06/28/2000

Agence France-Presse

BEIJING, June 28 (AFP) - Chinese police detained 15 members of the Falungong spiritual movement in 40 minutes at Tiananmen Square Wednesday, according to an eyewitness.

The practitioners, mostly elderly women who appeared to be from the countryside, were ordered into police vans between 10:30 a.m. and 11:15 a.m. (0230 and 0315 GMT), said the witness, an amateur photographer who happened to be on the square.

Two younger practitioners tried to resist police and were pushed into the vans, the witness said.

The protestors had tried to unfurl the Falungong 's trademark yellow banners to express their support for the movement which many members claimed have helped to turn around their lives.

A Falungong practitioner in Beijing said the number of arrests in such a short period of time was not unusual.

"It's not a special day. Every day there are people out there getting arrested," he said.

A Hong Kong-based human rights group said 100 practitioners, the majority at Tiananmen Square and the National People's Congress' complaints bureau, are arrested in Beijing every day.

"There's no special reason. They just go on their own," said Frank Lu, director of the center.

The center Monday said police detained at least 1,200 members of the banned movement after a series of protests in nine provinces in China last week.

It said more than 100 people were detained in Beijing's Tiananmen Square on Sunday alone.

Falungong is a traditional Chinese mystic belief based on the teachings of exiled master Li Hongzhi, who advocates Confucian and Buddhist moral values and group breathing and meditation exercises.

The Chinese government banned the movement in July last year after labelling it an "evil cult".

Tens of thousands of practitioners have since been detained and core leaders given jail terms of up to 18 years for protesting and refusing to give up their beliefs.

(Copyright 2000)