CANBERRA, July 20 (Reuters) - About 40 followers of the Falun Gong spiritual movement hobbled into the Australian capital on Friday after a 10-day walk from Sydney to draw attention to repression of the group in China.
"I walked slowly and it was extremely painful but I knew every footstep of mine could help to save a Falun Gong practitioner's life in China, including my daughter's," Li Fu Ying, 73, told reporters outside Australia's parliament.
Li said she had collapsed on the seventh day of the 250 km (155 mile) walk from Sydney. After a day's rest she resumed the walk for her daughter, who she said is jailed in China.
Li, who was unable to stand unassisted, and other members of the group which included children on Sunday will mark the second anniversary of Beijing's ban on Falun Gong.
Falun Gong belief is based on elements of Buddhism, Taoism and traditional Chinese meditation and exercises.
China accuses it of being an evil cult which wants to topple China's communist government. Beijing says the movement cheats its members and is responsible for the deaths of 1,800 people by suicide or refusing medical treatment.
Followers outside China say more than 200 practitioners of the belief, also known as Falun Dafa, have died in police custody in China.
Pan Yu, a Falun Gong follower from New Zealand, said he was arrested in a hotel in Beijing in December 1999 and held in a labour camp for five months without being charged.
"I was held with prisoners with psychiatric problems and nearly suffered a mental breakdown from the torture," he told Reuters through an interpreter.
Tony Dai, a spokesman for Australian Falun Gong followers, said the group had written to Prime Minister John Howard to ask
the government to put pressure on the Chinese government to end human rights abuses against the movement's followers.
The Australian government had consistently refused to make any judgment on the practices of Falun Gong but says it has raised its concerns with Beijing over human rights abuses.