Monday, 18-Feb-2002

BEIJING, Feb 18 (AFP) - Ten students from Beijing's prestigious Qinghua University, where visiting US President George W. Bush is to make a speech this week, have been convicted for opposing a crackdown on the Falun Gong group, a rights group said Monday.

Six students, two men and four women, were convicted of [Jiang government's slanderous term omitted] by a court in the southern town of Zhuhai, the Hong Kong-based Information Centre for Human Rights and Democracy said.

The students, who posted information about the crackdown on the group on Internet sites, were arrested in Zhuhai, near the former Portuguese enclave of Macau, in November 2000, the centre said in a statement.

They were tried in September and should have been sentenced before last week Lunar New Year holiday, it said.

However, the sentences were delayed until March because of Bush's arrival Thursday for a two-day visit. It was "probable they would be sentenced to ten years or more in prison", the centre said.

In September, four other students were handed terms of between three and 12 years in prison by an intermediate court in Beijing on the same charge, the statement added.

No court officials were available for comment Monday, the last day of the week-long Lunar New Year break.

Around 300 Qinghua University students have been temporarily detained or sent to labour camps in connection with Falun Gong activities since the crackdown on the group began in July 1999, the centre said.

It urged Bush to appeal to the Chinese government to free the 10 students.

Qinghua, which counts Premier Zhu Rongji, Vice President and likely leader-in-waiting Hu Jintao and many other senior officials among its alumni, is known for the severity of crackdown against students who follow Falun Gong, the centre added.

Bush's speech at the university on Friday will be broadcast live on Chinese television, a rare event in a country where information is usually so rigidly controlled.

Human rights groups estimate that hundreds of Falun Gong followers have been sentenced to jail terms and tens of thousands sent to labour camps under the ban. The movement says as many as 300 followers have died from brutality in police detention.

http://www.ptd.net/webnews/wed/at/Qchina-sect-students.RewY_CFI.html