Edmonton Sun: Beaten and Stomped City man recounts the horrors of being held by Chinese police for his beliefs

Monday, February 18, 2002

A city man says he played a running game of cat-and-mouse with Chinese cops in Beijing - before they caught and beat him for trying to take part in a banned demonstration.

Tom Ozimek went to China to join a protest by westerners in support of the outlawed Falun Gong spiritual movement.

He said he knew the police were on to him when he heard a loud knock at his hotel door just after midnight Thursday.

"They said they were the police and told me to open up right away," said Ozimek from his place in Warsaw, Poland, where he's working as an English language teacher.

"But I pretended to negotiate about opening the door to stall them while I packed my stuff."

Ozimek, 27, said he then jumped from his second-storey window to the ledge of another building across the alley.

He said he took a taxi to a 24-hour noodle house, where he planned to hide out until the afternoon demonstration.

"Then I saw a car with darkened windows that I thought I recognized from the hotel," he said.

Ozimek said he jumped a wall and hid in what appeared to be a garden for a few hours, before taking a bus to Tiananmen Square where he mingled with crowds.

"At 1:40 p.m. I walked onto the square and was stopped by a security official," he said. "He searched my bag and found the banner I had saying 'Falun (Gong) is Good.'

"Then all these guys pounced on me, twisting my arms and kneeing me. They threw me into a paddywagon and took off at high speed through the crowds with the sirens blaring and lights flashing."

Ozimek said he was then taken to a police station where he was subjected to more arm-twisting.

"After that I sat in a meditation position and tried not to think about what was going to happen to me," he explained.

"I wanted to approach everything calmly. I saw other people being hit, slapped, kicked and stepped on.

"They were pulling at me and one police officer was stamping on my legs to get them uncrossed."

Ozimek said he was taken to what appeared to be a hotel, commandeered as a detention centre for western protesters.

After being interrogated for about an hour he was hauled to a conference room, where about 20 other people were being held.

"They kept me there for about 18 hours. There was no food, no water and no toilet," he recalled.

When they were ordered to move, the protesters refused and linked arms.

"It got pretty violent. (The cops) were stomping on people."

Eventually, with his shoes and coat seized by cops, Ozimek was thrown into another police van and taken to the airport, where he was manhandled onto a plane bound for Moscow.

He spent another 18 hours in the Moscow airport, as officials there arranged for him to fly to Poland.

A total of 53 westerners, including six Canadians, have been expelled from China in connection with the protest.

http://www.canoe.ca/EdmontonNews/es.es-02-18-0012.html