Thursday, 14-Feb-2002

BEIJING, Feb 14 (AFP) - Chinese police mistreated several overseas Falun Gong women protestors after their arrest in Beijing Thursday, striking one in the face and verbally abusing her, an AFP reporter witnessed.

Several women were pinned face down in a police van after being detained on Tiananmen Square following a brief protest, according to the reporter, who was being taken to a police station in the same vehicle.

One protestor, a Western woman who appeared to be in her 20s, had her face pinned against a van seat in a semi-prone position for some minutes by a policeman who had his knee jammed against her back.

She was later allowed to sit up, but when she tried to open a window the uniformed policeman struck her hard across the face with his open hand, causing her head to jolt backwards.

[...]

During the journey two other policemen stood on top of two other women sprawled between rows of seats in the back of the small van. They were held there for several minutes with their faces to the ground.

One woman was grabbed by the hair when she began to speak.

The women were among a larger group of foreign followers of the Falun Gong [...] who held brief demonstrations Thursday across Tiananmen Square.

Eyewitnesses saw around 25 people arrested, while the state Xinhua news agency put the total at more than 40.

The AFP journalist was detained after a police officer witnessed her taking a photograph of the protestors. When she tried to tell the police she was not a Falun Gong follower, one officer grabbed her roughly by the hair and ordered her to be quiet.

In all, seven foreign journalists and photographer were detained for two hours following the protest.

In previous demonstrations by Chinese Falun Gong adherents, police were seen treating protestors with far greater brutality, in many cases shocking Western tourists who saw the arrests.

http://www.ptd.net/webnews/wed/dk/Qchina-sect-police.R1gM_CFE.html