Sect Members Tell of Police Manhandling

Three Chinese-Australian practitioners of the banned Falun Gong meditation sect arrived in Hong Kong after they were expelled from China. Jiang Huijie, 31; Gao Yuan, 36; and Jiang Xili, 42, said members of the sect are regularly rounded up and beaten by Chinese authorities. They said they were manhandled even after they showed their Australian passports. The three were among 15 practitioners picked up while attending a meeting at a private home in Guangzhou. A Swedish exchange student, Anne Hakosalo, 31, who was among those detained, was deported to Sweden. The three said that despite Beijing’s clampdown, Falun Gong practitioners are flocking to the Chinese capital in hopes of persuading the government to lift the ban.