Monday, 08-Apr-2002

BERLIN, April 8 (AFP) - Supporters of the Chinese Falun Gong movement demonstrated in Berlin on Monday against alleged persecution of the group in China, ahead of the arrival here of Chinese President Jiang Zemin.

"We call on Jiang Zemin to immediately end persecution against the Falun Gong", Peter Recknagel, a leader of the group in Germany, said.

Police said 150 people were participating in a march that was to take them to the hotel where Jiang is to stay in central Berlin as well as to the Reichstag building that houses the German parliament and to the Chinese embassy.

Organizers of the protest said that 350 people were marching.

Jiang was due to arrive in Germany Monday for a six-day state visit.

A senior German official said that while talks on political and economic relations would top the agenda, Chancellor Gerhard Schroeder would also address human rights problems in China.

Falun Gong was banned by the Chinese government in 1999 and branded an[Jiang regime's slanderous term omitted], and has since faced the ire of law enforcement authorities there, with tens of thousands of followers rounded up and imprisoned in China.

The group bases its teachings [of Truthfulness, Compassion, and Forbearance], while practicing group exercises and traditional Chinese meditation.

In a statement published here Monday, Amnesty International condemned European governments for failing to criticize China over human rights violations.

Amnesty called on German President Johannes Rau, who is Jiang's host, to criticize "openly and publicly" human rights violations in China.

Deputies from the Greens, junior partners in Schroeder's center-left coalition government, and deputies from the opposition Christian Union parties have urged the chancellor not to shy away from frank criticism of Chinese treatment of minority groups.

http://www.ptd.net/webnews/wed/ah/Qgermany-china-demo.Rn9a_CA8.html