Campbelltown resident Kay Rubacek knows something of what it can be like to be persecuted for one’s beliefs.
As a practitioner of Falun Gong (also known as Dafa), the Chinese practice of gentle exercise and meditation, Ms Rubacek was arrested by Chinese authorities and expelled from the country.
Ms Rubacek said that her arrest was a result of a peaceful protest in Tiananmen Square.
“I was part of a group in 2001 that stages a protest to the Chinese Government,” Ms Rubacek said.
“There were around 35 of us, from 16 different countries, and we held up a banner of protest.”
What made the actions of Ms Rubacek’s group so dangerous was the Chinese government’s systematic persecution of Falun Gong since 1999.
Statistics coming out of the country are difficult to substantiate but a website from the US containing information on the practice gives chilling numbers.
The site said that over 100,000 people have been illegally arrested and interred in labour camps, over 1000 have been forced into state-run mental hospitals, and more than 500 have been given prison sentences of more than 18 years.
Even more disturbing is the claim that at least 750 deaths have resulted from police torture, with government sources inside China putting the number at more than 1600.
Ms Rubacek said that she was more to act in spite of the danger.
“I thought if I know what’s going on and I don’t do anything, who will,” she said.
“Within 20 seconds of raising the banner we were surrounded by police vans and within five minutes the whole thing was over.
“Some people refused to go into custody, some people went along quietly.
“I was holding the banner so I tried to resist as long as possible because there are hundreds of people in the square and I wanted to make sure they all had plenty of time to see what was going on.”
Ms Rubacek and her group were taken to a Beijing police station where they all were “beaten up a bit, some quite severely”.
“We weren’t allowed any contact with the embassies,” she said.
“I couldn’t even go to the bathroom without five police women standing over me.”
Each member of the group was interrogated by police and forced to sign documents written in Chinese without the aid of a translation, then they were shipped back home without embassy contact.
Ms Rubacek said despite the risk she felt proud of what she achieved.
“I got to speak to quite a few of the police who spoke English,” she said.
“They had all been told that nobody else in the world practises Falun Gong like China and that every other country persecutes it the same way.
“If the only thing I did was allow the police to see that there is another side to the story than what they’d been told, then it was worth it.”
July 20 marked the fourth anniversary of the crackdown in China.
Posting date: 4/Aug/2003
Original article date: 23/July/2003
Category: Media Reports
