March 7, 2002

SEVEN foreign Falun Gong members, believed to be Australians, were detained during a protest today near the annual meeting of China's national legislature.

The protest lasted only a few seconds outside the former imperial palace in central Beijing. The protesters held up a banner with the group's name and, using another of its names, shouted "Falun Dafa is good!" in Chinese before police grabbed them.

Curious Chinese tourists watched as the five men and two women were loaded into a police van outside the palace on the northern edge of Tiananmen Square and driven away.

Police also detained two female bystanders, one of them a foreigner. An Australian television producer who filmed the women being questioned was briefly detained and his tape confiscated.

It was the fifth protest since November on or near the square by foreign members of Falun Gong [...].

The protest today occurred despite heightened security in Beijing to prevent demonstrations during the 11-day meeting of the National People's Congress, which meets at the Great Hall of the People next to Tiananmen Square.

The square was closed to the public earlier in the week but was reopened today. Dozens of police patrolled the vast plaza, stopping passersby to check their identification.

The protest took place under the portrait of communist founder Mao Zedong on Tiananmen Gate, the southern entrance to the former palace.

A statement released by Falun Gong in New York said the detained protesters were Australians. It said they wanted to "stage an appeal ... for the Falun Gong practitioners persecuted in China."

The Australian Embassy in Beijing said it couldn't confirm their nationalities.

Tiananmen Square was once the site of almost daily demonstrations by Chinese Falun Gong protesters. But a relentless, often brutal crackdown has scared away or driven underground Chinese followers who once numbered in the millions.

Thousands of members have been detained, and Falun Gong supporters abroad contend that more than 350 have been killed. [...]

Other protests by foreigners on the square have involved Americans, Europeans, Japanese and people from more than a dozen other countries. In the biggest to date, 53 people were detained and expelled from China after a demonstration on February 14. Some complained they were beaten by police.

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http://www.news.com.au/common/story_page/0,4057,3906639%255E401,00.html