(AFP 04/09/01 0:31)

GENEVA, April 9 (AFP) - Female followers of China's banned Falungong spiritual movement face torture and ill-treatment by police and officials in work camps, members of the spiritual movement alleged here on Monday.

The violations often go unpunished and are sometimes even rewarded, May Bakhtiar of the International Falungong Human Rights Association, and Shiyu Zhou, a Falungong representative from the US, told reporters.

They said women were beaten, given electric shocks with electric batons, burned with cigarette butts or irons and forced to stand naked in freezing temperatures.

At the Masanjia labour camp in the Liaoling province, women have been stripped naked and thrown into prison cells with violent male criminals who were encouraged to rape and abuse them, Bakhtiar claimed.

"The officers from this camp have been commended by officials for these acts and were sent to other camps to train the staff there in their vicious tactics," she charged.

Officials and policemen are rewarded financially and promoted for treating Falungong practioners harshly, the two representatives said.

The government has not reprimanded anyone for any of the incidents, Bakhtiar said, adding the highest authorities had ordered that police who beat practitioners to death not be held accountable.

The UN's expert on violence against women Radhika Coomaraswamy has been informed about numerous alleged cases involving female Falungong followers and has expressed her concern in a letter sent to the Chinese government in January.

In her report to the UN Human Rights Commission, she said she had not yet received a response to the letter, but outlined about 40 cases.

China has avoided a condemnation over its human rights record at the UN Commission for years by introducing a procedural motion.

But the United States is set to sponsor another resolution in the coming weeks in a bid to try to condemn China's human rights record.