Epoch Times France

Nov 21, 2005

A female human rights campaigner appealing in Madrid during the visit of Chinese leader Hu Jintao there last week was brutally attacked by a Chinese man as she unfurled a banner.

Ms Lee Kye Ja, from Switzerland, said that she had come to Spain to appeal to Hu Jintao against the torture and execution of thousands of Falun Gong practitioners in China; her banner reads simply "Falun Dafa is good".

"The moment I wanted to take the out banner, a Chinese-looking man came and attacked me very violently," she said.

"I had the impression I had been knocked out, I couldn't see anything. Then, I felt I was thrown and I fell on my wrists. At that moment I felt an intense pain in my shoulder. When I got up I saw that man standing over me with other Asian men"

Witnesses said that the banner was torn from Ms Lee's hands and she was thrown violently to the ground. Spanish police watched the incident but made no move to intervene.

The Chinese man was said to have made an attempt to pin Ms Lee to the floor, and only broke off the attack after a fellow protester shouted: "We are in a democratic country and I will press charges".

Ms Lee was finally able to recover the banner and unfurled it so that the Chinese leader could see.

"I am shocked because I was in a public place, I was authorised to be there by the Spanish police and I don't understand why I was violently attacked," Ms Lee said.

After returning to Switzerland she was diagnosed with contracted back muscles, a haematoma on the shoulder and a tumefaction of the right wrist.

Friends of Ms Lee that in their experience attacks of this sort are all too common when Communist Party officials travel abroad.

http://english.epochtimes.com/news/5-11-21/34841.html