AP: NC protesters return home to tearful reunion

MORRISVILLE, Feb. 16 -- Five North Carolinians detained in China after protesting the treatment of [Falun Gong practitioners] there returned home Friday to a tearful reunion of family and friends.

Greeted with bright bouquets and banners, the demonstrators told of being dragged and kicked around by Chinese police in Tiananmen Square on Thursday when they spoke out in favor of Falun Gong.

Al Whitted III, one of the protesters, was met by his wife when he entered the baggage claim area Friday afternoon at Raleigh-Durham International Airport following the final leg of his flight from Beijing.

"He looks a little worse for wear, but he's strong in spirit,'' a beaming Megan Whitted said after a week away from her husband.

The five were among 33 Americans detained at the demonstration. They were interrogated by police and kept overnight in a secure hotel before the Chinese government expelled them from the country.

Whitted, an adherent to Falun Gong for three years, said he and dozens of westerners entered the square Thursday afternoon and unfurled banners saying "Falun Gong is Good.''

Four Britons and five Germans also were detained following the protest, diplomats said Friday. It was the biggest demonstration yet by foreign followers on the square against the Chinese crackdown on the meditation group.

Whitted said he was quickly surrounded by more than a dozen police officers, who whacked him in the back of the legs and carried him away.

Whitted, a middle-school teacher in Mebane, said he went despite the dangers to speak up for Falun Gong practitioners who have been injured and killed for their beliefs.

"They don't have a voice at all in China,'' Whitted said while carrying two bouquets of flowers presented to him by children waiting for their return. "We felt like we needed to be their voice.''

Tina Bakatsias, a protester from Durham, described how she was dragged by her long brown hair to a police bus. Whitted and Thai Ton, another protester, said other Americans left China with black eyes, busted lips and scrapes from their time with police.

"A lot of the people were beaten,'' said Ton, a Durham biologist. He said he was pushed to the ground and stomped a few times before being carried away by police. "They had a boot on my face on the ground.''

Ton, a naturalized U.S. citizen from Vietnam, said he didn't tell his parents about his trip to China so the protests would be kept secret.

His mother, Yen Co Ton, was brought to tears when she heard how her son had been treated and saw a cut on his hand and his broken eyeglasses.

"I was worried too much about his safety,'' she said. "I'm very proud of him.''

The other North Carolina protesters who were detained and arrived home Friday were Andrew Parker, a student at the University of North Carolina at Greensboro and Joann Kao of Charlotte.

Marcus Lee, a student at UNC-Charlotte, took some video of the arrests but managed to avoid police and brought his tape and camera home.

Falun Gong, [...] drew tens of millions of followers in the mid-1990s, [...] [practitioners] perform mind and body exercises while being committed to principles such as tolerance, forbearance and truth.

Whitted said he took a week off from teaching at Woodlawn Middle School, but told administrators that he was going on a mission.

"I told him I wouldn't have asked for it unless it was very important to me,'' he said.

Whitted said he felt the Americans and other Westerners made a difference by shedding light on the treatment of fellow Falun Gong practitioners.

"We felt like this was going to help save lives,'' he said.