Beijing -- Canada has a new weapon in its battle against illegal boat people: He's Communist Party member Sima Nan, who as China's No. 1 cult-buster is helping the Chinese regime combat the mysterious falun gong sect.
Boat people arriving on Canada's West Coast from China increasingly are claiming to be members of falun gong in an effort to win entry to Canada as refugees. Unsure how to disprove those claims, immigration officials are turning to Mr. Sima, who has been dispatched by the Chinese government to give lectures against the group around the country.
"Canada has asked me to help tell the difference between the real and not-real falun gong members who are coming to your country," said Mr. Sima, who met recently with Canadian officials in Beijing.
"This is a problem I know how to help you Canadians fix. Your government wants my help."
Dressed in a sleek black suit, with a no-nonsense brush cut, Mr. Sima is China's self-declared "hero of atheism" and a willing player in Beijing's war against falun gong and other sects.
His pedagogical techniques involve bending spoons, eating glass and mind-reading.
Those are tricks that cult leaders in China's countryside often use to dupe peasants and workers, but he demonstrates they are easily learned parlour tricks, not real magic.
The Canadian government, however, hopes to use Mr. Sima's talents in a different way: to help understand the falun gong movement and then to weed out refugee claimants who are faking their falun gong credentials. Falun gong combines traditional Chinese breathing exercises with faith healing and Buddhist and Taoist beliefs.
Canada's quiet discussions with Mr. Sima are certainly an unorthodox approach to the problem of illegal immigration.
Officially, Ottawa criticizes Beijing for its crackdown on falun gong members, thouands of whom have been arrested or jailed. Now, it is asking one of the Chinese regime's major critics of the sect for advice on how to determine who is a political refugee.
Smuggling operations, chiefly from the province of Fujian, have brought waves of clandestine immigrants to Canada's West Coast. The smugglers, known as snakeheads, have begun instructing their clients to tell immigration officials they are members of falun gong to buttress refugee claims.
So far, only one of the people landed in B.C. last summer has successfully claimed refugee status on the basis of falun gong membership. He convinced a refugee board panel that he legitimately feared persecution in China because of his belief.
Canadian immigration authorities announced last week they were withdrawing their appeal of the decision Dec. 17 granting refugee status to a 38-year-old migrant on the last of four human cargo ships to land off the West Coast.
Mr. Sima himself acknowledges that, even after his meetings with Canadian Embassy officials, he is having trouble determining where his loyalties lie.
Canada's own members of falun gong, which is a legal and active movement on Canadian soil, are likely to wonder about the propriety of enlisting Mr. Sima.
Although he says most members are innocents, he says the leaders of falun gong are evil. He expresses anger about the sect's opposition to homosexuality, saying his own view, which matches the Communist Party's, is that homosexuals are ill and in need of medical care.
Precisely how Mr. Sima proposes to help the Canadian government identify false falun gong members among refugee claimants is unclear. He refused to give details of his meetings with embassy officials.
The Canadian Embassy prefers not to say much.
"Mr. Sima is one of many sources of information about falun gong, which the embassy has used to have a better understanding of this movement," an embassy official said. "Mr. Sima is a good source of insight into the workings of not only this movement, but the government attitude toward them."
The Communist regime's view of falun gong isn't hard to figure out. China's security forces are now in a full crackdown, chalking up thousands of arrests and doling out heavy jail sentences to its leaders.
Last week, more than a dozen members were detained for trying to unfurl a picture of the movement's founder in Tiananmen Square. Chinese officials have acknowledged destroying more than 10 million books and other publications of falun gong in the last year.
Stardom in China arrived last spring for Mr. Sima, who grew up poor and dabbled in the traditional Chinese breathing exercises known as qi gong.
In April, more than 10,000 falun gong supporters gathered outside Zhong Nanhai, the Beijing home of China's leadership.
It was an unprecedented march, even if the mostly poor and lower middle-class falun gong members simply stared quietly at the red-walled leadership compound. The unexpected display of peaceful civil disobedience rattled the Communist regime.
Within months, falun gong was declared a criminal cult. And overnight, Mr. Sima, who had been investigating falun gong in obscurity, was viewed by Beijing as a useful propaganda tool to publicize the view that falun gong was counter-revolutionary. He quickly became a fixture in China's state-controlled newspapers and TV stations.
Canada then approached Mr. Sima, who is 43, for his in-depth knowledge of falun gong, government officials say.
Canadian law provides asylum if refugee claimants can make a reasonable case they face religious or political discrimination in their homeland, which active falun gong members certainly do in China.
The question officials face is simple: Who is telling the truth?
> It's not a new problem. After the 1989 Tiananmen Square massacre, many Chinese arriving illegally told Canada's refugee boards they were involved in the democracy movement. Others have claimed to be endangered by China's one-child policy, saying they could be sterilized or punished for having a second child.

