"Canadian sect follower silent after freed by China"
BEIJING - A Canadian Chinese follower of the banned Falun Gong spiritual movement was resting with his family on Thursday after weeks in a labour camp, but declined to comment on the terms of his release, a Canadian official said.
The official said 60-year-old professor Zhang Kunlun, freed on Wednesday in what was seen in Ottawa as a Chinese bid to ease tensions before a major Canadian trade mission, sought to avoid attention as he rested at home in Shandong province.
"We spoke to him this morning and he said he was tired, but fine," said the Canadian official.
"Mr Zhang is aware of the strong international interest in his case, but doesn't want to speak to the media," the official said.
The official added that Zhang had not made clear whether he would return to Canada or remain in his native China.
The professor of sculpture was arrested in Shandong in October after entering China on his Chinese passport and received a three-year labour camp sentence in mid-November.
On Thursday, China stuck by a statement issued the previous day by its embassy in Ottawa which said that since his incarceration, Zhang had vowed to break all ties with a movement that Beijing regards as a dangerous cult.
China has pulled few punches in a fierce campaign to crush Falun Gong that a human rights group says has resulted in nearly 100 deaths in police detention. But Beijing has said it is lenient with those who break with the sect.
DAUGHTER CONTRADICTS CHINA CLAIM
"During his period of labour, Zhang gained an understanding of the evil cult Falun Gong and his own illegal activities," Foreign Ministry spokesman Zhu Bangzao told a news conference.
"He said that he will draw a line between himself and Falun Gong, detach himself from Falun Gong, follow the law and be a law-abiding citizen," Zhu said.
Zhang's daughter Lingdi, a student in Ottawa, said her father had told her after his release that he had not renounced Falun Gong, which combines meditation and breathing exercises with a doctrine loosely rooted in Buddhist and Taoist teachings.
"He did not sign a paper saying he would not follow Falun Gong any more. He did sign a paper saying he would study the ideology of Communism. Those are the stupid words the Chinese government wrote out and made him sign," she told Reuters.
Zhang, who teaches in Shandong, emigrated to Canada in 1989 and became a Canadian citizen in 1995, while retaining his Chinese nationality. With his Chinese papers, he returned to China in 1996 to continue his teaching career.
China does not accept that Zhang is a Canadian national and denied consular officials access to him after his arrest.
THREE NEW DEATHS REPORTED
Zhang's release removes a potential major headache for Ottawa since his detention was threatening to overshadow a February 9-18 trade mission to China by Canadian Prime Minister Jean Chretien and senior business and provincial officials.
The official Canadian Alliance opposition party had called for the trade mission to be scrapped should he not be released.
Falun Gong says some 50,000 members have been detained and many sent to labour camps without trial since Beijing banned the group in July 1999, three months after the movement staged a 10,000-strong protest in the heart of Beijing.
The Hong Kong-based Information Centre for Human Rights and Democracy said on Thursday that three Falun Gong followers had died in police custody in the past month, taking the total deaths in detention to 98 since the July 1999 ban.
Authorities have acknowledged several deaths in custody, but say most resulted from suicide or illnesses.
BEIJING - China has released a Canadian follower of the banned Falun Gong sect, but a human rights group said Thursday that three more practitioners have died in custody or shortly after.
Authorities in eastern Shandong province freed Zhang Kunlun on Wednesday, two months into a three-year labor camp sentence, Chinese and Canadian officials said.
Diplomats who spoke with Zhang by telephone Thursday morning described him as ``tired, but fine,'' said Jennifer May, spokeswoman for the Canadian Embassy in Beijing.
Zhang holds dual Chinese and Canadian citizenship. He was the first Falun Gong practitioner holding foreign citizenship that China was known to have imprisoned since outlawing the group 18 months ago.
A 60-year-old sculpture professor in Shandong's Jinan city, Zhang was repeatedly detained for defying the ban, the last time on Nov. 7. Eight days later police sentenced him without trial to a labor camp.
After emigrating to Canada in 1989, Zhang returned to China in April 1996, using his Chinese passport. That meant, under terms of a diplomatic agreement, that China could treat Zhang as a Chinese citizen, not a Canadian. Beijing denied Canadian diplomats access to Zhang during his imprisonment.
