2/6/0 3:14 (New York)

BEIJING, Feb 6 (AFP) - China has jailed for 12 years the organiser of a clandestine Falungong press conference held under the nose of Beijing, the group said Sunday, a day after staging another protest in Tiananmen Square.

Jiang Zhaohui, 35, was secretly sentenced by a Beijing court after being arrested on November 22, less than a month after the press conference, sect member Chen Dan told AFP by telephone from the United States.

Most of the other group members who took part in the press conference have also been arrested, she said.

We heard about the sentence from two practitioners in Beijing who were questioned by the police who accidentally told them, she said.

But she added she had been unable to confirm the information and did not know when he was tried.

Another Falungong member, Gu Linna, who also took an active role in organising the press conference, was arrested at the same time along with 15 other people as they were preparing a meeting in southern Guangzhou, Chen said.

Jiang, a former director of a foreign investment firm in southeastern Fuzhou, and Gu organised the October 28 press conference along with 20 other people in a Beijing suburb, which was attended by about six Western journalists.

They denounced Beijings clampdown on the mystical Falungong which was outlawed in July after holding a silent protest of 10,000 people outside the communist party headquarters in the capital in April.

The press conference was an open challenge to the authorities and provoked anger from police who interrogated several journalists who covered the event, temporarily confiscating their work permits. Chen said most of the other participants had been arrested. We havent heard anything from them, she said, the day after Falungong members held another protest in Tiananmen Square to mark the Chinese Lunar New Year.

Chen said Gu, 37, was being held in northern Shijiazhuang, where she worked as a television presenter until April.

She was fired after managing to broadcast a report favourable to the Buddhist-inspired sect which advocates healthy moral living and combines traditional exercises with meditation.

On Saturday Chinese police detained hundreds and possibly thousands of members of the banned group, using kicks and punches to break up a string of peaceful Lunar New Year protests.

One sect member who had travelled from the United States said 2,000 to 3,000 people could have been detained since Friday evening, but the figure could not be confirmed.

Tiananmen Square in central Beijing was busy well into Saturday evening with police clutching walkie talkies and pouncing on anyone starting to meditatethe groups form of public protest.

By Sunday calm had been restored, although there was a heavy police presence, with police vans driving slowly through the crowds who had travelled to the capital for the new year.

Several helmeted anti-riot police also walked in pairs around the vast esplanade ready to intervene at the slightest hint of trouble.

Hong Kong Falungong spokesman Kan Hung-cheung expressed regret over the arrests saying: We hope the suppressive policy will not continue.

Members who tried to practice or unfurl banners at Tiananmen Square were only trying to express what Falungong was about, he said.

And Falungong spokeswoman Sophie Xiao also in Hong Kong said she did not think defiance was the best way for practioners to express their beliefs.

Thats not what the master taught us, she said, referring to the groups leader Li Hongzhi, who lives in exile in the United States.

But in another sense, it gives us international attention and leads more people to pay attention to the human rights issue. It makes people conscious of what is happening and keeps them lobbying on these issues in China, she added.

Note from Minghui editor: - We appeal to the media to avoid pejorative terms in its coverage including "sect," "cult," "mishmash" as well as the term "mystical." Falun Gong is an advanced, traditional Chinese Qigong practice designed to improve the mind and body through exercise and meditation bringing people toward wisdom and enlightenment.