Locals go to China to protest persecution of Falun Gong

THE EXAMINER STAFF Wednesday, March 8, 2000

Bay Area residents, including boy, 11, arrested, detained before speaking out

Loretta Sukmei Lam knew she risked arrest in going to China to protest the persecution of Falun Gong followers. But she didn't expect police to sweep in even before she got to make her stand for the popular but outlawed spiritual movement.

The 42-year-old San Leandro woman, a nurse at Chinese Hospital in San Francisco, was back home in San Leandro Tuesday night after spending three nights in custody in Beijing.

She and seven other Bay Area residents were among 18 Falun Gong followers arrested Saturday night in a Beijing rental house.

"We didn't expect it so early, before our action," Lam said. "I told police, "I haven't done anything.' "

Lam said the 18 had gone to China separately with plans to protest in Tiananmen Square and to try to address the Chinese People's Congress on Sunday.

But at 8 p.m. Saturday, police raided the home where they were staying, arrested them, ransacked the home and confiscated their belongings, she said.

Lam and two other U.S. citizens, including an 11-year-old Fremont boy, were separated from the others, who were Chinese citizens, including four who live in the Bay Area on work visas.

She was interrogated daily and had to ask for the most basic necessities, but said she wasn't treated badly "because I was a U.S. citizen." During the raid, however, she said she had seen police use a stun gun on a San Jose resident, Yili "Vennessa" Wang, 28, for trying to keep them from taking the group's book on Falun Gong meditations and exercises.

Police awoke her group early Tuesday morning and escorted them to the airport, where she boarded a plane for Hong Kong and then San Francisco.

Police told her that the Fremont boy's mother, Zhizhen "Mary" Qian of Fremont, had been arrested two days earlier in Tiananmen Square and would be reunited with her son, David Sun, to fly home.

Earlier Tuesday, Philip Sun had heard nothing about the whereabouts of his ex-wife and son, and was worried.

"I'm very upset. I can't understand why the Chinese would take the child," Sun, 44, of Redwood City, said. "No child could be guilty."

Sun, and other concerned relatives and friends of the detainees, have repeatedly called the U.S. Embassy for information since learning of the Saturday night arrests.

The arrests follow months of police crackdowns in China against Falun Gong, which has an estimated 60 million to 70 million practitioners worldwide. Police are trying to stem protests during the national legislature's annual session.

Sun said his ex-wife's arrest was her second run-in with Beijing police. Last year, Qian traveled to Beijing with her son, in another attempt to appeal the Chinese government on behalf of Falun Gong, Sun said. Police confiscated their passports and airline tickets for several weeks before letting mother and son return to the United States.

The other Bay Area residents arrested are Jein Shyue of San Jose, a U.S. citizen, whom Lam said was taken to Beijing airport Tuesday.

The four arrested Bay Area residents who are Chinese citizens include Wang of San Jose, her husband, Sheng "Johnson" Zeng, 30, of San Jose, Wenqing "Wendy" Fang, 30, and Wei "Sam" Guo, 26, of San Jose.

Local Falun Gong followers planned to send a letter Wednesday asking for help from U.S. Sens. Dianne Feinstein and Barbara Boxer, both D-Calif., U.S. Rep. Anna Eshoo, D-Atherton, and other government officials.