May declined to speculate whether China released Zhang to remove an irritant in relations ahead of a Feb. 9-18 visit by Canadian Prime Minister Jean Chretien. China insisted foreign pressure played no role, saying Zhang was released after promising to sever ties with Falun Gong.
``He became aware of the evil nature of the Falun Gong cult and his illegal activities. He expressed that he would cut ties with the Falun Gong cult and become a law-abiding citizen,'' Foreign Ministry spokesman Zhu Bangzao said.
Falun Gong followers in Canada disputed that claim, saying Zhang remained a committed practitioner.
Meanwhile, a Hong Kong-based rights group said the deaths of three more Falun Gong practitioners following their arrests bring to at least 98 the number killed in the crackdown.
Liu Jiamin died Jan.7, two days after her release from custody for joining a protest on Jan. 1 on Tiananmen Square, the Information Center for Human Rights and Democracy said. It said 30-year-old Liu died of lung injuries after police rammed a tube down her throat to break a hunger strike. Beijing police refused to comment.
Chu Congrui, 30, from northeastern Liaoning province, was arrested at a Dec. 1 Tiananmen protest and reported dead to her family 16 days later, the center said. Family members told the center that her face was clearly bruised, but a police officer in Chu's village, who in a phone interview gave his surname, Cui, said she died of a hunger strike.
The family of 45-year-old Yu Lianchun, meanwhile, was notified Dec. 30 of her death at a labor camp in Jinan, the center said. It said her body showed more than a dozen injuries. Camp officials refused to comment.
Falun Gong attracted millions of followers during the 1990s with a mix of meditation, slow-motion exercises and a hybrid philosophy drawn from Taoism, Buddhism and the ideas of its founder, Li Hongzhi. China banned the group as a public menace and threat to party rule.
"China jails Falun Gong members over leaflets"
BEIJING - Three Falun Gong members have been jailed for up to six years for distributing leaflets promoting the banned spiritual movement, Chinese state media said on Wednesday.
Li Jingpeng was jailed for six years earlier this week, He Yuansheng for four and Shi Xiufen for three for using an "evil cult" to obstruct law enforcement, the Beijing Legal Times said.
Falun Gong, which combines meditation and breathing exercises with a doctrine
loosely rooted in Buddhist and Taoist teachings, claims tens of millions of
followers.
It says some 50,000 members have been detained and many sent to labour camps without trial since Beijing banned the group in July 1999. Rights groups say around 90 adherents have died while in detention on mainland China.
The government has acknowledged a handful of deaths in custody, but says they were due to suicide or illness.
Li was arrested while distributing 2,000 leaflets he had downloaded off the
Internet and charged with illegally printing materials promoting Falun Gong.
Shi was detained while she was handing out flyers at residential blocks and He was caught distributing leaflets at Beijing universities, the Legal Times said.
Falun Gong, which has used the reach of the Internet to communicate with its members, also relies on leaflets to convey its message to people without computers.
"Those people who deliberately violate the law and commit crime, sabotage social order and encroach upon the lawful rights of other people will be surely punished by law," said the People's Daily, the Chinese Communist Party
mouthpiece.
EDUCATING MEMBERS
An editorial, its third on Falun Gong this week, said the government was following a policy of educating members of the movement and "rescuing" them from it.
Earlier editorials villified Falun Gong leader Li Hongzhi, who lives in the United States, accusing him of deifying himself and branded the movement as a "cheap tool" of Western forces trying to topple the Communist party.
Falun Gong further angered authorities in Beijing after announcing it would hold a conference on January 14 at a venue rented from the Hong Kong government.
The group is legal in Hong Kong, a former British colony which was promised a high degree of autonomy when it was returned to Chinese rule in 1997.
Falun Gong was banned and branded an "evil cult" in 1999, three months after staging a 10,000-strong protest in the heart of Beijing.
"China turns up heat on Falun Gong before HK meet"
BEIJING - China branded the banned Falun Gong spiritual movement on Tuesday a "cheap tool" of Western forces trying to topple the Communist Party, stepping up a media campaign as the group plans a major conference in Hong Kong.
For the second day running, the People's Daily published a commentary vilifying the group and its U.S.-based leader Li Hongzhi.
"Some anti-China forces in the West have assessed the situation incorrectly, trying to use Li and his cult as a cheap tool to topple the leadership of the Communist Party of China and change China's political system," it said.
