BEIJING, March 7 (AFP) - Up to seven Australian followers of the banned Falungong spiritual group were arrested Thursday after a brief protest on Tiananmen Square, timed to coincide with the annual session of China's parliament.
At least four demonstrators were seen briefly raising a banner on the square Thursday morning before plain clothes and uniformed police wrestled it from them and bundled them into a van.
Later, a Falungong spokeswoman in Australia said seven Australians were arrested in all.
The demonstration took place directly in front of a famous portrait of Mao Zedong which marks the spot where he declared the People's Republic and is regarded as the spiritual heart of the communist regime.
It was also just 200 metres away from where deputies from all over China are meeting for the annual session of the National People's Congress.
"Basically they went to appeal on behalf of Chinese Falungong practitioners who are being persecuted and tortured," Falungong spokeswoman Catherine Vereshaka said.
The organisation named five of the demonstrators as a couple, Michael and Candice Molnar, both 29, David Bryceson, 38, from Melbourne, David Rubacek from Sydney and a 39-year-old named Greg March.
The Australian embassy in Beijing said it was waiting for information.
"We have heard reports about supposedly Australian demonstrators being arrested," a spokesman said.
"We have made enquiries with the authorities but they have so far just confirmed that foreigners were arrested."
China's foreign ministry also said it had no information, but warned overseas Falungong adherents against demonstrating.
"If a foreigner clearly knows Falungong has been identified as an evil cult in China and they still come to China to commit illegal Falungong activities, and create trouble, then of course they've violated China's laws," said spokesman Kong Quan.
Police appeared not to expect a protest under the huge portrait, on Tiananmen Gate at the entrance to the former royal palace, or at the Forbidden City to the north of the square.
After the police pulled down the banner, the demonstrators chanted for a few minutes before the police van was brought and they were taken away.
Groups of seemingly bemused Chinese passers-by watched the protest while police tried to usher them off.
The Buddhist-based Falungong, outlawed as a supposedly harmful cult in mid-1999, has repeatedly demonstrated on Tiananmen Square against its repression by the Chinese government.
Since an incident just over a year ago, when five Chinese people who Beijing said were Falungong followers set themselves on fire on the square, the bulk of the protests have been by foreigners.
Last month an estimated 59 western followers demonstrated.
Human rights groups estimate that hundreds of Falungong followers have been sentenced to jail terms and tens of thousands sent to labour camps under the ban. The movement says as many as 300 followers have died from brutality in police detention.
On Monday the US State Department's annual global human rights report contained scathing criticism of China's crackdown on the group, saying "scores" of Falungong adherents died in police custody during 2001.
The report also cited "reliable" sources saying local officials from a city in the eastern province of Shandong "were responsible for beating to death Falungong adherents at the rate of about one per month."