Monday, February 18, 2002

All Damon Noto wanted, he said, was to show Chinese citizens around Beijing's Tiananmen Square that the banned Falun Gong spiritual [group] has followers in the United States.

He never got the chance.

Last week, the 28-year-old Waldwick native, along with dozens of other American, Canadian and European Falun Gong followers, was detained and roughed up by police in Beijing, just as he made his way to the center of the square.

The incident occurred a week before President Bush's planned visit to China.

Noto, a third-year medical resident at New York-Presbyterian Hospital in Manhattan, was one of two former New Jersey residents who traveled to China on Feb. 10 to raise a pro-Falun Gong flag in Tiananmen Square.

Falun Gong, a 10-year-old [spiritual] practice, involves meditation and slow-moving exercises. Its adherents have protested China's Communist government, and authorities there banned its practice in 1999.

Last week, Beijing detained and expelled almost 60 foreigners -- including about 35 Americans -- during what was described as the largest protest yet by foreign Falun Gong followers in China.

Trouble began for Noto, former New Jerseyan Bart Carlucci, and four others in their group on Feb. 14 as they were leaving a subway station in Beijing to enter Tiananmen Square, Noto said.

"We were going to do a peaceful raising of a Falun Gong banner in Tiananmen Square," he said yesterday. "But that never took place. They (police) literally searched every Westerner near the square. They stopped us, saw we were Westerners.

(They said) 'Can we search you?' We said no," Noto said. "They said, 'This'll only take a minute, we're going to search you.' They took out metal detectors."

Noto passed the search and was allowed to keep walking. But after police found a "Falun Gong is Good" banner one of Noto's friends had hidden in his pants, police immediately surrounded Noto and the others, threw them to the ground and rushed them, head-down, into a police vehicle, he said.

"They don't want people to know Westerners practice (Falun Gong), so they tried to keep my face from being seen," he said.

Noto said he, Carlucci and the others were driven to a police station near Tiananmen Square, where they were searched and interrogated. He said authorities pressured him into signing a statement that he was there to cause trouble. But Noto said he refused, and demanded to speak with someone from the American embassy. His request was denied, he said.

"They asked personal questions, contact questions," he said. "They wanted to know if I had anybody in China."

About an hour later, the group was bused to a detention center, where members were searched and interrogated again, Noto said. In a conference call yesterday from Manhattan, Noto and five other New York-area residents who were detained with him said they were held more than 20 hours.

Then they were rushed onto a Northwest Airlines plane bound for Detroit.

The group is scheduled to meet Tuesday with State Department representatives in Washington, D.C. White House spokesman Ari Fleischer said last Thursday that Bush would be "concerned with any arrests for religious purposes in China."

Bush is scheduled to arrive in China on Thursday.

The Chinese police officials offered the detainees food, but they refused to eat, Noto said, partially because the officials wanted to videotape them eating to later show they were being hospitable.

"They wanted to document that we were being treated nicely," Noto said. "It was funny, because they were filming us, and then Sterling (Campbell, of New York) got roughed up and the taping stopped. We said, 'Why aren't you filming that?'"

Carlucci could not be reached for comment yesterday.

Noto, a Waldwick native and 1991 graduate of Don Bosco Prep High School, has been practicing Falun Gong for almost two years. He said the philosophy has helped him physically and mentally.

"I just knew in my heart that with the persecution going on in China, I could help by making my presence there," he said. "One of the things they tell people in China is that Falun Gong is persecuted around the world, and that only Chinese people practice it. I wanted them to see that Westerners practice, and that we practice it freely here."

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