March 10, 2002

POLICE swarming over Beijing's Tiananmen Square detained an Australian couple just seconds into their protest against China's crackdown on the Falun Gong spiritual movement.

It was the second such demonstration by Australians in four days.

The couple, identified by a Falun Gong spokesman as Emma Doddrell Hall and her husband Jarrod Hall, hugged and kissed each other on the cheek before the protest that saw them detained almost instantly and marched aboard police vehicles. [...] The man yelled "[Falun] Dafa hao!" in Chinese - meaning "Falun Gong is good" - as police pushed him into a van that drove him away.

The woman also shouted "Falun Gong" and raised a yellow scarf before uniformed police snatched it away and marched her to a car.

The Halls, both aged 23 and from Melbourne, arrived in China earlier in the day, said Chris Cominos, an Australian spokesman [...] arrested during a similar protest last November and then deported.

Both Falun Gong practitioners, the couple wanted to "appeal to the Chinese government to stop torturing and killing people who practice," Cominos said in a telephone interview.

It was the sixth protest since November on or near Tiananmen Square by foreign followers of Falun Gong, which China outlawed in 1999. [...]

China has detained thousands of Chinese followers, imprisoning many in labor camps. Falun Gong organisers abroad claim 375 Chinese followers have been killed.

On Friday, China deported 10 Australians detained a day earlier in a similar protest. [...]

Hundreds of uniformed and plainclothes police patrolled Tiananmen Square today, swelling the crowds of Chinese and foreign tourists. Police stopped and questioned foreigners before allowing them onto the vast plaza and followed them as they walked around.

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