BBC Monitoring: China Expels Austrian Falun Gong Protester

May 16, 2002

The Austrian Falun Gong supporter who was arrested in the northern Chinese city of Changchun on Monday 13 May, has got off relatively lightly. He will be expelled and, according to the Austrian Foreign Ministry, was already on his way to Beijing on Wednesday. On Monday - the tenth anniversary of the founding of that [...] group that is banned in China - Alexander Hamrle, an engineer from Vienna, distributed flyers that he had made himself. In the handout he sharply criticized the persecution of Falun Gong by the Chinese authorities.