February 5, 2000

POLICE BEAT FALUN GONG PROTESTERS IN TIANANMEN SQUARE

BEIJING --
     As fireworks thundered from Beijing's outskirts, police in Tiananmen Square beat, kicked and detained at least 50 Falun Gong members who welcomed the Year of the Dragon with one of their biggest and most dramatic protests
of recent months.
     Practitioners, ranging in age and some with children began converging
on the square Friday minutes before the lunar new year began. Many pulled red banners from beneath their clothing
and waved them.....
     Police immediately pounced on the protesters, running toward them from
all corners of the square. They kicked, punched and dragged protesters to their feet, herded them into vans and drove them away.
     Wang Xiaoping of Beijing, a Falun Gong member in her 20's, said she felt it was more important to express her dissatisfaction with the government ban
on the group than spend the most important holiday of the year with her family.
     “They won't let us practice; they are trying to crush us.” she said. “We're not against the government, we just want the government to have peaceful talks with our master, Li Hongzhi.”
     She then walked straight for the police, pulling the red banner from her anorak, and was flung to the ground within seconds. As she tried to get up,
she was knocked back and kicked several times. Wang and her two companions, a man in his 50's and a woman in her 40's, also were hit and shouted at by at least six policemen before being taken away.
     Three tourists were detained, apparently because one took pictures. 
The film was removed from the camera."

The Associated Press


February 10, 2000

CHINA ARRESTS ADHERENTS OF FALUN GONG

BEIJING --

     Chinese authorities have seized 2,000 members of the banned Falun Gong sect in the past five days, a human rights group reported Thursday.
     The information center said authorities were using various methods to pressure members of the sect to recant.

The Associated Press


February 11, 2000

CHINESE POLICE HOLDING N.Y. WOMAN

BEIJING --

     An American woman has been detained in China for five days since she
took a photograph at a protest by members of the banned meditation movement Falun Gong, her boyfriend said Thursday.

The Associated Press