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DATE=2/10/2000
TYPE=CORRESPONDENT REPORT
TITLE=CHINA-HUMAN RIGHTS (L ONLY)
NUMBER=2-259009
BYLINE=ROGER WILKISON
DATELINE=BEIJING
CONTENT=
VOICED AT:
INTRO:  A Hong Kong-based human rights monitor says 
China has arrested about two-thousand members of the 
Falun Gong exercise and meditation movement since the 
Lunar New Year began last Saturday.  VOA correspondent 
Roger Wilkison reports the monitor says more than 500 
of those arrested were seized in Beijing.
TEXT:  The Information Center for Human Rights and 
Democratic Movement in China -- which functions as a 
kind of news agency on dissident activities -- says 
the arrests took place in 40 cities across the 
country.  It says a handful of those taken away by 
police were soldiers, two of whom were picked up last 
Monday after practicing Falun Gong exercises in 
Beijing's Tiananmen Square.
The Falun Gong movement has staged frequent and bold 
protests in the square despite having been banned last 
July as what authorities label "an evil cult".
The Information Center said earlier this year that 
China has sent more than five thousand Falun Gong 
members to labor camps and sentenced about 300 others 
to jail since the crackdown began.
In a message sent by fax to international news 
organizations, the Center also says the government is 
stepping up its campaign to get Falun Gong members to 
recant.  It says that -in addition to detaining 
believers- the authorities are fining them or 
depriving them of their jobs and housing allocations.
The report from the Information Center came as six 
international human rights groups asked the European 
Union to join the United States in supporting a 
resolution critical of China at the United Nations 
Commission on Human Rights next month.
The groups accuse China of taking a step backwards in 
the realm of human rights.  They point not only to the 
crackdown on Falun Gong but also to harsh jail 
sentences meted out to labor, political and religious 
activists.
China charges that critics of its human rights record 
are trying to undermine its political stability.  
(signed)
NEB/RW/GC/PLM
10-Feb-2000 03:59 AM EDT (10-Feb-2000 0859 UTC)
NNNN
Source: Voice of America
.