Asia Pacific Media Network: [Hong Kong] Falun Gong men jailed in Shenzhen

South China Morning Post

Wednesday, April 9, 2003

Two Hong Kong Falun Gong practitioners were sentenced to jail terms by a Shenzhen court last month, the Hong Kong Society for Falun Gong revealed yesterday.

Cheung Yu-chong, a 58-year-old security guard, was jailed for three years, while 46-year-old businessman Suen Chung-man was sentenced to four years behind bars.

Their sentences were delivered on March 26, 10 months after their arrests, the group said.

The spiritual movement has been outlawed on the mainland since July 1999.

Both men were arrested in May last year at the Lowu border. Cheung was arrested carrying flyers and VCDs about the Falun Gong through customs.

Suen was detained over a list of addresses which mainland authorities believed would be used for mailing Falun Gong materials, his family claimed.

"It was as if the mainland government had a blacklist of Falun Gong members," said Wong Am, Suen's wife.

On March 18 officers searched Suen's Shenzhen home and seized more than 1,400 VCDs about the Falun Gong.

The families of the two men complained that they had not received sufficient support from the Hong Kong government during the men's trial at Shenzhen Longgang District Court, and said they were angry about the sentences.

Cheung's sister Miu-ching said she had gone for help from the Immigration Department's Assistance to Hong Kong Residents Unit after her brother's arrest but did not receive much help.

"An officer said the Falun Gong was a sensitive issue, and told me there was probably nothing the unit could do apart from filling in the relevant paper work," she said.

"After that they rang me every now and then to check how my brother was doing in the mainland. I think they are rather like wooden puppets."

Miss Wong said she had received a similar response from officials.

"They told me we should act according to the mainland's laws and follow their procedures [Editor's note: Mainland judicial system has been manipulated by the Jiang regime to illegally persecute Falun Gong practitioners.]. It seems the special administrative region [SAR] government is not willing to stand up for its people."

[...]

Cheung has appealed against his three-year sentence. But his sister, who is also a Falun Gong member, said she had not met her brother since his arrest because her requests to meet him were all turned down. She was also worried about her brother's health, after being told Cheung had lost a lot of weight during detention.

Ms Wong said she was "shocked and angered" by the four-year jail term her husband had received but she would not appeal because she had lost all her confidence in the mainland's judicial system. "They just do their sentencing according to instructions from the top."

The two men are not the first Hong Kong Falun Gong members jailed in the mainland. Chu O-ming, 45, was jailed in Tianjin after being arrested in 2000.

http://www.asiamedia.ucla.edu/Weekly2003/04.08.2003/HongKong8.htm