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China jails Falun Gong leader for 9 years

HONG KONG: China sentenced a leader of the banned Falun Gong spiritual movement to nine years in jail for "using an evil cult to disturb public order in society" and "leaking state secrets", a Hong Kong rights group said on Friday.

The Xigang district court in Dalian city of northeastern China's Liaoning province secretly handed down the verdict on Gao Qiuju recently, the Information Centre of Human Rights and Democratic Movement in China said in a statement.

Gao, 59, is the chief of Falun Gong's Dalian branch and the best known and most important Falun Gong leader in the provinces of Liaoning, Jilin and Heilongjiang in northeastern China, according to the human rights group.

She participated in a 10,000-strong protest by Falun Gong adherents outside China's Zhongnanhai leadership compound on April 25 last year, the Hong Kong group said. That protest, in which Falun Gong followers surrounded Zhongnanhai, eventually led Beijing to ban the movement in July.

Authorities accused Gao of taking part in organising the Zhongnanhai demonstration and leading about 100 Dalian Falun Gong followers in the action.

She was also charged with leaking state secrets by passing to another Falun Gong leader a confidential document about Beijing's crackdown on the movement.

Gao, a trading company manager who became head of Falun Gong's Dalian branch in 1994, was tried secretly on February 1 after her arrest on July 24 last year.

China has sent more than 5,000 Falun Gong practitioners to labour camps without trial since then, and sentenced another 300 to prison for terms of up to 18 years since last November, the information centre said.-Reuters