"The cult has no base among the public in China," it added. "Only a handful of people believe in Li and his evil instructions and the number of stubborn believers of Falun Gong is even smaller."
Falun Gong, which combines meditation and breathing exercises with a doctrine loosely rooted in Buddhist and Taoist teachings, claims to have tens of millions of followers.
It says some 50,000 members have been detained and many sent to labour camps without trial since Beijing banned the group in July 1999. Rights groups say around 90 adherents have died while in detention on mainland China.
Yet defiant Falun Gong members have kept up almost daily protests, mostly on Beijing's Tiananmen Square, in an extraordinary show of civil disobedience.
CONFERENCE PLANNED IN HONG KONG
Falun Gong further angered authorities in Beijing when it announced last week it would hold a conference on January 14 at a venue rented from the Hong Kong government.
The group is legal in Hong Kong, a former British colony which was promised a high degree of autonomy when it was returned to Chinese rule in 1997.
China's official Xinhua news agency has accused Falun Gong members in Hong Kong and Macau of stirring trouble and sullying China's image.
"The behaviour of a cult like this will inevitably attract the close attention of local authorities in any place," Foreign Ministry spokesman Zhu Bangzao told a news conference.
"As for the actions taken to deal with it, the relevant authorities of each place will determine that according to their laws."
A top religious academic accused Li of trying to internationalise the issue through the conference.
"Li Hongzhi will always get groups of people and delude them into make trouble in all kinds of ways," Wu Yungui, director of the Institute of World Religions at the Chinese Academy of Social Sciences, told Reuters.
"What is important is whether what they are doing is harming or not harming our country and our people."
The members have said they would not be intimidated by threats from Beijing and vow to push ahead with a conference they expect to attract 1,000 people.
SUSTAINED MEDIA CAMPAIGN
The commentaries are the latest blows in a concerted media campaign against the group, which Beijing describes as an evil cult that cheats and brainwashes followers.
On Monday, the People's Daily carried a trenchant personal attack on Li, accusing him of deifying himself and collaborating with China's enemies overseas to undermine the government.
Beijing has accused Falun Gong of being in league with a whole range of dissident forces, including separatists in the western regions of Tibet and Xinjiang, supporters of Taiwan independence and Chinese democracy activists.
Li denies having any political agenda and Falun Gong members say they are campaigning for official recognition as a religion.
But in a January 1 message posted on the group's official website (www.clearwisdom.net), Li appeared to urge his followers to take more drastic action by telling them they could rightfully go beyond the movement's principle virtue of forbearance.
Until now protesters have rarely resisted detention, arrest or beatings by police and have even expressed sympathy with their captors, citing their belief in forbearance.
HONG KONG - A leader of the Falun Gong spiritual movement in Hong Kong rejected on Tuesday Beijing's accusations that the movement was a "cheap tool" of Western forces trying to topple the Communist Party.
"All the accusations made by the Chinese government against Falun Gong are groundless," Kan Hung-cheung, chairman of the Hong Kong Association of Falun Dafa, told Reuters.
Falun Gong, also known as Falun Dafa, is a mixture of Taoism, Buddhism and traditional Chinese physical exercises.
China's official Xinhua news agency last week singled Kan out for criticism, calling him "a core member of the evil cult."
While banned on mainland China, it is legal in Hong Kong, a former British colony promised a high degree of autonomy when it reverted to Chinese rule in 1997.
In this freewheeling southern Chinese city, Falun members are frequently seen in public places doing meditative exercises or holding news conferences to denounce Beijing's treatment of fellow members just across the border.
On Saturday, it will stage a rally to urge Chinese President Jiang Zemin to stop the crackdown on the movement, and on Sunday, the group will hold an international conference.
"We are not targetting the Chinese government as a whole, but Jiang Zemin and his aides who have initiated the crackdown," Kan said. "This crackdown is illegal."
"ABUSES"
Kan claimed that more than 110 mainland adherents were known to have died as a result of China's persecution -- including those beaten or tortured to death in detention -- since Beijing launched its crackdown in July 1999.
Authorities have acknowledged several deaths in custody, but say most resulted from suicide or illnesses.
For the second day running, China's official People's Daily on Tuesday published a commentary vilifying the group and its U.S.-based founder Li Hongzhi.
