Top Falun Gong member barred from Hong Kong

By AFP | via (uncensored) Yahoo! New
June 24, 2007

A top Taiwanese member of Falun Gong was Monday repatriated after being denied entry to Hong Kong to protest in the run-up to the 10th anniversary of the city's return to Chinese rule.

Theresa Chu, a lawyer, arrived in the territory on Sunday evening but was refused entry because her visit was "not conducive to public good," she was told by an immigration officer, said the Hong Kong Association of Falun Dafa, part of Falun Gong.

An officer at the airport immigration department told AFP that Chu, who had successfully entered the former British colony last week with a valid travel document, was repatriated on Monday morning.

She could not be reached on her Hong Kong mobile phone but Kan Hung-cheung, a spokesman at Falun Dafa, said she had appealed the decision.

He said more than 100 Taiwanese members of Falun Gong, outlawed in China as a dangerous sect, have also been denied entry here for a series of protests planned in the run-up to the anniversary of the handover on July 1.

It was not the first time Chu has had difficulties getting into Hong Kong. In 2003, Chu and more than 80 other Falun Gong practitioners were denied entry on arrival to attend the group's activities.

She is one of the plaintiffs in a joint application involving Taiwanese and Hong Kong practitioners for a judicial review of refused entries.

China outlawed the Falun Gong, which combines meditation with Buddhist-inspired teachings, as an "evil cult" in mid-1999 and practitioners have subsequently faced often brutal repression.

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