HONG KONG, April 18 (Reuters) - Followers of the Falun Gong spiritual movement, banned on the mainland but legal in Hong Kong, plan to stage an array of events when Chinese President Jiang Zemin visits the territory next month.
Hui Yee-han, a spokeswoman for the movement in Hong Kong, told Reuters adherents would exercise as a group, hold an outdoor photo exhibition and distribute flyers about Falun Gong from May 8 to May 10, coinciding with the 2001 Fortune Global Forum that Jiang is expected to attend.
"We'll practise our five sets of exercise," Hui said on Wednesday. "We'll distribute some flyers explaining the real stories of Falun Gong and we'll have some photo exhibitions.
"We still want to expose the brutal crackdown and the torture being carried out on Falun Gong practitioners in China."
Another practitioner, Evian Wong, said the group aims also to organise an indoor photo exhibition and a seminar to coincide with Jiang's expected visit.
It had sought to stage the events at a number of government-owned properties, including City Hall where it held a high-profile conference in January, but was told the premises had been booked out, Wong said.
Wong said the group was now trying to book other venues.
Falun Gong adherents condemned Jiang for Beijing's crackdown on the movement at an international conference held in City Hall in January.
The Apple Daily newspaper said on Wednesday Jiang's Hong Kong visit had been cut to just one day from the week originally planned because of the Falun Gong issue.
But a Hong Kong government spokeswoman told Reuters Jiang's itinerary had yet to be confirmed.
The spiritual movement, also known as Falun Dafa, combines meditation and exercise with a doctrine loosely rooted in Buddhist and Taoist teachings.
The group first rattled Beijing in April last year with a 10,000-strong protest around the country's leadership compound, and the movement was subsequently banned on the mainland.
Beijing has accused Falun Gong of trying to overthrow the government, detained thousands of adherents and jailed some 150 prominent members for "using a cult to obstruct justice."
But Falun Gong remains legal in Hong Kong, a former British colony which returned to Chinese rule in 1997 with guarantees of a high level of autonomy.
02:47 04-18-01
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