China said an ongoing crackdown on the Falungong spiritual group was a matter of national stability after the movement accused Chinese leaders of torture, genocide and crimes against humanity.
"We should be fully aware that the fight will be long, arduous and complicated, and therefore, we must be vigilant against the Falungong cult and should in no way relax our efforts," a commentary carried by the official Xinhua news agency said.
Recently, the cult has intensified its collusion with "Western anti-China forces" to launch attacks against both the government and the people, it said.
"Any tolerance toward the cult will lead to extreme harm to the general public," it said, stressing that "to eradicate the Falungong cult will help create a harmonious and stable environment for the country's socialist construction and benefit both the country and the people."
"More and more people have come to see through the anti-scientific, anti-human and anti-social nature of the cult and have devoted themselves to the struggle," the commentary said.
China banned Falungong as an "evil cult" in July 1999 after some 10,000 followers of the group surrounded the Communist Party leadership compound in central Beijing, protesting a pending government crackdown.
Beijing considers the organization the most serious threat to its rule since democracy protests in 1989 and has sentenced without trial thousands of followers to labor camps.
Countless others have been driven underground, the group, spearheaded overseas by founding guru Li Hongzhi, says.
Late last month, six Falongong followers filed a lawsuit in Belgium against ex-president Jiang Zemin and two senior aides for crimes against humanity, under a new Belgian law.
The 30-page suit accuses Jiang -- who remains China's military head -- of "torture, crimes against humanity and genocide," said lawyer Georges-Henri Beauthier after handing it to federal prosecutors.
The suit also targets Luo Gan, head of the political and legislative affairs committee, and Li Lanqing, former head of a Beijing office described as a kind of "gestapo" to pursue Falungong members.
"Jiang's horrific form of genocide ... is a terror that does not just destroy lives, but destroys faith. It is a terror that should not be allowed to exist in the modern world," said Beauthier.
The action was part of the group's international efforts to bring charges against China's leaders under a "universal competence" law recently amended in Belgium.
Similar class action suits have been filed against Jiang in the US District Court and against Li Lanqing in a French criminal court.
Falungong, whose followers practise meditation to improve their physical and mental wellbeing, says more than 1,600 members have been tortured or beaten to death in China.
More than 500 have been given prison sentences of over 20 years, over 1,000 interned in mental hospitals and more than 25,000 held in work camps.
Some 100,000 others are being held without trial, it said in a news release Monday.
In its annual human rights report earlier this year, the US State Department said Falungong practioners were subjected to "beatings, detention under extremely harsh conditions, and torture (including by electric shock and by having hands and feet shackled and linked with crossed steel chains)."