(Reported by Journalist Zhou Jia-hong in Hong Kong, January 5th)

On January 1st, twelve Falun Gong practitioners with Chinese passports were denied entrance to China in Beijing. The Information Center for Human Rights and Democratic Movements in Hong Kong said today that the Chinese government felt very upset that overseas practitioners went back to China to appeal. In order to prevent similar things, the National Security Department, the Public Security Department and the customs have recently made up a "black list" of the overseas Falun Gong practitioners to prevent them from going back to China. It was said that the secret agents of the National Security Department in each foreign country were responsible for collecting the names of Falun Gong practitioners in that country. Then the information would be given to the administrative office for entrance and exit to identify their passport numbers that would then be input into computers of the customs. Up to now, more than a thousand practitioners have been put on the black list. But the Chinese government still has no way to deal with those with foreign passports.

The information center also pointed out that since last November, atleast100 practitioners from Australia, Japan, and United States etc. have been arrested in China. Most of them were expelled from China after a short period of detention. Some of them are still being detained. In particular, three practitioners from Singapore, Wu Guo-rui, Xiong Chang-lei and Xiong Shou-yong have been detained for two months in Beijing and have not been released yet.

In November 1998, China signed the Universal Declaration of Human Rights,in which Article 13 states "Everyone has the right to leave any country, including his own, and to return to his country." (translated from Chinese) Therefore, Chinese government has violated the declaration by not allowing its citizens to go back to China.