BEIJING, Jan 31 (AFP) - China fired an angry blast at the United States on Monday over human rights, accusing Washington of undermining the country with "groundless" allegations about Tibet and the Falungong group.
Vice Foreign Minister Wang Guangya warned that if the United States introduced a resolution censuring China at the United Nations Human Rights Commission in March, Sino-US ties would suffer a "serious setback".
"Confrontations will not solve any problems. No one should venture to be the teacher of others," said Wang, adding the motion amounted to meddling in China's internal affairs.
Wang reiterated the government's long-held view that "China now has the best human rights situation in its history" and he accused "elements" in the United States of trying to undermine the country's stability.
"A dialogue on human rights between China and the United States will not be possible if no concrete steps are taken by the US to eliminate the adverse effects of the anti-China resolution," said Wang "Scapegoating China's human rights is without justification and doomed to failure," added Wang, who heads the Chinese delegation at Sino-US human rights talks.
The broadside across the front page of the official English-language China Daily comes two days after US President Bill Clinton made an impassioned appeal to Americans to embrace China and accept their entry into the World Trade Organisation.
Although he warned China against "the illusion that it can buy stability at the expense of freedom," Clinton dwelt far longer on supporting Beijing and urging Republicans not to veto a trade deal leading to WTO entry.
In what was seen by analysts as an attempt to smoothe WTO entry, China on Saturday released a US-based academic who had been in detention for six months here charged with leaking state secrets.
The release of Song Yongyi, an expert on the 1966-76 Cultural Revolution in China, was hailed by US officials and lawmakers as a vindication of Clinton's engagement policy.
The US State Department has pledged to push ahead with the human rights censure motion, citing a "deteriorating" human rights situation in China last year.
In particular Washington raised the crackdown on the Falungong mystical group and political dissidents, as well as inteference on freedom of worship.
Wang said the resolution was being driven by partisan campaigns for the next US presidential election, and he accused the United States of a litany of human rights abuses.
"This move shows that some people in the United States cling obstinately to the Cold War mentality and are trying to put political pressure on China," he said.
He dismissed the Falungong as an "evil cult" and said the people of Tibet had far more freedom now than at any time in their history.
Earlier this month the Hong Kong-based rights group Human Rights in China said 1999 was the worst year for human rights here since the 1989 Tiananmen massacre.

