20000206

Chinese police crackdown on Falungong Lunar New Year protest

BEIJING: Chinese police swooped on a Falun Gong demonstration in Tiananmen Square on Friday night, detaining more than 100 people and shuttling them to detention centres amid revelry to welcome the Year of the Dragon.

Followers of the banned spiritual group attempted to unfurl Buddhist banners near the main flagpole on the square when uniformed officers closed in, punching and kicking some.

One man was beaten unconscious and dragged onto a bus.

Squads of plainclothes police sprinted from the shadows at the edges of the square to help shove suspected followers onto buses.

Journalists and befuddled bystanders celebrating the eve of the Lunar New Year were also packed onto vans and shuttled off to detention as a stream of empty buses raced to the scene.

Some demonstrators began chatting "Falun Dafa", another term for Falun Gong, as they were carted away.

One witness said he spoke to a demonstrator who identified herself as an overseas Chinese from the United States. She said many demonstrators came from abroad.

Tiananmen Square has been the focus of repeated agitation by Falun Gong adherents since the country's Communist rulers banned the sect last July and later labelled it an "evil cult".

Beijing banned the movement after members held a series of bold protests to demand official recognition of their faith, which combines elements of Buddhism, Taoism and meditation.

In the largest of the peaceful protests, a gathering of 10,000 people surrounded the central leadership compound in Beijing last April.

The Information Centre of Human Rights and Democratic Movement in China, a Hong Kong-based human rights watchdog, has said China has sent more than 5,000 Falun Gong members to labour camps without trial and sentenced another 300 to jail since September.

China said the sect brainwashes and bilks its followers, and has caused 1,400 deaths by instructing followers not to treat their illnesses with medicine.

The centre estimated last week that at least 100 Falun Gong adherents had been detained since January 1 for protests at Tiananmen Square against the crackdown.

On January 24, Chinese police thwarted an attempt by sect members to hang a giant portrait of their U.S.-based guru, Li Hongzhi, over the painting of Mao Zedong which overlooks the square, the centre reported.-Reuters