BEIJING (AP) - The Falun Gong said at least 10 of its followers were beaten to death at a labor camp in northeastern China - the same province where other members of the spiritual group died in a labor camp under disputed circumstances earlier this month.
Chinese officials denied the report Thursday by Falun Gong.
``Nothing of the sort ever happened. It is a complete fabrication,'' said an official for the information office of China's cabinet. The official spoke on condition of anonymity.
Falun Gong said in a statement issued in New York that its members were killed at a labor camp in the northeastern province of Heilongjiang. The statement did not say when the deaths were supposed to have taken place or give names or other information about the victims, who were all men.
Officials at the Changlinzi Labor Camp and labor camp supervisors in the Heilongjiang provincial capital, Harbin, denied the report.
``No Falun Gong followers have died in custody at the camp,'' said Wang Shouyi, a spokesman for the provincial department of labor camps which oversees Changlinzi.
Earlier this month, authorities said three Falun Gong practitioners hanged themselves in a mass suicide in June in another labor camp in Heilongjiang. However, another Chinese official said 14 died in that incident, while independent monitors said 10 hanged themselves.
Falun Gong said its followers would never kill themselves and insisted that 15 inmates were beaten to death in the camp.
During its two-year crackdown on Falun Gong, the government has sent thousands of followers to labor camps, where officials say they are given counseling to persuade them to leave the group.
Falun Gong and rights groups say followers are denied sleep, sexually abused, beaten, shocked with electric batons and exposed to extreme cold by guards under pressure to make them renounce the group.
Chinese officials have said the abuses do not occur. They have said that Falun Gong followers who die take their own lives in a quest for spiritual perfection according to the teachings of sect founder Li Hongzhi.
Falun Gong drew millions of members during the 1990s with its mix of Eastern philosophies and regime of meditation and light exercise.
Worried that the group's size and organizational strength could challenge communist rule, China banned it as an ``evil cult'' and accused it of leading more than 1,600 followers to their deaths through suicide and by encouraging practitioners to shun medical help.
Falun Gong denies urging followers to harm themselves and claims it promotes health and morality. The group says 250 followers have been killed by authorities during the crackdown. Independent monitors put the figure at about 150.
AP-NY-07-12-01 1001EDT
Copyright 2001 The Associated Press.