St. Louis Post-Dispatch: Iceland bars Falun Gong [Practitioners] during visit by China's president

Groups of Falun Gong practitioners, including two St. Louis women, are prohibited from boarding Iceland-bound planes until Sunday when China's president has left Iceland.

"Iceland is bowing to the pressure of Chinese government," said an exasperated Yi Liu of Maryland Heights, who has been stranded at the Minneapolis airport since Wednesday. "They told me I can't board. I have nowhere to go."

Iceland is trying to prevent a demonstration by Falun Gong during Chinese President Jiang Zemin's four-day visit, said Gudni Bragason, deputy chief with the Iceland Embassy in Washington.

[...]

Bragason said Icelandic officials heard the movement was going to rally hundreds of protesters in Reykjavik. He said police in Iceland compiled a list of people belonging to the movement and told IcelandAir in the United States, Europe and Australia not to let them board between Monday and Sunday.

"We asked them to show us the list and they refused," said Liu, a microbiologist who carries a Chinese passport and has lived in St. Louis since 1999. She spent about $1,000 for her ticket to Iceland but was stopped at the gate before her connecting flight in Minneapolis.

Jian Tang of St. Louis, stranded in Boston for two days, said: "I haven't given up."

She said she took a week off from her job as a computer programmer to go to Iceland. She said the airline had her name on "a blacklist," which she claims was compiled by the Chinese government. The airline told her and other banned passengers to talk to their consulate.

Debbie Scott, media relations manager for IcelandAir, said the airline is the national carrier for Iceland but privately owned. She said she did not know how many passengers were barred from going. The carrier flies out of Minnesota, Boston, New York and Baltimore.

"We'll refund the passengers for their tickets, and the Iceland government will refund us," said Liz Buckley, passenger service supervisor for the airline.

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