(Clearwisdom.net) We are 7 UK Falun Gong practitioners. We came to Paris to join the January 24th Chinese New Year Celebration Parade on the Champs Elysees. Because of pressure from the Chinese government, we were refused permission to participate in the parade. Therefore we held two separate Spring Festival traditional culture parades in the centre of Paris on 23rd and 25th January. On the 23rd January we were performing in the Paris streets. However, the very next day we were arrested and detained in the police station without any explanation.

Around noon of January 24th, all seven of us were arrested by French police when we were sightseeing around the Arc De Triomphe, simply because we wore yellow Falun Dafa scarves or carried Falun Gong leaflets. The French police were quite rough during the arrest, even towards the peaceful women. It is clear that the police were specifically targeting Falun Gong practitioners, because whether someone was distributing Falun Gong leaflets or not, as long as they wore yellow Falun Dafa scarves they were arrested. Although we do not speak French, we heard the police loudly saying "Falun Dafa" as they spoke into their walkie-talkies. We were detained from 12:00 to 17:00. During the five hours detention, we were handcuffed, with no drink and no food.

We are Falun Gong practitioners who cultivate Truthfulness, Compassion and Tolerance. Falun Gong is an ancient and traditional cultivation practice from China. In the four years since the persecution by the Chinese regime began, we have demonstrated that even when faced with such unprecedented brutal persecution in Mainland China, all of our activities are peaceful. Falun Gong practitioners have never retaliated. Apart from the dictatorship in China, Falun Gong has been welcomed around the world and received many awards. All of us who were arrested were participants in the Falun Gong parade: some were traditional Chinese drummers, some were lion-dancers and others were fan-dancers. We have attended and won consecutive first prizes in the Community Category of the Edinburgh Festival Cavalcade in 2002 and 2003. We brought the same award-wining performance to the renowned cultural capital of Paris. We came here with deep respect and sincere festive greetings for the French people and the people of Paris. We should have been in the Chinese New Year Celebration Parade in the Champs Elysees. Instead we were detained in French police stations. We are friends of France and guests of the people of Paris. We brought with us the best Chinese culture, and the beauty and magnificence of Falun Dafa. We thought that these actions against Falun Gong practitioners could only happen in Mainland China where there are no human rights. It is extremely regrettable and sad that the same thing could happen in France, a country where human rights and democracy originated and under the Arc De Triomphe, a symbol of pride for France.

We recognise that these acts of repression were not the wish of the French people and government, and that they were the result of pressure from the Chinese government and its spreading of fabricated lies about Falun Gong. As a democratic country, France should have stood up for liberty and human rights under the evil pressure. Faced with political and economic interest, the French government, through these acts of repression, has not only sent a wrong message to China, but also violated basic principles of civil and human rights.

In fact, the Chinese dictator has used these evil means many times before and they were exposed by the world's media and human rights organisations. When Jiang Zemin, who initiated the persecution of Falun Gong, visited Germany in April 2002, he used economic interests to force the German government and police to take action against Falun Gong practitioners by moving them out of their hotels and banning them from wearing Falun Gong clothes.

In June 2002, the Icelandic government used a blacklist provided by the Chinese regime to stop Falun Gong practitioners entering Iceland during Jiang Zemin's visit. The acts of the government of Iceland under pressure from the Chinese dictator attracted worldwide attention. It's sad and regrettable to see that democratic countries acted against their own principle under the pressure. Unfortunately, the same acts of repression occurred in France, a democratic country renowned for liberty, freedom and human rights.

We call on the government of France and the police departments involved to immediately initiate an investigation of this incident, and to ensure that essential human rights to freedom of association and freedom of belief are fully respected so that the same mistake is not repeated again in the future.