BEIJING (AP) - Expanding a crackdown that began with the Falun Gong spiritual movement, China has banned a second meditation-exercise sect it dubbed an ``evil cult,'' an official and a rights group said Monday.
The Chinese government ordered the suppression of Zhong Gong, another offshoot of a traditional health practice known as qigong. A protest by 10,000 Falun Gong followers in April provoked worry among China's communist leaders that the group's fervor and organization challenged their political authority.
Like Falun Gong, Zhong Gong has attracted huge numbers of followers, including senior government officials. The unfolding crackdown against Zhong Gong, as described by a Hong Kong-based human rights group, appears to apply many of the tactics used in the early stages of the campaign against Falun Gong.
Police have quietly moved against the group while trying to round up its leaders. More than 100 Zhong Gong centers in 20 provinces and major cities have been closed since November, the Information Center of Human Rights and Democratic Movement in China reported.
Zhong Gong founder Zhang Hongbao has gone into hiding, but police have started confiscating the assets of his Qilin Group, a conglomerate based in the port city of Tianjin, the center said.
Spokesmen for the police and the State Council, China's Cabinet, refused to comment. A government official, speaking on condition of anonymity, confirmed that Zhong Gong was branded an ``evil cult'' and that the crackdown was ordered but not publicized.
His comments supported the Information Center's claims that internal Communist Party documents have labeled Zhong Gong an ``evil cult'' - a tag that would effectively ban the group, since cults are illegal under Chinese law.
Falun Gong and Zhong Gong are both loosely tied to qigong, a traditional practice in which exercises are used to channel unseen forces into the body. All are said to promote health and can bring practitioners supernatural powers. Falun Gong adds a spiritual dimension, claiming its practice also improves morality.
Chinese leaders banned Falun Gong in July, and ordered police checks on other popular qigong sects. Last month, a court in central Zhejiang province sentenced a leading member of Zhong Gong, Chen Jinlong, to two years in jail for illegally practicing medicine.
Zhong Gong, founded in 1988, has attracted 20 million followers, the Information Center said.
The center said that in 1992, on the advice of Hubei province's Communist Party secretary, Chinese President Jiang Zemin consulted senior Zhong Gong master Zhang Chongping to try to cure arthritis and back problems. Government officials would not comment on the claim.
But as with Falun Gong, Jiang and other members of the leadership grew worried over Zhong Gong's organizational flair. The group has more than 1,000 propagation centers in China and more than 180,000 practice coaches, the center said.
Qilin Group, which is used to fund and promote Zhong Gong, employs more than 400,000 people, mostly in the tourism industry or making health products, the center said.
Leading members of Zhong Gong have called on followers to resist the government clampdown and defend the practice, the center said, although it did not specify how.
The government has been unable to suppress Falun Gong despite the ban. Members still meet and occasionally stage protests in Tiananmen Square, the last one, on Jan. 24, an attempt to cover the Mao Tse-tung portrait with a picture of Falun Gong guru Li Hongzhi.

BEIJING, Jan. 31 - China has declared a meditation-exercise sect to be an "evil cult" and ordered its suppression, expanding a crackdown that began with the Falun Gong spiritual movement, an official and a rights group reported today.
Zhong Gong would be the second offshoot of a traditional health practice known as qigong to be banned since a protest by 10,000 Falun Gong followers in April provoked worry among China's communist leaders about the popularity of the groups.
Like Falun Gong, Zhong Gong has attracted huge numbers of followers, including senior government officials. The unfolding crackdown against Zhong Gong, as described by a Hong Kong-based human rights group, appears to apply many of the tactics used in the early stages of the campaign against Falun Gong.

Crackdown

Police have quietly moved against the group while trying to round up its leaders. Already more than 100 Zhong Gong propagation centers in 20 provinces and major cities have been closed since November, the Information Center of Human Rights and Democratic Movement in China reported.
Zhong Gong founder, Zhang Hongbao, has gone into hiding to avoid arrest, but police have started confiscating the assets of his Qilin Group, a conglomerate based in the port city of Tianjin, the center said.
Spokesmen for the police and the State Council, China's cabinet, refused initial comment on the report. A government official, speaking on condition of anonymity, confirmed that Zhong Gong was branded an "evil cult" and that the crackdown had been ordered, but not publicized.
His comments supported the Information Center's claims that internal Communist Party documents have labeled Zhong Gong an "evil cult." Such a tag would effectively ban the group because cults are illegal under Chinese law.

Shades of Falun Gong

After Falun Gong's April 25 demonstration, Chinese leaders worried that the group's fervor and organization challenged their political authority. They banned Falun Gong in July and ordered police checks on other popular qigong sects and their often charismatic leaders.
A court in central Zhejiang province last month sentenced a leading member of Zhong Gong, Chen Jinlong, to two years in jail for illegally practicing medicine.
Falun Gong and Zhong Gong are both loosely tied to qigong, a traditional practice in which exercises are used to channel unseen forces into the body. All are said to promote health and can bring practitioners supernatural powers. Falun Gong adds a spiritual dimension, claiming its practice also improves morality.

