(Clearwisdom.net) Although many guards were present in Tiananmen Square during the Sixteenth Party's Congress, on the opening day of the meeting, many protests still took place in front of the People's Great Hall. Falun Gong practitioners distributed flyers to protest Jiang's illegal persecution. According to an Apple Daily1 November 9th report, at least seven protesters were taken away from Tiananmen Square.
Police Hurry to Snatch Flyers
According to a Ming Bao2 November 9th report, on the morning of November 8th, several unidentified persons tried to enter the People's Great Hall between 6:00 a.m. and 7:30 a.m., the time of the flag-raising ceremony when Tiananmen Square was opened to the public. When they scattered flyers, large groups of armed police rushed forward to pick them up. Turmoil ensued. Some news reporters waiting outside the People's Great Hall picked up flyers, only to have them immediately snatched away by police. The police quickly took the protesters away.
Around 7:00 a.m., several Falun Gong practitioners appealed from the street across from the eastern gate of Tiananmen Square. One of them even shouted, "Falun Dafa is good." The police quickly took them away.
It was learned that twenty minutes prior to the Falun Gong practitioners' appeal, two elderly women and an elderly man also shouted protest statements from the same street as the practitioners and were also taken away by police.
According to a Joint News3 report, around 7:00 a.m. on November 8th, the streets around the People's Great Hall were not yet blocked and many people gathered to watch the flag raising ceremony. Three elderly women approached Tiananmen Square close to the east gate of the Great Hall and suddenly pulled out banners. Security officers and plainclothes police nearby jumped on them and took them away.
Woman Kneels to Appeal
At almost the same time, in the square across from the north gate of Tiananmen Square, an unidentified woman suddenly knelt on the ground to appeal; plainclothes officers quickly put her into a police van.
The police also had conflicts with news reporters as they stopped the reporters from taking pictures and drove them away.
After these incidents took place, the government immediately issued heightened security measures by clearing the area around Tiananmen Square and the Great Hall, and by posting police every six meters [about 19.7 ft] in the region.
However, around 2:50 p.m., when a bus drove down the road in front of the Hall, a middle-aged woman suddenly opened a window and tossed out several hundred Falun Gong flyers.
Witnesses in Beijing said that people who distributed flyers mainly wanted to appeal for justice and for the government's attention.
Moreover, people told a Ming Bao news reporter that, ever since November 1st, every day, several Falun Gong practitioners had gone to Tiananmen Square to appeal. Although Beijing police strengthened their presence and checked the identity of all suspected persons who entered the Square, some Falun Gong practitioners still managed to approach the Square. The person who distributed large amounts of flyers in the Square on the 8th was the first who was able to do so.
An article in Dongfang Daily4 claims that Beijing is in a state of high alert. All main roads within five miles of Tiananmen Square were closed down during the congressional meetings and police officers could be seen stationed every few feet on Chang'an Street. The closer to the Great Hall, the more security personnel and military police were present. Most of them patrol back and forth within a certain region, and they often stop passersby to check their identity and look for suspicious items. It was said that on buses and subway trains that pass through Tiananmen Square, police officers in groups of two were checking passengers.
1
Hong Kong-based Chinese-language newspaper2 Hong Kong-based Chinese-language newspaper
3 Japanese newspaper
4 Hong Kong-based Chinese-language newspaper
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