Washington Post: Falun Gong Members Detained in Hong Kong

Washington Post Foreign Service

Monday, May 7, 2001

HONG KONG, May 7 - Hong Kong authorities blocked dozens of members of the Falun Gong spiritual movement from entering the city today, as police tightened security on the eve of a rare visit by Chinese President Jiang Zemin and imposed the most severe restrictions on public demonstrations here since Britain returned the territory to China in 1997.

Falun Gong leaders accused authorities of stopping as many as 60 practitioners at the airport and forcing them to return home, in addition to 10 others who were refused entry in the past week. If the allegations are true, the Hong Kong government would be going further than it has ever gone before to squash protests that might embarrass China.

Falun Gong is outlawed as [Chinese government's slanderous term omitted] on the mainland, and Beijing has sought to crush it, arresting thousands and torturing the most stubborn believers. But the group is legal in Hong Kong, and its plans to protest Jiang's Tuesday visit to an international business conference are testing the "one country, two systems" policy that grants this former British colony autonomy over its own affairs.

Hong Kong immigration officials declined to comment on the deportations, saying they routinely turn away people and will not discuss specific cases. Other Hong Kong officials denied that Falun Gong members were being targeted.

But Falun Gong spokeswoman Sharon Xu said it was obvious that immigration officers were working from a blacklist of overseas Falun Gong practitioners provided by Beijing. She said some members were told they were being denied entry for "security reasons" while others were given no explanation.

"This is sheer discrimination against Falun Gong as a spiritual group. This shows a deterioration of freedom in Hong Kong, where people should have a right to express their opinions," she said.

Kan Hung-cheung, another local Falun Gong [spokesman], said authorities refused entry to more than 40 Taiwanese practitioners, six Americans and others from Australia, Macao, Britain, Japan and Singapore.

"Almost all of them have been allowed to visit Hong Kong before, have never broken the law and have participated in our peaceful activities," he said. "Stopping them is not necessary and is unreasonable."

The deportations come as Hong Kong police continued to say they would permit only 20 members of the [group] to protest anywhere near the Hong Kong Convention and Exhibition Center, where Jiang is scheduled to speak Tuesday night, and then at a site so distant that participants at the Fortune Global Forum business conference will never see them.

Hong Kong police did agree to let Falun Gong members gather at five other locations around the city, all of them far away from the conference.

Other activists who hoped to use Jiang's visit to air their complaints about the Chinese and Hong Kong governments also complained about the restrictions. [...]

Law Yuk-kai, director of the Hong Kong Human Rights Monitor, said the restrictions were more severe than even those imposed by police during the gala ceremonies that marked the 1997 handover over the territory by Britain to China.

He said police allowed protests to be staged much closer to the convention center in 1997, and he noted that 3,000 police officers will be on duty during the forum, compared to only 2,000 during the handover.

"By placing unnecessary restrictions on peaceful protests and abusing its control over immigration, the government is showing the international community that Hong Kong is less free," he said.