Friday, February 15, 2002

Five Bay Area practitioners of the Falun Gong spiritual movement are believed to be among the 40 foreigners detained yesterday in Beijing's Tiananmen Square, according to relatives and supporters.

The five activists have not been heard from since they reported to a friend Wednesday night that the police were following them, said Sherry Zhang, a Falun Gong supporter in San Francisco.

"I believe they were arrested on Tiananmen Square," Zhang said. "They were carrying banners, some of them reading 'Falun Gong is good!' in Chinese."

The detentions yesterday came during the fourth and largest protest on Tiananmen Square by foreign followers of the group. The demonstration took place several days before a visit to Beijing by President Bush.

The five detained Bay Area residents are Ispas, 33, of Sunnyvale; Lee, 23, of San Jose; Carai, 45, of Santa Clara; Kute, 23, of San Rafael and Lu, 34, of Daly City.

"I haven't heard about him for a couple days already," said Lu's brother-in- law, Raymond Du, of Daly City. "I hope he can come back soon."

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China banned Falun Gong in 1999.

Yesterday's protest came on the third day of China's Spring Festival.

[...]

A message for the Chinese consul general's office in San Francisco asking for comment was not returned yesterday.

Zhang said the activists went to China to lend support to Falun Gong practitioners.

"The whole reason why they go there is to generate awareness of the persecution happening in China, because Falun Gong practitioners do not have a voice," Zhang said. "We want (the Chinese government) to know that the world is watching and that we will not stop until they stop the persecution."

San Francisco attorney Steve Baughman, whose law firm helps Chinese Falun Gong members in the United States seek political asylum, said the detentions are part of an "unforgivable" repression of Falun Gong by the Chinese government.

"It's ongoing, and it appears to be escalating," Baughman said. "The Chinese government has no more right to repress the Falun Gong than the U.S. government would have the right to repress Christian fundamentalism because of the acts of a few abortion-clinic bombers."

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http://www.sfgate.com/cgi-bin/article.cgi?f=/chronicle/archive/2002/02/15/MN62329.DTL