San Jose Mercury News: Falun Gong followers freed 2 from Bay Area describe detention

Mercury News Staff Writer

Two Bay Area residents, arrested in Beijing during a Falun Gong crackdown, returned home safely after two nights in a detention center where they were questioned by police and forced to sleep on the floor.

But the practitioners, Loretta Sukmei Lam, a nurse from San Leandro, and Jein Shyue, a materials engineer from San Jose, said Wednesday that the experience has only toughened their resolve to promote the worldwide practice of Falun Gong.

``We don't have any political intentions. We just want the freedom to exercise ourselves. I was arrested because I was talking to Falun Gong practitioners in Beijing,'' said Shyue, who has a green card and is waiting to become an American citizen.

Last weekend, eight Bay Area residents, including four American citizens, were arrested by Beijing police for practicing Falun Gong -- a controversial spiritual movement banned in China that promises enlightenment and salvation through languid physical exercise and meditation.

Local practitioners said they don't know the whereabouts of the other six Bay Area residents who were arrested in the roundup, which included seven Chinese and foreign practitioners. But a State Department official said Wednesday that in addition to Lam, another American citizen was released Tuesday but remained in Asia. He did not name the American.

Two other U.S. citizens

Sources in the State Department said the other two U.S. citizens, Mary Qian Zhizhen and her 12-year-old son, David Sun, both of Fremont, are expected to be released Friday.

The government in China has called Falun Gong -- also known as Falun Dafa -- a cult. In the United States, some human rights advocates support the followers of Falun Gong and their call for freedom to practice the belief, but others are wary of the group's seemingly well-organized structure.

The practitioners say they have no leader, but they refer to Li Hongzhi, a former martial arts instructor who lives in New York City, as their ``master.'' The government in China calls Hongzhi ``an evil figure'' and has confiscated and burned books on Hongzhi's teachings.

``I wanted to tell them that Falun Gong is all upright and it can help individual health,'' Lam said. ``We tried to follow the way of Master Li. I just told them honestly that I've benefited from practicing Falun Gong.''

After their arrests in Beijing, they were taken to a police station and interrogated until early the next day, Lam and Shyue said. Police separated the men from the women and divided the group of 15 practitioners into three smaller groups, Americans, Chinese and other foreigners, they said.

Shyue and Lam were joined by the boy, David Sun, who was not with his mother; a woman from Washington, D.C.; and later, a woman from Australia.

The next day, the group was taken to a new location and confined to a small, windowless room on the seventh floor.

Slept on floor

Lam and Shyue slept on a blanket on the floor. The boy and the elderly Washington woman slept on a bed.

On Monday, Lam and Shyue said, they didn't get breakfast or lunch but persuaded the guard to buy takeout food with all the cash they had, $40. At night when the guard was sleeping, Lam said, she and the others practiced their Falun Gong exercises and meditation.

Early Tuesday, police roused the group and ordered them to gather their things. They were taken immediately to the airport. Lam said she boarded her morning flight to Hong Kong without the others. Shyue left on a later flight.

``I didn't know I was going to be released,'' Shyue said.