February 20, 2002

NEW HAVEN -- Most people only read about the strife in China over Falun Gong, but area residents Scott Roberson and Benjamin Zgodny felt it firsthand last week.

The two journeyed to China Feb. 10 to protest that government's persecution of Falun Gong practitioners.

But their planned nine-day stay was cut short after Chinese police stopped, searched and arrested them while they walked in Tiananmen Square.

The officers found a book on Falun Gong, banned in China, in the men's backpacks.

"We weren't protesting or anything," Roberson said. "Policemen just arbitrarily stopped us."

Roberson, 33, of New Haven, and Zgodny, a Quinnipiac University student who lives in Hamden, went to China to participate in a demonstration planned for Feb. 14 in Beijing's central square. "I expected there to be some police reaction to the demonstration," he said. Several Chinese people were also arrested before and after that protest.

The two visitors spent the day and a half after their arrest in police custody.

English-speaking interrogators questioned Roberson and Zgodny in separate rooms for several hours. "They wanted [me] to account for every minute I was there," Roberson said.

By the time the police finished the session, the two men were so tired they only had enough energy to eat the simple chicken-and-rice dish they were given and fall asleep.

In their fatigue, they also didn't think to ask to speak to a representative from the country's U.S. Consulate, Roberson said. They spent the night in a "no-frills," hotel-like room, guarded by five to seven police officers. In the morning, they were rushed to the country's commercial airline with everything they had come with, except their Falun Gong materials, Roberson said. Roberson said they were "manhandled" before being brought to the airport and flown home.

The Chinese communist government outlawed the practice of Falun Gong in July 1999.

The activity is a meditative exercise involving slow body movements, similar to tai chi. It is a peaceful movement promoting the virtues of truth, compassion and tolerance, said Roberson, a computer consultant who has practiced Falun Gong for more than two years.

"They [government officials] are afraid. Because so many people are doing it, they can't control it. So they want to control it by force," Roberson said.

He complained of his and Zgodny's treatment to U.S. Rep. Rosa DeLauro, D-3, who forwarded it to the State Department, said Ashley Westbrook, a spokesman for DeLauro.

Spokesmen for the State Department in Washington, D.C., and the Chinese Consulate in New York were unavailable for comment Tuesday.

China's government has arrested, tortured and sometimes killed Falun Gong practitioners.

In a statement Tuesday, DeLauro said the Chinese government's persecution "adds another disturbing incident to the long list of its human rights violations."