Newsday (New York, NY): The U.S. Keeps a Watchful Eye Expressing concern over Chinese police roundups of Falun Gong

February 25, 2002

A group of Americans, including a number of New Yorkers, experienced first hand earlier this month the tough tactics used by the government of China in its struggle with the practitioners of Falun Gong.

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Jonathan Levi Browde, 29, a Manhattan software engineer, was among those picked up by police in Tiananmen Square after he unfurled a banner emblazoned with the words "Falun Gong Hao" or "Falun Gong is Good." The message didn't sit well with plainclothes police patrolling the square. He was hauled away, interrogated and deported 27 hours later, all without any notice to U.S. officials. China's treatment of Americans like Browde who have demonstrated over treatment of Falun Gong adherents is being closely watched by U.S. officials. Department of State officials are reviewing claims by Browde and others about mistreatment at the hands of Chinese police, and the situation has the potential to become a nettlesome issue in U.S.-China relations.

"While I was held in the Chinese jail, I had no idea what they were going to do to me," Browde said shortly after arriving at Kennedy Airport on Feb. 12. "I didn't know if I was going to be sent home or if they were going to charge me as a spy."

He and another practitioner from Canada were deported a day after they were picked up on the eve of the Lunar New Year. Several other New Yorkers were detained and deported a few days later. Chinese authorities have admitted detaining up to 59 westerners at Tiananmen Square in the last two weeks but deny abusing anyone.

Carrie Hung, 27, a management and information technology consultant from Manhattan, said she discovered Falun Gong through her mother a year ago. Falun Gong, also known as Falun Dafa, is based on an ancient form of exercise and meditation believed to help improve physical and mental abilities.

While Hung supported the New Yorkers who visited Beijing recently, she said her experience would have been more dangerous had she been among them. "I would have definitely been beaten up badly just because of my Chinese face," she said.

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The U.S. Department of State continues to oppose China's crackdown on Falun Gong, said Edward Dickens, a spokesman in the agency's consular affairs bureau in Washington, D.C.

Dickens said 29 Americans were detained since Feb. 12, and most were deported before the consulate in Beijing was informed. He said matters were complicated because the Chinese declined to list all Americans in custody.

"We formally approached the Chinese government on numerous occasions to request access to the Americans, but we didn't get access before they were deported," Dickens said last week.

He said the United States will look into claims of mistreatment by some of the detained Americans and were planning to meet with some who had returned from China.

"It doesn't stop with this," said Browde. "It's an ongoing effort."

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The reception given the New Yorkers, none of whom is Asian, by the Chinese police was, to put it mildly, surprising.

Manhattanite Scott Chinn, 31, his wife and other Americans, were walking through an underpass to meet others for the demonstration on Tiananmen Square Feb. 14 when they were stopped.

He said the police were doing "security checks" on all foreigners when they discovered a yellow cloth - traditionally the kind of banner Falun Gong supporters wave - tucked under a shirt. Some tried to run, but the police caught up.

"We were just pummeled, I was tackled by four or five plain clothes police," said Chinn, an American citizen. "They dragged me up into the police van, and the whole time they had me in a choke hold, and I could barely breathe."

Several other colleagues, he said, had a similar experience. But they vow to continue calling on Beijing to allow Falun Gong practitioners to live freely.

"It's really a sad situation for millions of Chinese people," he said.