"Some anti-China forces in the West have assessed the situation incorrectly, trying to use Li and his cult as a cheap tool to topple the leadership of the Communist Party of China and change China's political system," the newspaper said.
Kan denied the allegation.
"Falun Gong is a peaceful exercise. Before the crackdown, governments at different levels had confirmed the contributions of Falun Gong to peoples' bodies and minds," he said.
"We've stepped out to complain only because the Chinese government is launching a crackdown. To complain is a basic human right. There is no issue of subversion of China's power or a tool of Western hostile forces," Kan said.
"On January 13, we will exercise en masse and hand in a petition peacefully to Chinese authorities in Hong Kong. We are planning to stage a march, too," he said, adding the group expected 600-800 local and overseas participants to take part.
On Sunday, the group will hold a conference for followers from Hong Kong and abroad. Kan expects 800-1,000 members to attend the conference, during which the group says it will expose persecution on the mainland.
"We'll especially single out Jiang Zemin and a small group of people," Kan said.
HONG KONG - A Chinese court on Tuesday rejected an appeal by four members of the banned Zhong Gong meditation group against their jail sentences, a Hong Kong-based human rights group said.
Huang Wanping, Qin Zhaoyang, Zhai Xuehai and Dong Jialan were arrested in October 1999 and sentenced in November to between two and four years in jail for subversion, the Information Centre for Human Rights & Democracy in China said.
They had filed their appeals in the southeastern coastal province of Jiangsu, the Hong Kong group said in a statement.
It said three other leading members of Zhong Gong -- Rui Guojie, Zhao Zegen and Yang Weihu -- were last year sent to labour camps for a year for "inciting the subversion of state power."
All seven were penalised for their criticism of Chinese President Jiang Zemin over the banning of Zhong Gong and the Falun Gong spiritual movement, the rights group said.
Zhong Gong, a mystical and meditative sect, has, like the better-known Falun Gong, been banned in communist China as an "evil cult" which uses "feudal superstition to deceive the masses."
Zhong Gong members recently wrote open letters to condemn Chinese authorities for sending core Zhong Gong members to drug-addict centres and beating them there.
The information centre said Falun Gong followers had also been sent to drug-addict centres although they were not addicts.
BEIJING - Beijing courts on Tuesday sentenced three followers of the outlawed Falun Gong movement to as long as six years in prison for printing and distributing leaflets protesting the government crackdown on the group.
Li Jinpeng, sentenced to six years in jail, He Yuansheng, sentenced to four, and Shi Xiufen, sentenced to three, were convicted of ``using an evil cult to destroy the implementation of laws,'' state-run Beijing Television said.
All three printed and distributed leaflets about Falun Gong last year, the report said.
Police in eastern Shandong province also arrested six Falun Gong members who had clandestinely printed 20 different types of leaflets for public distribution since June, state-run China Central Television said late Monday. Footage showed police seizing boxes of printed paper.
Shandong police refused to confirm the Nov. 24 arrests or answer questions about the report.
Falun Gong members protesting the government's 18-month crackdown on the group have frequently distributed leaflets during demonstrations on Beijing's Tiananmen Square and other public places.
On Tuesday, the Communist Party newspaper People's Daily repeated accusations that Falun Gong was serving the interest of ``anti-Chinese forces in the West.''
Falun Gong drew millions of adherents in the 1990s with its blend of Buddhism, Taoism and the ideas of founder Li Hongzhi, a former government grain clerk now living in the United States. Falun Gong followers say the group's theories and meditation exercises promote health and moral living.
Alarmed by its size and tight organization, Beijing banned the group in July 1999 as an ``evil cult.'' It accuses the sect of leading more than 1,600 followers to their deaths by encouraging them to eschew modern medical care and deluding them into suicidal acts.
Meanwhile, the Higher People's Court of eastern Jiangsu province on Tuesday rejected an appeal by four members of another banned meditation and exercise movement who were sentenced to between two and four years imprisonment on subversion charges, a Hong Kong-based rights group said.
The four were among 600 Zhong Gong organizers reportedly rounded up after the group, which like Falun Gong attracted millions of followers, was banned as a cult in 1999. They four were accused of disseminating letters purportedly written by senior police officials that criticized Chinese President Jiang Zemin for the crackdowns on both sects, the Information Center for Human Rights and Democracy said.
What Is Falun Gong? See "Falun Gong 101", by Massimo Introvigne
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