Boston Globe: With one son safely home, parents fret over another detained for protesting Falun Gong repression

By Associated Press, 3/29/2002 02:16

VASSALBORO, Maine (AP) For Diane and Mike Pomerleau, a feeling of relief over their son Daniel's release from a Chinese prison quickly dissolved Thursday.

Just hours after the 20-year-old landed in Boston, his parents, who live in Vassalboro, learned that their 25-year-old son Jason is now missing.

Daniel and Jason Pomerleau are both practitioners of the Falun Gong spiritual movement, which was banned in China in 1999.

Late Thursday evening, the Falun Info Center in Boston confirmed that Jason Pomerleau and a companion, Christine Loftus of Ontario, Canada, have been detained by Chinese police.

Daniel and Jason Pomerleau left Boston Sunday for China, where they planned to protest the Chinese government's treatment of Falun Gong members.

The two split up in Vancouver, Canada, with Daniel headed to Beijing and Jason flying into Hong Kong.

A short time after Daniel Pomerleau's arrival, he says he was incarcerated for passing out Falun Gong literature.

Daniel Pomerleau, a student at Clark University in Worcester, Mass., says he was kicked, punched and denied food and water by Chinese police.

On Wednesday he was escorted back to the airport and onto a plane to Canada.

Thousands of Falun Gong members have been detained in China, and the group's supporters abroad claim hundreds of people have been killed in captivity, a charge Beijing denies.

In recent months, dozens of practitioners from overseas have been deported after protesting government treatment of Falun Gong.

While Daniel was in a Chinese prison, his older brother was in Hong Kong. For several days he contacted friends and family in the United States.

But on Thursday the Pomerleaus didn't hear from Jason, who works at Joslin Diabetes Center in Boston.

The Falun Info Center in Boston said Jason Pomerleau and Loftus were detained in Beijing after protesting the Chinese government's treatment of Falun Gong.

''We are very concerned for their safety,'' the Boston group said in a statement. ''The Chinese government has beaten and detained many Westerners since they first began to travel to China to appeal on Tiananmen Square.''

Daniel Pomerleau said that when he returned home Wednesday, a State Department official told him that Chinese authorities plan to take harsher action against people who outwardly support Falun Gong.

''Having experienced the viciousness of persecution, I'm very concerned for (Jason's) safety,'' Daniel Pomerleau said.