PureInsight | January 3, 2005
to view the portrait in high resolution[PureInsight.org] The scene in this painting is based on a true story: On November 20, 2001, around 2 p.m., thirty-six westerners from all over the world gathered at Tiananmen Square in Beijing, China. They sat in the meditation position, unfurled a large yellow banner emblazoned with the words, "Truth, Benevolence, Forbearance," shut their eyes, and began their Falun Gong meditation exercise.
Within seconds, Chinese police vans rushed over and surrounded the group, and officers began forcing the foreigners inside. In response, they started to shout in Chinese: "Falun Gong is good!" Their actions were peaceful and in complete compliance with the fundamental rights spelled out in the Universal Declaration of Human Rights. However, all of these practitioners were arrested, mistreated, and forcibly deported by Chinese police. Many of them were beaten, some severely. While in police detention, these people were not allowed contact with their families, not allowed legal representation, and not even allowed contact with their embassies. They were interrogated, intimidated, and most of them had their valuable belongings stolen by the police.
These photos were taken four days after French Falun Gong practitioner Helene Petit was beaten by Chinese police in Beijing on November 20, 2001. This is excellent evidence against the Chinese Communist government's tenacious lie that the police have never resorted to violent means against Falun Gong practitioners in prisons.
In a few months, on February 14, 2002, another group of 40 western Falun Gong practitioners from around the world came to the Tiananmen Square to continue the appeal to the Chinese Communist government to end the savage persecution against Falun Gong practitioners. They unfurled yellow banners and called out loudly to the people in Tiananmen Square, "Falun Dafa (or Falun Gong) is good!" Once again, these western Falun Gong practitioners were arrested and beaten by the Chinese police.
There were 25 Americans among the 40 western Falun Gong practitioners, and about five practitioners were female. There are Caucasian, African- and Asian-Americans among them. When they returned to the United States, their faces and bodies were covered with traces of violence. Some of their shirts were torn and the buttons were ripped off. One female practitioner's pants were terribly torn; another female practitioner's sleeves were torn from the shoulders and could fall off anytime. Three practitioners were barefooted and returned without their luggage because the Beijing police had stolen their belongings.
During the interviews upon their return in 2002, these practitioners revealed the violence of the Chinese police. A female Falun Gong practitioner said, "The police at Tiananmen Square repeatedly lifted my body up and slammed me to the ground. During the repeated torture, my pants were torn and my lower back was injured. I still have trouble bending over to pick things up from the floor." Another petite female practitioner, about 153 cm (not quite 5 feet) in height, said, "The police at the Tiananmen Square pulled me to the police van by my long hair. Lots of my hair was pulled out. I felt as if my scalp was being torn off my head. After the policemen threw me into the police van, they shut the door and started beating me up violently. Then they kept pressing my head towards my chest, and thus injured my neck. I still feel pain in my neck." Even male practitioners were victims of the police atrocities. Many male practitioners returned with visible bruises on their faces. Some of their eyes were red as the result of the beatings. A male practitioner looked pale. He was barefooted and wore white shirt that was so badly torn by the Chinese police that it looked more like a dirty rag. All the buttons of his white shirt were torn off. When he lifted his shirt to reveal his back, everyone saw many red bars on his back, revealing the torture of whipping that he had suffered during the police detention.
The mistreatment and physical abuse of western Falun Gong practitioners by the Chinese police only serves to expose the Chinese Communist government's lies that their police refrain from using violence against domestic Falun Gong practitioners. If the Chinese policemen have no scruples to inhibit them from beating these foreigners, knowing that the victims are to be deported within hours, what would they not do to Chinese Falun Gong practitioners who they can incarcerate indefinitely?
Translated from: http://www.zhengjian.org/zj/articles/2004/11/22/30002.html
