Nov. 25, 2001

A Thornhill man arrested in China says he achieved his main goal, showing the Chinese the Falun Gong spiritual movement is accepted in the West.

Zenon Dolnyckyj, 23, was arrested in Tiananmen Square by Beijing police Tuesday for taking part in a demonstration showing international support for the banned spiritual movement.

Along with three dozen protesters from 10 countries, Dolnyckyj was held for a day and then expelled, arriving in Canada late Wednesday night.

Speaking from his Thornhill home, Dolnyckyj said he's glad to be back but is also slightly saddened.

"Of course I'm very happy to come home and see my family," he said, "but at the same time I was using every opportunity to speak to the Chinese people because everyone, even the police, is lied to."

Dolnyckyj said the Chinese media tells people Falun Gong is despised and its followers persecuted throughout the world.

By meditating in the Square and talking to as many people as they could, the protesters wanted to show this isn't true.

He said he avoided confrontation and tried to use reason with the officers who arrested him.

"We explained why we were there, that we're not against the Chinese government or the people. It's just the persecution of Falun Gong," Dolnyckyj said.

He said the state-run Chinese media say foreigners are paid to protest and only pretend to practise the discipline. But the Chinese could see their protest was genuine.

"I was able to successfully let the Chinese people know they're being deceived because not only did I practise it in the Sqaure but the policemen who spoke with me all knew I did Falun Gong."

Dolnyckyj said many of the guards didn't know why the protesters were being arrested.

"Many of them admired me because they could see I was genuinely practising a Chinese art. When they see the media reports I was paid, they're going to know their people are being lied to."

Dolnyckyj said the persecution of practitioners and their relatives has steadily intensified in the three years since the government launched a [suppression] against the movement two years ago. The torture and killing of supporters are now common events.

He called state media reports followers had been treated humanely an "absolute lie". After his own arrest, he was repeatedly punched in the face by police and then thrown into a van.

Dolnyckyj said other protesters received far worse treatment. Police knocked one man unconscious and grabbed a French woman by the throat and choked her with her purse strap. The same woman was assaulted at the station when she wouldn't give up her cell phone.

Taken to the Beijing police station, the protesters stayed firmly together, resisting police attempts to separate them. The police tried to make them each sign a document in Chinese. But Dolnyckyj refused, telling the guard he couldn't sign a legal document without his lawyer.

"He said "Fine I'll sign it. So he signed it."

Unable to separate the protesters, the police bused them to a hotel, where they sat in conference rooms for another 18 hours until ordered to leave.

Dolnyckyj left for China last Nov. 15. Once there, he rented a bicycle, riding around Beijing. He and a friend met at the Great Wall where they hung a banner in support of Falun Gong, meditated and told passers-by why they were there.

With a pillow case and a black marker he wrote out in Chinese 'Falun Gong is Good', waiting to unfurl it during the protest. Otherwise, he read and meditated, trying to prepare himself mentally and emotionally for the protest.

"I realized the fear I had the day before was entirely for my own self," he said. "I was forgetting why I went there and that was for other people. The more I was able to remove the fear and replace it with compassion, that's when I felt peaceful and strong and centred."

Dolnyckyj told the Chinese how Falun Gong, which teaches the use of mediation and exercise as a way to promote spiritual and physical harmony, had changed his life, helping him beat a drug addiction. When he discovered it three years ago, he was on the verge of retreating into isolation.

"I was ready to give up my family, friends, everything and then I found Falun Gong and that's when I said real cultivation can be done in society where you can benefit other people. But it also had a very profound explanation of the human body, of the human being, of life, of matter and of how to really refine the human being. It's a matter of changing the human heart."

Dolnyckyj participated in a 10-day sit-in at the Chinese consul in July to mark the second anniversary of the [suppression].

"I did everything I could to help the Canadian people to know what was going on but I'd never done anything for the Chinese people. I thought this protest was something I could do for them."

http://www.theliberal.com/article/full/fullview/1UPQ8-44