrey, who was also taken to the hotel detention center. She was put in a different group than Hayley.

Palfrey said she was later taken back to her hotel to pick up luggage where guards pushed and shoved her. She was put on a plane after 26 hours in custody.

"I'm very glad that I went because I think it did have an impact."