AP: Australians Say Chinese Beat Them

Fri Mar 8, 2002

SINGAPORE (AP) - Two Australian men who were expelled from China on Friday for protesting a crackdown on the Falun Gong spiritual movement said they were beaten by Chinese authorities.

Eight others who stopped in Singapore on their way home said they were unharmed. Olympian Jan Becker, who swam for Australia during the 1964 Tokyo Games and was one of the expelled, questioned the wisdom of allowing Beijing to host the 2008 Olympics because of the crackdown on Falun Gong.

"The Olympic committee didn't put enough pressure on Beijing to improve human rights issues beforehand," she said. "Would they guarantee my safety and others if they go and practice Falun Gong?"

Waiting at Singapore's Changi Airport, Michael Molnar, 29, of Melbourne said he suffered "an avalanche of kicks and punches" from police as he left a bus transporting him to a police station.

David Rubacek, 24, of Sydney, said two police officers interrogated him in his hotel room, rifled through his things and "got really upset" and "started cursing and swearing" when they found Falun Gong books in his suitcase."

Rubacek said a policeman ripped his tie from his neck, "grabbed me by the suit and began hitting me on the head."

"Then they threw me on the ground and kicked me -- four or five blows" he said, adding that the officer who kicked him was "shaking he was so mad."

Rubacek was not visibly bruised. Molnar had a small red mark on the side of his nose, but no other marks or bruises.

The Australians were detained Thursday after a protest that lasted a few seconds. It was the fifth protest since November on or near Tiananmen Square in central Beijing by foreign members of Falun Gong, which China banned in 1999.

In the Australian city of Melbourne, about 20 Falun Gong followers protested outside China's consulate there Friday against the detentions in Beijing.

Falun Gong spokeswoman Kati Vereshaka said security guards surrounded a group of five practitioners who walked onto the consulate grounds holding a banner marked "China stop killing." The protesters left peacefully about an hour later.

[...]

Thousands of members have been detained, and Falun Gong supporters abroad contend that more than 350 have been killed. [...]

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