WASHINGTON (Reuters) - A Falun Gong practitioner who was barred from entering Hong Kong ahead of the visit of Chinese President Jiang Zemin said Tuesday immigration officials carried her to an office by her hands and feet to wait for nearly 11 hours for the next plane out.
"More than 10 persons just came and grabbed me and my hands and feet... and carried me to the office," Shi Wei, a housewife in Arlington, Virginia, told Reuters outside the Chinese embassy in Washington.
Shi said she was one of at least four Falun Gong practitioners who were detained with her hands taped together in an office of the airport overnight May 6. Early Monday, she was bundled in a blanket and taken to a plane to be sent back to the United States.
"When I ask why I was detained they never give us the reason," she said. When she pressed officials, "they said we don't know, we just came to work and your names are in the system."
The Falun Gong is legal in Hong Kong but since 1999 has been banned in China, which rules the territory under a "one country, two systems" formula giving it special rights after the end of British rule in 1997.
Chinese President Jiang Zemin Tuesday addressed some 700 business leaders and politicians at an economic conference in Hong Kong while some 400 Falun Gong members staged protests at five sites blaming him directly for the crackdown.
The strictly controlled protests were a rare instance of China's communist leaders being challenged on Chinese soil, and were seen as a major test of Hong Kong's post-handover freedoms.
CONNECTED TO JIANG'S VISIT
Shi said she was sure what happened to her had something to do with Jiang's two-day visit to Hong Kong.
She said an official at the airport told her: "Well you cannot go this time (but) it doesn't mean that you cannot go later, next time, because every time the situation's different... And I ask why and he said for security reasons."
Human rights groups said immigration officials have barred at least 100 suspected Falun Gong followers from the United States, Australia and Taiwan from entering Hong Kong in recent days to stop them from joining the protests.
The Falun Gong movement, whose leader Li Hongzhi lives out of the public's view in New York, said in a news release the Hong Kong authorities' actions were an example of how Jiang was trying to expand his crackdown.
"Jiang seems to pay no regard to the damage this may cause to the 'one country, two systems' policy, nor to the damage this will do to the image of Hong Kong," it said.
China has labeled Falun Gong, a practice that combines meditation and exercise with a spiritual doctrine rooted in Buddhist and Taoist teachings, as an evil cult.
Dressed in a yellow Falun Gong T-shirt and looking wan, Shi spoke as a handful of followers meditated in bright sunlight in a small park outside the Chinese embassy.
She said it was her own idea to go to Hong Kong when she heard Jiang was coming, leaving her husband, a fellow practitioner, and child in the care of friends. Two friends from other U.S. cities joined her, she said.
"In China Jiang Zemin persecutes the innocent practitioners... They cannot speak out, so (if) I have a chance to speak out I have to do that," she said.
20:44 05-08-01
Copyright 2001 Reuters Limited. All rights reserved.