Hong Kong iMail: Macau gets tough on Falun Gong

Carmen Cheung and Chester Yung in Macau, Eli Lau and Edward Chan in Hong

Kong

A Falun Gong member is arrested by the plainclothes police officers in

Macau yesterday after staging protest against the outlawing of the [practice] by

the mainland.

Picture: Dicky Chan, Hong Kong iMail

AT least 25 Falun Gong members were rounded up across Macau yesterday as

President Jiang Zemin arrived to celebrate the first anniversary of the former Portuguese enclave's handover.

The Macau authorities also barred Hong Kong activists and Falun Gong members from entering the one-year-old Special Administrative Region.

Meanwhile, members from Hong Kong and New Zealand, who had entered earlier to dodge security, denounced the action from hiding, saying it violated of the ``one-country, two-systems'' principle.

Police swooped on practitioners of the Beijing-banned [practice] in at least three locations as they gathered and unfurled banners bearing [Falun Gong] slogans. Falun Gong's Macau co-ordinator, Lam Yat-ming, whose house was raided on Monday night, was among a group of practitioners who were detained outside the Macau Landmark Centre at about 3pm. When they unfurled their banners, two uniformed officers rushed to the park asking them to stop.

``Which laws are we violating?'' Mr Lam argued with the officers. ``Can't we express our views here?''

``Have you applied for permission?'' was the answer from one of the officers. More officers arrived in five cars and the practitioners were shoved into police vehicles.

At the same time, about 20 Falun Gong members gathered in small groups outside Hotel Lisboa, each at different times, suddenly donning yellow T-shirts and displaying photographs of followers they claimed had been tortured on the mainland. Each time, police surrounded the group and took members away in vehicles. About 20 were eventually taken away.

One member, who dodged the police net, said some of those detained had come from Australia and had teamed up in Hong Kong before setting off for Macau two days ago.

In the morning, two Falun Gong members were seen being led away by police outside the ferry pier as they waited for Falun Gong [group] members from Hong Kong who were turned away. A Macau police spokesman said later the pair were still being detained.

Speaking from hiding, five activists said they merely wanted to tell Mr Jiang theirs was not an [...], as Beijing has dubbed it.

``We are practitioners of Falun Gong only. Falun Gong is not [],'' said Cindy Wong Yiu-hing from Hong Kong, speaking with fellow Hong Kong members Wong Chui-lai and Chau Sing, Liao Rui-lan from New Zealand and Macau resident Choi Shui-wing.

Ms Wong said they dared not venture out for fear they would be caught, although she feared Macau police already knew their whereabouts.

She said they had lost contact with two other members - Tse Lai-sim and Chan Kam-shiu - since Monday night, and were worried they may have been arrested.

``Macau is ruled under the `one-country, two-systems' principle,'' she said. ``Why can't we practise Falun Gong then? This is normal exercise.''

Ms Wong was released on November 4 after being held for eight months in a Shenzhen detention centre for staging a protest on the mainland in March.

April Fifth Action Group leader ``Long Hair'' Leung Kwok-hung and founder of the Information Centre for Human Rights and Democracy Frank Lu Siqing were among the Hong Kong activists turned away by immigration officers.

The pair were recognized and stopped when they arrived at 11.45am - as was the case last year when they tried to enter the enclave for the handover celebrations.

Along with two other activists, they were taken to a room before being put back on the next ferry to Hong Kong.

About 10 press photographers were told to sit in a waiting room until the activists had left.

Police spokesman Leung Wai-keung said while Macau residents were free to demonstrate to express their views, visitors did not have the same rights.

``Travellers have no right to do these things just as they are not entitled to receive any social welfare in Macau,'' the spokesman said.

Leung Kwok-hung said when immigration officers checked their identity cards, ``they told us there was a problem showing up on the computers and that we should stay in the room''.

He asked to see the immigration supervisor but his request was denied. Before his arrival, other members of the April Fifth group had also been refused entry, he said.

About two hours later, a group of 23 [group] members from Hong Kong were also turned back back by immigration officials.

One of them, Chan Wing-kwong, 52, said they were taken to a waiting room without being questioned and then put on the next ferry home.

Kelly Kong Xu, 42, said she refused to leave but ``two policewomen grasped my arms and pulled me out of the room''.

Elected legislator Antonio Ng Kuok-cheong criticzed the security imposed, saying the authorities were being ``over-sensitive''.

20 December 2000 / 02:29 AM

http://www.hk-imail.com/inews/public/