WASHINGTON, April 17 (AFP) - Exiled members of China's Falungong spiritual movement on Tuesday accused President Jiang Zemin of presiding over "brutal and systematic" repression and violence against women during a "brutal" crackdown on the banned group.
Marking an international day of protest, the group issued a report packed with allegations that Chinese domestic security forces were guilty of torturing, murdering and sexually abusing arrested female Falungong practitioners.
It accused Chinese police of using 40 types of torture against female practitioners, including electric shock treatment to sensitive body parts, beatings, sleep deprivation and sexual abuse.
Falungong spokesman Keith Ware said China had routinely subjected female members of the group, which it has branded as an evil cult, to "unimaginable abuse."
"The Falungong practitioners in China have chosen to stand up against Jiang's forces of evil. Their cause is just and their means are peaceful," Ware said at a press conference.
"We call once again for an immediate end to the atrocities against Falungong practitioners."
The press conference featured testimony from alleged victims of police brutality.
One practitioner, Amy Lee, said she had been arrested in Beijing's Tiananmen Square in May 2000 and was beaten and interrogated before being sent to a "transformation class" intended to force her to renounce her beliefs.
Her husband divorced her and was awarded custody of her child under police pressure, she said.
"Numerous practitioners like me have been deprived of the basic human right to the freedom of belief, the right to work, the right to raise a child and the right to live a normal life," she said.
No one was available at China's Washington embassy to respond to the allegations.
Practitioners called on delegates at the United Nations Human Rights commission, which meets on Wednesday in Geneva, to support a resolution critical of China.
The United States is backing the effort, but Beijing has mounted a massive lobbying operation to prevent the resolution from being brought to a vote.
The Falungong says 189 people have been killed by torture and police brutality in the nearly two-year crackdown on Falungong practitioners.
Beijing banned the quasi-Buddhist sect, which advocates pure living and meditative exercises, in 1999.
Falungong supporters in the United States, Europe and Hong Kong were taking part in candlelit vigils and protests on Tuesday.
Analysts say the group -- founded by leader Li Hongzhi, who lives in exile in New York -- has emerged as one of the few organizations in China with the means to mobilise against Beijing's Communist rulers.
But the group says it has no political agenda.