BBC Monitoring: Hong Kong repatriates Taiwanese Falun Gong followers

06/29/2002

Text of report by Sofia Wu, carried in English by Taiwanese Central News Agency web site

Taipei, 29 June: A group of 11 Taiwanese followers of the Falun Gong
spiritual group who travelled to Hong Kong Friday [28 June] evening were repatriated back to Taiwan Saturday after overnight detention. Li Chein-fen, one of the group members, said their group originally had 17 members. "Six of them, all of whom had valid Hong Kong tourist visas, were allowed to enter the territory," Li said, adding that the rest of the group also had visas for Hong Kong.

Li and 10 other members were kept in different offices at Hong Kong's Chek Lap Kok Airport overnight. To the best of her understanding, Li said, at least one Japanese and an Australian Falun Gong follower were also detained at the Hong Kong airport Friday night.

[….]

She added that Hong Kong authorities didn't give any plausible explanation for their overnight detention. "We were upset because Hong Kong officials only told us that their superiors demanded them to do so for security reasons."

The Falun Gong is outlawed in mainland China, but remains legal in Hong Kong which was promised a high degree of autonomy when it was handed back to Beijing on 1 July, 1997. However, at least 30 overseas Falun Gong followers have been denied entry to Hong Kong so far in the run-up to Monday's anniversary celebrations, which will be attended by senior mainland leaders, including Jiang Zemin.