May 03, 2004

A Falun Gong group condemned the Hong Kong government Monday for turning away members who went to Hong Kong for a May 1-2 conference with their Hong Kong counterparts.

The Taiwan Falun Gong Association said in a statement that more than 20 of its members who went to Hong Kong for the 2004 Hong Kong Falun Gong Exchange Meeting were turned away at the Hong Kong airport, despite holding valid visas. Before they were put on planes back to Taiwan, the Falun Gong practitioners were detained and questioned by officials from the Hong Kong Immigration Department, their mobile phones, cameras and recorders were seized, and their luggage was ransacked, said the association.

Furthermore, they were supposed to have been able to call lawyers during the interviews but were not informed of this right. They only found out about this after they were given notices when they were aboard planes bound for Taiwan and noticed that their signatures on the notices had been forged, the association claimed.

One of its members, Ho Hsiu-erh was allegedly given an injection of "unknown" medicine in her feet before being escorted aboard, which gave her pain throughout her body, the association further claimed in its statement.

Noting that Hong Kong Falun Gong Association is a legal group in Hong Kong, the Taiwan Falun Gong Association questioned why its members were denied entry "for security reasons."

The statement said Taiwan Falun Gong practitioners were well treated in Hong Kong prior to 1997, when it was still under British rule, but have been subject to random arrest and detention after the former British colony was returned in 1997 to the rule of Beijing, which considers the group to be an [...] (1), although it is legal in Hong Kong. The association said the Hong Kong Government has trampled its own laws in its treatment of the Taiwan Falun Kong Association members.

(1) Jiang group's slanderous terms removed