AAP: Falun Gong widow says thanks for returning husband's ashes

11-Mar-2002

By Max Blenkin

CANBERRA, March 11 (AAP) - The widow of a Falun Gong practitioner killed after his arrest in China expressed her thanks to the Australian government today for returning his ashes.

Fighting back tears and clutching her 18-month-old daughter Fadu, Jane Dai said her husband Dayong died because of his adherence to the Falun Gong principles of truth, compassion and forbearance.

Some 50 Australian supporters of the movement, each clutching a yellow flower, gathered outside the Chinese embassy in Canberra today to provide support.

Mr Dai, a Chinese citizen, was arrested last July and apparently beaten to death while in custody. His body was dumped in a field. After considerable effort, Australian officials tracked him down and arranged transport of his remains to Australia. They handed his ashes to Mrs Dai this morning.

Mrs Dai, an Australian citizen, expressed her appreciation for the efforts of Australian embassy officials who pressed Chinese
officials to hand over his remains.

"As his wife I am proud of him," she said.

"My husband died simply because he went to Beijing to hand a letter to the Chinese government saying that Falun Dafa is good." Falun Dafa is an alternative name used by the practitioners of Falun Gong - a practice of meditation and exercises which originated in China and has followers in some 50 countries. The Chinese government has banned it since 1999, persecuting its adherents.

The Falun Gong information service says it has verified some 375 deaths of practitioners plus 20,000 sentenced to periods of forced labour. Former Olympic swimmer Jan Becker, arrested in Tiananmen Square last week for unfurling a Falun Gong banner then deported, said governments throughout the world must unite to press China to end the persecution.

"The Chinese Falun Dafa practitioners desperately need the Australian government's assistance in bringing this brutality to an end," she said.

"These people need our support. We together must help make a change."

AAP mb/daw/ldj/de