Fri 15 Feb 2002

Rosemary Katzen: One of the group of deportees.

A SCOTS pensioner was among four Britons deported or awaiting expulsion from China last night after he was arrested in Beijing during a protest in Tiananmen Square.

Robert Gibson, 70, a former teacher and osteopath from Loch Tay, was arrested with four other British members of the Falun Gong movement during a human rights rally in the Chinese capital.

Mr Gibson, whose family lives in Edinburgh, was taken into custody and interrogated in a Beijing prison late on Wednesday, but was released and deported following intervention by the Foreign Office.

It is understood that the Scot was taken into custody along with Rosemary Katzen, a teacher and human rights campaigner formerly based in Edinburgh, and two other, as-yet unidentified Britons. The arrests came to light when Chinese state media and witnesses confirmed that police detained about 40 western members of the movement after protests against a crackdown on their faith.

But last night Peter Jauhal, a Falun Gong spokesman, said the four British members of the group had not been involved in any demonstrations. He said: "We still don't know specifically why they were arrested. As far as we'e aware they weren't directly involved in the demonstrations, but somehow got caught up in events and were detained. The four had been in China as tourists and were manhandled by about 50 police who arrested them in their hotel.

"There is no reason for the police to attack these practitioners who were peacefully travelling through Beijing as tourists. They have not broken any of China's laws."

Yesterday the Foreign Office confirmed the arrests and said two had already been deported, while the other two were expected to be sent home shortly. A spokesman said: "We can confirm four British nationals were taken into custody and later released by the Chinese authorities. We are currently investigating the situation."

China banned Falun Gong, a [spiritual practice] based around meditation and traditional breathing exercises which claims millions of followers around the world, in 1999 [...].

Falun Gong followers in the UK claim more than 1,600 followers have died as a result of abuse in police custody or detention centres while thousands more have been sent to "re-education labour camps". [...]

The protests in Tiananmen Square came on the last day of a three-day national holiday for the lunar New Year. [...]

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