FRENCH FAMILY OUT OF CHINESE LABOR CAMP, BUT "FREE"?Grenoble, Sept 4. (Agence France Presse) - "Three Chinese members of the Falun Gong movement who live in France and who were detained while visiting relatives in China have been released, a support group announced here Tuesday. The trio, a couple and their teenage daughter, were seized in a raid on August 7 while visiting family in north China's inner Mongolia region. Ivan Samson, a member of a support group, said the family had made it known that they were 'doing well, were out of prison but they can't say when they will come back to France.' The spiritual group identified the family as Chi Jian, a researcher in the southeastern French city of Grenoble, his wife Sun Fenglong and their daughter Chi Yifan, all of whom hold French residency. The Chinese government has a previous record of detaining overseas nationals or residents when they go to China to visit relatives, the Falun Gong information center said..."
PRO-BEIJING GROUP HOLDS "PRIVATE" ANTI-FALUN GONG EXHIBIT IN HONG KONGHONG KONG, Sept. 3 (AP) - Falun Gong members found themselves barred from an "anti-evil cult" exhibition Monday after security guards forcibly removed a follower from the entrance of the exhibition hall. Dacky Sin, 32, was picked up and taken away by three uniformed security guards at the Hong Kong Exhibition Center, which has been staging an exhibition portraying Falun Gong as a self-destructive cult. Another Falun Gong follower, Chau Sing, said that she, Sin and six other members were trying to deliver a letter Monday afternoon expressing the group's view to the conference organizer, the pro-Beijing newspaper Wen Wei Po. Chau said about seven or eight security guards ordered them to leave, saying the exhibition hall was a private area and that they were "not welcome" at the three-day exhibition that ends Tuesday. Sin was later released and had some bruises on his neck, but the other Falun Gong followers left on their own.... The Falun Gong members were later released without being charged, but the arrest marked the toughest action Hong Kong has taken on the group.
REPORTED FALUN GONG SENTENCES 'DISTURBING' TO U.S. WASHINGTON, Aug 20 (Reuters) -The United States said on Monday it was disturbed at reports that Chinese courts had sentenced 45 alleged Falun Gong organizers to prison terms of up to 13 years. The official Beijing Daily said on Sunday that the 45 were sentenced in Beijing over the past few days for organizing protests, making banners and printing leaflets in defiance of a government campaign against the spiritual movement. "We find those reports disturbing. As we've noted many times before, China is a signatory to the International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights, which includes provisions on the freedom of expression," State Department spokesman Philip Reeker told a daily briefing. "We've raised with China on many occasions our concerns about the crackdown on the Falun Gong and reports of torture and mistreatment of detained and imprisoned practitioners. We're going to continue to raise those issues," he said...
PREMIER ZHU RONGJI FIELDS HUMAN RIGHTS QUESTIONS ON VISIT TO IRELANDSept. 4 (Irish Times) - "Forceful interventions on human rights issues and the situation in Tibet have been made by the [Irish] Taoiseach, Mr Ahern, and by the President, Mrs McAleese, on the second day of the four-day official visit to Ireland by the Chinese Premier, Mr Zhu Rongji. Trade matters and common interests on the United Nations Security Council were also discussed. The Taoiseach surprised some observers by repeatedly stressing the need for stricter Chinese adherence to universal standards of human rights. He specifically highlighted the case of Mr Zhao Ming, a postgraduate student at Trinity College Dublin and follower of the Falun Gong spiritual movement, who is currently detained without trial in China. Mr Ahern extracted a promise from the Premier that he would inquire about the case... The pressure was maintained by the President, Mrs McAleese, whose meeting with the Premier extended beyond the scheduled 20 minutes to a full 45 minutes as the two engaged in a 'healthy and very frank discussion and exchange of views...'"
U.S. FALUN GONG PRACTITIONERS START 900-MILE PROTEST MARCHSEATTLE, Aug 22 (Reuters) - "A dozen members of the banned Chinese spiritual movement Falun Gong started a 900-mile (1,440-km) trek from Seattle to San Francisco on Wednesday amid a chilly rain to protest China's campaign against the group..."
U. OF TEXAS STUDENT CALLS FOR RELEASE OF HER FATHER FROM CHINESE PRISONSept. 5 (Daily Texan) - It has been more than two years since the Chinese government arrested Danielle Wang's father. Today, unsure about her father's whereabouts, Wang, a civil engineering sophomore, clings to hope that she will someday see him again... After the arrest, Chinese officials told her aunt, who lives in China, that Zhaiwen Wang would have a court hearing in December. On Christmas Eve 1999, Wang saw her father on CNN, escorted into the proceeding wearing only an oversized police jacket, with his hair faded from black to gray and with several missing teeth. "I could not believe that this was my father," Wang said. "I had never seen that look on his face before. He looked so beaten up. It was so hurtful." He was sentenced to 16 years for leading the Falun Gong rally. It was that image of her father that steered Wang into a depressive state that caused her to neglect everything, except the idea of traveling back to China to help him. She stopped eating regularly and spent hours sobbing, imagining what her father was going though. "I just wanted to get back to China to find him. Then, I realized, I had to do something to help the victims of Falun Gong, because if we don't stand up, there will be no voice... I am not scared because I think what I'm doing is right," she said...
STORIES TO WATCH - MEDIA HIGHLIGHTS (visit www.faluninfo.net for full stories)