From correspondents in Beijing
January 27, 2003
AUSTRALIA’S embassy in China was trying to contact one of its nationals who has apparently been kidnapped by Chinese agents because of her membership of the Falun Gong spiritual group.
Nancy Chen, 34, was abducted last week while visiting her parents in Chengdu city in the south-western part of China, Falun Gong said in a statement.
Her husband Herbert Lu later received confirmation that she had been taken away by members of China’s National Security Bureau, the statement said.
The group, banned in China as an “…”, said she was being held simply because she was a Falun Gong practitioner.
Chen’s parents have been contacted by officials from the National Security Bureau who threatened them if the husband made the incident public in Australia or on the internet, it said.
The Australian embassy here said today it had received no further information about what happened to Chen.
“We’re trying to obtain information about her whereabouts and to contact her,” an embassy spokesman told AFP.
China considers the Falun Gong, which has millions of followers in the mainland, the biggest threat to social stability since the 1989 Tiananmen democracy protests.
Since banning the group in 1999, it has jailed tens of thousands of its followers in prison, labor camps or police stations.
Agence France-Presse
http://www.news.com.au/common/story_page/0,4057,5898585%255E1702,00.html
Posting date: 28/Jan/2003
Original article date: 27/Jan/2003
Category: Media Reports
