BEIJING, Sept 23 (Reuters) - Five more members of the banned Falun Gong
spiritual movement have died after beatings in Chinese police custody, the
group's U.S.-based information centre said.
The centre said in a statement late on Saturday it now had details of 283
adherents who had died from torture during detention in China, but quoted
government sources putting the actual number at more than 1,000.
Three of the five men died after police beat and force-fed them when they went
on hunger strike in protest at their detention, the statement said.
Police in the provinces of Sichuan, Jiangxi and Shandong, where Falun Gong said
the men died between April and August this year, declined to comment.
China banned Falun Gong in 1999, branding it an "evil cult," after
the quasi-religious group shocked leaders with a mass protest around the
Zhongnanhai leadership compound in Beijing demanding official recognition of
their faith.
Falun Gong has said more than 50,000 adherents have been sent to prisons,
labour camps and mental hospitals in China since it was banned.
Group spokesman Adam Montanaro said he thought China would arrest more
adherents in the coming weeks.
"Chinese leaders have traditionally prepared for large-scale public
celebrations, such as China's National Day coming up on October 1, by rounding
up practitioners of Falun Gong who might reveal the persecution campaign,"
he said.
Montanaro added he thought President Jiang Zemin would escalate the persecution
of Falun Gong believers while the world's attention was focused on the attacks
on the United States.
Following the death of two of the adherents in Shandong, the authorities
responsible were given new assignments, the Falun Gong information centre said.
The group, which Beijing says is trying to overthrow the ruling Communist Party,
follows a mixture of Taoist and Buddhist beliefs and traditional Chinese
physical exercise.
Chinese authorities have acknowledged several deaths of Falun Gong members in
custody, but say most resulted from suicide or illness.
Beijing also says the group has caused the death of at least 1,800 people by
suicide or refusal of medical treatment.
01:37 09-23-01
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