DATE=5/13/2000
TYPE=CORRESPONDENT REPORT
TITLE=CHINA-FALUN GONG (L)
NUMBER=2-262316
BYLINE=LETA HONG FINCHER
DATELINE=BEIJING
CONTENT=
VOICED AT:
INTRO: Chinese police have arrested at least 50
followers of the banned Falun Gong sect in Beijing's
Tiananmen Square. As VOA's Leta Hong Fincher reports
from Beijing, demonstrators are celebrating the eighth
anniversary of the birth of their movement.
TEXT: Saturday's protest is the third major
demonstration by Falun Gong followers in the last
several weeks. Plainclothes policemen are monitoring
Tiananmen Square closely, and rush to suppress any
sign of defiance within seconds.
Witnesses say the protesters are peaceful and do not
resist arrest as they are pushed into waiting police
vans. But some protesters were knocked to the ground
as they tried to raise yellow banners emblazoned with
red characters such as "truth, beauty and endurance,"
one of the mottoes of the Falun Gong movement. Several
people raised yellow chrysanthemums to mark the
anniversary of their movement. Some foreign tourists
have also reportedly been detained for videotaping the
protests.
The Chinese government has banned the Falun Gong sect
for the last nine and a half months, calling it an
evil cult. Communist Party leaders also accuse the
sect of causing more than 15-hundred deaths, mainly by
members refusing medical treatment.
But followers continue to stage protests in defiance
of the ban. Last Thursday, dozens of sect members
were arrested in Tiananmen Square as they marked the
birthday of their founder, Li Hongzhi, who lives in
exile in the United States. On April 25th, more than
a hundred Falun Gong followers were arrested on the
first anniversary of a mass sit-in of ten-thousand
people outside the headquarters of the Communist
Party. (Signed)
NEB/LHF/PLM
13-May-2000 03:13 AM EDT (13-May-2000 0713 UTC)
NNNN
Source: Voice of America
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