BEIJING (AP) - China deported 10 Australians on Friday who were detained in a protest against its crackdown on the Falun Gong spiritual movement, the government and the Australian Embassy said.
The Australians, detained Thursday near the building where China's legislature is holding its annual session, "picked quarrels, stirred trouble and preached the evil cult of 'Falun Gong'," China's Foreign Ministry said in a statement.
Officials "admonished, warned and educated" the Australians before expelling them Friday morning, the ministry said. It said their protest violated Chinese laws but that they were treated humanely in detention.
An Australian Embassy spokesman said the 10 were put on a flight to Singapore. He spoke on condition of anonymity.
In Singapore, two Australians who were expelled said they were beaten. Eight others said they were unharmed.
Olympian Jan Becker, who swam for Australia during the 1964 Tokyo Games and was one of the expelled, questioned the wisdom of allowing Beijing to host the 2008 Olympics because of the crackdown on Falun Gong.
"The Olympic committee didn't put enough pressure on Beijing to improve human rights issues beforehand," she said. "Would they guarantee my safety and others if they go and practice Falun Gong?"
The protest Thursday lasted only a few seconds.
Demonstrators held up a banner and shouted "Falun Dafa is good!" in Chinese, using another of Falun Gong's names, before police grabbed them.
It was the fifth protest since November on or near Tiananmen Square in central Beijing by foreign members of Falun Gong, which China banned in 1999 as an "evil cult."
The protest occurred despite heightened security in Beijing to prevent demonstrations during the 11-day meeting of the National People's Congress, which is being held in the Great Hall of the People next to Tiananmen Square.
A statement released by Falun Gong in New York said the detained protesters wanted to appeal for "Falun Gong practitioners persecuted in China."
In the Australian city of Melbourne, about 20 Falun Gong followers protested outside China's consulate there against the detentions in Beijing.
Falun Gong spokeswoman Kati Vereshaka said security guards surrounded a group of five practitioners who walked onto the consulate grounds holding a banner on which was written "China stop killing." The protesters left peacefully about an hour later.
Tiananmen Square was once the site of almost daily demonstrations by Chinese Falun Gong protesters. But a relentless, often brutal crackdown has scared away or driven underground Chinese followers who once numbered in the millions.
Thousands of members have been detained, and Falun Gong supporters abroad contend that more than 350 have been killed. Chinese authorities deny abusing anyone, though they say some members have died in hunger strikes, from refusing medical help or in suicides.