Falun Gong practitioner Jian Mengyang tells her experience of being detained in Iceland's Airport

(August 11, 2002) World Journal Daily, Boston -- A group of Falun Gong practitioners held a press conference at University Park Hotel to denounce Jiang Zemin regime's persecution of overseas Falun Gong practitioners and to support 16 practitioners arrested in Hong Kong due to their peaceful appeal in March outside the Chinese Liaison Office.

Practitioners expressed at the press conference that Jiang's regime is providing blacklists to some countries and using all means to prohibit Falun Gong practitioners from entering those countries. Falun Gong practitioners cited that about 70 practitioners were stopped at Iceland's Airport and were subsequently repatriated. They called upon the governments of the world to express concern over this matter and not allow the Chinese government to continue ignoring human rights issues.

Boston practitioner Jian Mengyang said that because her name was on the blacklist she was detained at Iceland's Airport. Even though she held a US passport, still she could not enter the free country as a US citizen. She was outraged. She said that when her father left for Iceland several days later he was stopped at Boston's Logan Airport and not allowed to board the plane. She could not believe that as a US citizen, he could not board a plane in his country. How could a free and democratic country allow such a thing to happen! She felt ashamed of the government. Other people who were also detained at Iceland's Airport said that on the second day, hundreds of Icelandic people came to the detention center to show support.

At the press conference Falun Gong practitioners gave the facts of the16 practitioners' peaceful demonstration outside the Chinese Liaison Office in Hong Kong to protest the Jiang regime's persecution of Falun Gong in China. However Hong Kong police arrested them and charged them with obstruction and attacking police. Video shot at the scene was played which showed that practitioners definitely did not attack police, but rather, police took them away with excess force.

The case will be sentenced on August 15. Falun Gong practitioners expressed that the the sentence will not only affect Falun Gong practitioners but also signify whether the promise of "One country, two systems" to Hong Kong was a lie.