Taiwanese Falun Gong practitioners yesterday accused the French police of violating their rights and harassing them while visiting France during the Lunar New Year.
According to the Taiwan Falun Dafa Institute, over 170 Taiwanese Falun Gong practitioners went to Paris to celebrate the Lunar New Year with their fellow practitioners.
On Jan. 26, several dozen devotees were arrested simply because they were wearing Falun Gong's yellow scarves on the streets of Paris, the institute said.
"We don't understand why the French police made these arrests, and we feel sorry that the whole incident occurred," secretary-general Hung Chi-hung (洪吉弘) said.
Hung and other Falun Gong practitioners also visited the Ministry of Foreign Affairs yesterday afternoon to protest the conduct of the French police and urged the ministry to communicate with the French government over the incident.
They said the arrests were an infringement of their human rights, and demanded the French government investigate the incident and apologize to Falun Gong members.
The institute's press release also quoted a Ms Fan, a reporter who had apparently been mistaken for a Falun Gong practitioner. When Fan was arrested a police officer allegedly told her: "Falun Gong is legal during normal times, but it is illegal today."
Chung Cheng (
"I arrived in Paris on Jan. 20, and I took a small Falun Gong flag with me to the Chinese Embassy on Jan. 21. At that time no police officers or employees from the embassy told me it was illegal," he said.
"But when I took the flag to the embassy again on Jan. 26, I was arrested. I asked the police why they arrested me, and they told me it was because of the flag," he said.
Chung said that he was arrested at around 7pm and taken to a police station. But the police did not put him behind bars or ask for a statement, instead leaving him to sit in the station. At around 11pm, Chung said, the police told him he was free to go, but his flag was not returned.
The arrests coincided with Chinese President Hu Jintao's (
Earlier this month, the Falun Gong group said they had been barred from joining a parade on the Champs Elysees to celebrate the Lunar New Year.
They claimed that the authorities had been acting under pressure from the Chinese embassy in Paris.
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