BEIJING (AP) -- Seven followers of the banned Falun Gong
meditation sect have been arrested and accused of hacking into a northern
Chinese city's cable television system to broadcast material about the group,
police officials said Tuesday.
The seven were detained last week and more arrests are planned, said a police
spokesman in Changchun, where the pirate broadcast was shown. It was not clear
what the exact charges were or the penalty they face if found guilty.
He said police believe dozens more followers were involved in the incident, one
of Falun Gong's most daring acts of defiance against the often brutal 21/2-year
government crackdown against it.
"There are dozens of criminals involved. We have not got all of
them," said the spokesman, who refused to give his name. He gave the names
of the seven arrested -- including Liang Zhenxing, Zhou Runjun and Zhao Jian,
the three identified as the leaders.
The March 5 broadcast cut into prime-time 7 p.m. programming in the cities of
Changchun and Songyuan in Jilin province, according to an account Tuesday in
the China Women's News, a government newspaper.
It said followers led by Liang, Zhou and Zhao began planning the broadcast
early in December. Liang borrowed a storage space and wrote instructions,
spending $1,300 of his own money to buy equipment, it said.
Learning that Falun Gong followers were going to be sentenced in Changchun on
March 6, they chose the evening before to act to "disrupt the normal
sentencing work of the court," the paper said.
Another suspect, Liu Chengjun, set fire to a straw shack where he was hiding
when police arrived to arrest him, officials said. He then injured four
officers by "suddenly attacking" the policeman driving the car taking
him away, causing it to crash and injure four officers.
The pirate broadcast lasted for about 10 minutes, the Changchun cable company
said. Falun Gong representatives abroad said the broadcast showed group leader
Li Hongzhi lecturing on the sect's beliefs and sought to refute government
accusations.
Alarmed at the size and organizing power of Falun Gong's membership, the
Communist government has pursued the group relentlessly since banning it in
mid-1999 as an "evil cult" and has sentenced its members to up to
life in prison for sect-related activities. It says Falun Gong is a public
nuisance that deludes members with dangerous teachings and wants to sabotage
China.
China has detained thousands of sect members and the group's organizers abroad
say more than 350 have died in custody.
The group claims to be apolitical. It says it only wants to spread its program
of meditation, traditional Chinese calisthenics and teachings based on Chinese
philosophy and the ideas of Li, its founder, a former grain clerk.
Group members have challenged the crackdown through an underground campaign of
leafleting and Internet postings, along with occasional public protests that
are harshly repressed by authorities.
Foreign practitioners of Falun Gong have also staged a number of protests
against in Beijing in recent months, always followed by arrests and swift
deportations. Several have complained of brutal treatment by police, but
Foreign Ministry spokeswoman Zhang Qiyue said Tuesday that all had been
"treated humanely."
"We call on the relevant countries to educate their people to abide by
Chinese laws and regulations when they come to China," she said at a
regular news briefing.