STOCKHOLM, Feb 23 (AFP) - The European Union told China Friday its crackdown on the Falungong movement and mistreatment of its followers were an "unacceptable" violation of human rights.
The mass arrests and mistreatments of Falungong followers were "definitely a matter of human rights violations," Thomas Hammarberg, the official led an EU delegation in two days of talks with Chinese officials, said at a news conference.
The EU expressed to China its concern over the fact that "practitioners were mass-arrested and mistreated and over reports of the number of people who died as a result" of the Chinese crackdown, Hammarberg said, but said the two sides had "disagreed in both fact and principles."
"Regardless of which organisation is concerned, this is unacceptable," he added.
The Chinese government views the Falungong, which claims 70 million adherents in China alone, as the biggest threat to Communist Party rule since the 1989 Tiananmen democracy protests.
It banned the movement as an "evil cult" in July 1999, three months after it gathered 10,000 followers for a silent protest at the Communist Party headquarters in Beijing.
EU-China meetings are held every six months within the framework of the EU-China dialogue on human rights. Sweden hosted the meeting in its role as the current holder of the rotating EU presidency.