Wed Aug 21, 2002

HONG KONG - A group of Falun Gong followers facing arrest for refusing to pay their fines after being convicted of public obstruction, said Wednesday that an anonymous donor had stepped in and paid.

The Falun Gong practitioners had declined to pay as a matter of principle, saying it would mean "we admit we did things wrong" in a demonstration outside the Chinese government liaison office here, spokeswoman Sophie Xiao said.

The magistrate who convicted the 16 members of obstruction began preparing arrest warrants Wednesday.

But Xiao said someone, apparently a sympathizer of the meditation group [...] , had paid the court. Xiao said she and others in Falun Gong she had spoken to did not know who came up with the money, but it was not the defendants.

"We appreciate it, but from our point of view we're still going forward with an appeal," Xiao said. "We hope someday for justice, and we can pay them back."

The Falun Gong practitioners -- including four Swiss and one New Zealand citizen -- say they were illegally arrested and improperly prosecuted over the demonstration on March 14.

Magistrate Symon Wong convicted the Falun Gong followers last week, in Hong Kong's first criminal case against group members, of causing an obstruction and acting in a way that could cause an obstruction.

Some also were found guilty of obstructing the police or assaulting officers. Wong ordered them all to pay between 1,300 Hong Kong dollars (U.S. dlrs 167) and 3,800 Hong Kong dollars (U.S. dlrs 487) without imposing any jail time.

When they didn't pay by Wong's deadline of Monday, the court began preparing arrest warrants, a process that would have taken between two and three weeks, said Lena Ting, a Hong Kong Judiciary spokeswoman.

Some Falun Gong followers said previously that they would go to jail before paying fines for staging what they called a proper demonstration that did not obstruct anybody.

Although Falun Gong is banned in China, it remains legal in Hong Kong and frequently demonstrates here against Beijing's attempts to eradicate the group on the mainland. Falun Gong says the crackdown has left hundreds dead in police custody.

Hong Kong rights activists and opposition politicians called the prosecution a blatantly political move by the territory's government to appease Beijing.

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