06/30/2002

Page 2

Growing numbers of Falun Gong practitioners are being refused entry to Hong Kong as it prepares to mark the fifth anniversary of the handover.

A spokesman for the group, Kan Hung-cheung, said more than 30 [practitioners] were refused entry to Hong Kong in the past week, 20 of them on Friday night.

"We believe there's a blacklist in the hands of Hong Kong authorities and that was provided to them by the mainland to follow the policy of [persecution] on Falun Gong," he said. The group is legal in Hong Kong, but [suppressed] on the mainland.

According to the Falun Gong, those refused entry to Hong Kong on Friday included a mother and her one-month-old baby.

Up to 1,600 people are expected to protest during a visit tomorrow by President Jiang Zemin for handover anniversary celebrations, including 250 Falun Gong [practitioners] who plan to demonstrate outside Immigration Tower in Wan Chai.

Iceland recently banned people on a list of supposed Falun Gong [practitioners] from entering the country during a visit by Mr Jiang.

"Why is Jiang Zemin so afraid of Falun Gong? They are only doing some peaceful activity," Mr Kan said.

[...]

Mr Kan said [practitioners] of Falun Gong refused entry were mainly Taiwanese, but included people from Macau and American, Australian and Japanese citizens.

In May last year, almost 100 Falun Gong [practitioners] were refused entry to Hong Kong during the Fortune Global Forum. The director of the Hong Kong Human Rights Monitor, Law Yuk-kai, branded the latest apparent ban on Falun Gong disgraceful. Mr Law said that for Hong Kong to voluntarily adopt mainland standards on immigration was to surrender the society's freedom - and if the move was dictated by the mainland, claims of autonomy were bogus.

"Both are disgraceful . . . The Basic Law has granted us autonomy yet we give it up," he said.

[...]