March 31, 2002

A Canadian woman who said she was detained in Beijing for handing out leaflets promoting the banned Falun Gong movement was back on home turf after a journey that began 24 hours earlier in a jail cell in Beijing.

With minor scrapes and bruises accrued during the 24 hours of her arrest, 22-year-old Christine Loftus arrived in her home town of Barrie, Ont., late Friday night. She was in China with her American boyfriend, 25-year-old Jason Pomerleau.

Loftus said she was roughed up a little during her detention.

"We were dragged into an underground parking lot, I was grabbed by the back of my neck . . . at one point I was thrown on the floor and had my arm twisted and they tried to break my thumb. They stepped on me as well and threw me onto the floor of the jail cell and I wasn't fed for the first 20 hours. They were really dirty conditions."

From there, the pair were driven "to someplace west of the city," where they were questioned, Pomerleau said on Saturday from Detroit Metropolitan Airport, where he was waiting to catch a connecting flight to Boston.

Pomerleau was familiar with the city because he held a year-long teaching position at China University of Geosciences in Beijing beginning in August 1999.

Later that night, the couple were driven to a 17-storey building in the centre of Beijing where they were separated.

Pomerleau said it is only because of birthright that he and Loftus were freed by the Chinese without much harm.

"If we had been Chinese, we would have been beaten severely. We are very, very lucky."

Falun Gong, a practice of holistic health, meditation and exercise, was banned by China in 1999.