Two Boston-area practitioners of Falun Gong, a spiritual group banned in China, say they were detained for 30 hours and physically abused by police after trying to participate in a protest for religious freedom in Beijing's Tiananmen Square last week.
Westerners have been detained in similar religious protests before, but the detainment typically lasts a few hours and rarely involves allegations of abuse, said Merle Goldman, a Boston University professor of Chinese history and also a faculty researcher at Harvard's Fairbank Center for East Asian Research. President Bush is scheduled to visit China this week and is expected to discuss China's entry into the World Trade Organization and human rights issues with Chinese President Jiang Zemin.
''I think he's certainly going to speak out against the repression of religious groups,'' Goldman said. ''This will be an issue, and it will be a contentious issue.''
The two who said they were detained and assaulted, Riordan Galluccio, 34, of West Roxbury, and Maria Salzman, 29, of Quincy, practice Falun Gong, one of several Chinese meditative exercises called qigong that incorporate elements of Buddhism and Daoism. Adherents say the system improves health and character. China's government banned Falun Gong as an ''evil cult'' three years ago after 10,000 followers protested outside a leadership compound in Beijing. According to the Falun Dafa Information Center in New York, 366 practioners have since died in police custody, but Goldman said the numbers aren't verifiable.
Galluccio, who discovered Falun Gong three years ago at a workshop, said about 40 practitioners coordinated the latest secret protest by e-mail to highlight the deaths and counter Chinese ''propaganda.''
The secret, however, got out. When Galluccio emerged from a Tiananmen Square subway stop on Thursday afternoon, police were ready, he said. ''They were stopping every single foreigner they found and searched their bags with metal detectors,'' he said.
Galluccio was carrying Falun Gong pamphlets in his pocket, but he and three other practitioners passed through a police checkpoint. When officers detained the last man in the group, Galluccio bounded into the square, shouted Falun Gong slogans, and then lay limp, he said, as police punched, kicked, choked, and dragged him back into the subway tunnel. Salzman had been taken into custody three hours earlier when police found her concealed Falun Gong banner, she said.
Galluccio and Salzman said they were forced into police vans and driven to a nearby police station. During the ride, Salzman said Chinese police officers twisted her arms and pulled her hair to pry loose a cell phone and palm pilot. Both said they weren't allowed to contact Western embassies.
The treatment worsened when police took the protestors to Beijing Airport Garden Hotel, they said. Galluccio said he saw police strike practitioners' chins by grabbing their legs and dragging them from the vans feet-first. All the detainees were separated and interrogated for two to three more hours, Salzman said.
Afterward, Salzman was taken to a common room with about 20 other practitioners. One woman was bleeding from the face and some of the men had ripped clothes, Salzman said. Chinese authorities attempted to pull practitioners away for another round of questioning, but Salzman said the group sat down and linked arms and legs.
''They wanted to talk to the people who were really beaten,'' she said. ''We decided not to get split up again.''
After a fitful night of sleep, Salzman and Galluccio were forced onto an Air Canada flight to Vancouver, paid for by the Chinese government, they said. Even after landing, they said Chinese officials on the flight followed them in the airport until Canadian authorities intervened.
Chinese Embassy officials in Washington, D.C., and New York did not return repeated calls yesterday. Goldman suggested the Communist regime is worried that upstart religions like Falun Gong could fill the ''emptiness'' created by the collapse of Marxism-Leninism in China. The group is also adept at using the Internet to organize outside of state control. ''The government sees this as a political challenge,'' she said.
Galluccio said he planned to file a complaint with the State Department today. While US authorities were aware of the detentions, they have not yet received any reports of abuse, said a State Department spokeswoman.
While Galluccio and Salzman's claims could not be verified by the Canadian Office of Foreign Affairs, the Customs and Revenues Agency, the Department of Citizenship and Immigration, or the Royal Canadian Mounted Police, they did receive medical treatment at Vancouver Airport Medical Clinic from Dr. Nigel Adams.
Adams declined to comment, but he did note bruises on Salzman's body in a medical report. The doctor also reported that Galluccio complained of neck and muscle pain and had a 5-inch abrasion along his belt line. In both reports, the doctor noted the injuries were ''consistent'' with both practitioners' stories.