SEATTLE, Aug 22 (Reuters) - A dozen members of the banned Chinese spiritual movement Falun Gong started a 900-mile (1,440-km) trek from Seattle to San Francisco on Wednesday amid a chilly rain to protest China's campaign against the group.

The protesters planned to march to the Chinese consulate in San Francisco to demand the release of Falun Gong adherents who have been jailed as China seeks to stamp out the movement, which it has branded an "[Jiang Zemin government's slanderous term omitted]"

Falun Gong supporters highlighted Teng Chunyan, a permanent U.S. resident who was sentenced last year to three years in a labor camp and whose case has been raised with Beijing by the administration of President George W. Bush.

Beijing accused Teng of spying, but Falun Gong supporters say she was jailed for passing evidence to a foreign reporter in China that police were torturing the movement's adherents.

"In a sick twist of fate, Dr. Teng is now subject to the same abuses that she sought to document and end," Falun Gong supporter Ten Truong told a small gathering outside the U.S. federal building in downtown Seattle.

"We fear for the lives of Dr. Teng and countless other practitioners in China. They are clearly in grave mortal danger," Truong said.

Moments later, about a dozen adherents set off on the trip to San Francisco. Participants said only a few of the walkers would walk for the entire 50 days the trip was expected to take, but others were expected to join along the way.

[...]

Falun Gong maintains it is not political and says more than 50,000 adherents have been sent to prisons, labor camps and mental hospitals. Human rights groups estimate some 200 followers have died from torture during detention.

HUNGER STRIKES

The Seattle march was the latest in a string of protests.

In Washington, D.C., two more people joined a hunger strike in front of the Chinese embassy, bringing the total camping out on Wednesday in the small downtown park to 10.

The strikers, who are drinking water but refusing all food and sleeping in vans, aimed to call attention to the plight of 130 practitioner that Falun Gong says are on a hunger strike in a labor camp in China's northeastern Liaoning province.

So far any attempts to communicate with the embassy or deliver petitions have failed, said Amy Cheng, a housewife and mother of two who came down from Rhode Island on Sunday.

On Tuesday, Falun Gong followers wrapped up a five-day hunger strike in front of the Chinese consulate in New York calling for Teng's release. About 15 people took part, with each fasting for about 48 hours.

Teng, a New York-based doctor who taught traditional Chinese medicine, is one of several U.S.-linked academics detained in China whose cases have been raised by Washington.

In the past several weeks, three detainees have been freed, and some China watchers have said they expect other cases to be settled before Bush makes a scheduled October trip to China.