Sect members deported after ordeal
Four Hong Kong women, including one with a New Zealand passport, were deported from the mainland yesterday after being arrested for displaying a Falun Gong banner.
Public Security Bureau officers detained the four after they displayed the banner for about three minutes in Tiananmen Square on Wednesday.
The banner read: 'Falun Gong religion is righteous.' The women were taken to a hotel and then transferred to a detention centre where they were detained overnight but not badly treated, the protesters said.
Two men from Shenzhen were arrested with them but their whereabouts were unknown. The Falun Gong sect has been banned on the mainland since July.
Officers yesterday confiscated the women's home-visit permits and told them they were barred from returning to the mainland.
They were escorted on to two separate Hong Kong-bound flights.
The 60-year-old New Zealand passport holder, identified only as Ms Liu, arrived at Chek Lap Kok airport at 7.30pm. The other three women arrived three hours later.
Chow Shing, 30, representing the other two protesters, Tsang How-sim, 50, and Wong Tsui-lai, 30, said another Hong Kong woman, surnamed Lo, and her young son were supposed to join their demonstration but backed out at the last minute.
Their whereabouts were unknown.
Ms Chow said she and Ms Liu would stage an official protest outside Xinhua at 8.45am today over their detention and confiscation of their home-visit permits.
Hundreds of Falun Gong practitioners have been arrested on the mainland since the sect was outlawed.
The ban came after more than 10,000 members staged a silent protest in Beijing to demand recognition in April.
The group advocates high moral values and organises itself around morning meditation exercises.
Since the crackdown against Falun Gong members began on the mainland, Hong Kong practitioners have exercised outside Xinhua headquarters in Happy Valley and the Central Government Offices to appeal for help in securing the release of arrested members.
On November 12, four members of the movement were jailed for between two and 12 years in Haikou, capital of Hainan province, in the first formal trial of members of what Beijing has decreed 'an evil cult'.
