(Clearwisdom.net) According to a report from the Epoch Times news website, two female Falun Gong practitioners were distributing greeting cards outside Tiananmen Square on New Year's Day. The card said "Falun Dafa is good." One of the Beijing residents received the card with delight: "Look! She gave me one. Falun Gong is great! They haven't forgotten us, even greeting us on New Year's Day!" While the cards were being distributed, nobody reported these practitioners to the police. One of the eyewitnesses said, "If this had happened in the past, whoever received the cards would be scared to death. Nowadays, no one will report such incidents. People will even proudly show the cards to others."
On that same day, the police arrested these two practitioners as they walked into Tiananmen Square.
On January 2, at around 9:00 a.m., six more practitioners were arrested as they distributed similar red New Year greeting cards in Tiananmen Square.
The eyewitness who had come to Beijing to appeal for his case stated: "The police were not able to snatch all of the leaflets. A number of residents secretly picked them up and read the message, 'Falun Dafa is good.' If the practitioners can write down their cases of persecution, show people how Jiang's wicked regime has lost all its senses, and expose how the 610 Office tortures people to death, the result would surely be different. Look, if I had not come to appeal for my case, and be arrested and detained with practitioners, I still would not know how Falun Gong practitioners are being persecuted. The police treated those of us who had come to appeal so cruelly. I cannot imagine how they would abuse practitioners. If the common citizens knew the truth, they would be just as furious."
She sighed: "The police are behaving worse each year. Last year, if you asked for water while in the detention center, they brought you some. This year, they gave you nothing, even though you just needed a little water for taking medicine. They arrested four people yesterday, and even an elderly lady was handcuffed. Who knows how the police are torturing those practitioners now."
January 3, 2005