Saturday, December 28, 2002

BEIJING, China (AP) -- Eight Falun Gong [practitioners] have been sentenced to up to 13 years in prison for [tapping into] local television and radio signals in eastern China's Anhui province to promote the banned spiritual movement, the official Xinhua News Agency reports.

The Hefei Intermediate Court recently upheld a lower court's decision to give the [practitioners] sentences of between five to 13 years, Xinhua said Saturday.

[...]

A man who answered the telephone Saturday at the court in Hefei, Anhui's capital city, said no one was on duty and declined comment.

Falun Gong attracted millions of followers during the 1990s [...].

[Practitioners] say the practice promotes health and morality and that experienced practitioners can gain supernatural powers.

China's leaders banned Falun Gong in July 1999, fearing the group's size and organizational ability could challenge Communist Party rule.

Since then, thousands of followers have been detained. Most are freed after a few months, though a government official told The Associated Press earlier this year that nearly 1,300 had been sentenced to prison.

Falun Gong activists abroad say hundreds of supporters have been killed in detention. Chinese officials deny killing detainees but say some have died in hunger strikes [...].

In recent months, Falun Gong members have [tapped] into local TV feeds and broadcasts.

On Sept. 9, Xinhua reported that signals of a service designed to enable remote villages across the country to see broadcasts from China Central Television, or CCTV, the leading government-run network, were jammed.

Also in September, 15 people were convicted of breaking into a cable television system to show videos protesting China's ban on Falun Gong and were sentenced to up to 20 years in prison.

The March 5 broadcasts in the northeastern city of Changchun and nearby Songyuan marked the start of the [tapping] campaign.

http://asia.cnn.com/2002/WORLD/asiapcf/east/12/27/china.falungong.ap/index.html