20 Million Followers

Zhong Gong was founded in 1988 by Zhang Hongbao and has since attracted 20 million followers, the center said.
The center said Chinese President Jiang Zemin on the advice of Hubei province's Communist Party secretary consulted senior Zhong Gong master Zhang Chongping in 1992 to try to cure arthritis and back problems. Government officials would not comment on the claim.
But as with Falun Gong, Jiang and other members of the collective leadership grew worried over Zhong Gong's organizational flair. The group has more than 1,000 propagation centers in China and more than 180,000 practice coaches, the center said.
Qilin Group, which is used to fund and promote Zhong Gong, employs over 400,000 people, mostly in the tourism industry or making health products, the center said.
Leading members of Zhong Gong have called on followers to resist the government clampdown and defend the practice, the center said, although it did not specify how.
The government has been unable to suppress Falun Gong despite the more than six-month ban. Members continue to meet and occasionally stage protests in Tiananmen Square, the last one an attempt to cover the portrait of Mao Tse-tung with a picture of Falun Gong guru Li Hongzhi on Jan. 24.

HONG KONG (Reuters) - China has closed down 100 offices of a group with similarities to the banned Falung Gong spiritual movement after declaring it a cult, a Hong Kong-based human rights group said on Monday.
The Information Centre of Human Rights & Democratic Movement in China said Chinese police began the crackdown last November after President Jiang Zemin labeled as a cult the Zhong Gong group, which has more than 10 million practitioners in China.
Zhong Gong practices ``Qigong'', a traditional Chinese system of deep breathing exercises or meditation.
The crackdown follows months of arrests of Falun Gong members.
Chinese police raided Zhong Gong's head office in Beijing and confiscated 50 million yuan (US$6.02 million) in assets last November, it said.
The human rights group said earlier this month that hundreds of police closed down the group's largest training base in the northwestern province of Shaanxi in December, dispersing about 2,000 practitioners.
Chinese authorities also closed down some 60 offices of a company linked to the Zhong Gong movement in Inner Mongolia, Guangxi, and Yunnan provinces, it said.
Zhong Gong was formed by Zhang Hongbao in 1988.
The Chinese government had previously supported the group because it opposed western ideas, which fit with the country's policy at the time, the rights group said.
Beijing banned the Falun Gong movement, which combines elements of Buddhism, Taoism and meditation, in July last year after members demanded official recognition for their faith in a series of bold protests, including a gathering of 10,000 people at the central leadership compound in Beijing last April.
The Information Centre has said Chinese authorities had sent more than 5,000 Falun Gong members to labor camps without trial and sentenced another 300 to jail since September.

BEIJING (AP) - Police stopped members of the banned meditation group Falun Gong from putting up a 20-foot portrait of their leader over the portrait of Mao Tse-tung that overlooks Tiananmen Square, a rights group said today.
Police detained Tao Hualian, of Macau, on Monday at the security checkpoint to the imperial Gate of Heavenly Peace, where Mao's portrait hangs. Fifteen others were detained when they tried to open a portrait of Falun Gong founder Li Hongzhi nearby, the Hong Kong-based Information Center of Human Rights and Democratic Movement in China reported.
Tao and three others, from Hong Kong, were deported to Hong Kong. The 12 others, though, were from China and remained in detention, the Information Center said.
Beijing banned Falun Gong in July, calling them a threat to Communist Party control. Li's blend of exercises, meditation, Buddhist and Taoist concepts and his own theories and rules attracted millions of followers around the country.
In 1989 Yu Zhijian and Yu Dongyue were convicted of splashing paint on Mao's portrait during the huge democracy protests in Tiananmen Square. Yu Zhijian was sentenced to life in prison, and Yu Dongyue, who was not related, to 18 years. Both remain in prison, the Information Center said.

ANOTHER 16 Falun Gong members - including three Hong Kong residents - have been arrested while attempting to cover the giant portrait of the late Chairman Mao Zedong with that of their spiritual leader Li Hongzhi in Tiananmen Square, Beijing.
The three _ Li Zhilun, Wong Yaoqing and Ma Jie _ along with an Australian passport-holder, Tao Hualian, were sent back to Hong Kong by Beijing police last Wednesday.
The others were said to still be in custody of the public security police.
News of their arrests and subsequent repatriation was released yesterday by the Hong Kong-based Information Centre of Human Rights and Democratic Movement in China.
According to the centre, the group, led by Mr Tao, arrived in the capital last Sunday and on Monday planned to climb up the so-called Democracy Wall at Tiananmen Square and cover the portrait of Chairman Mao with a 6 x 1.5-metre portrait of Li.
But Mr Tao and his companions were arrested after public security police seized the Li portrait from them at the wall entrance.
According to the centre, the number of Falun Gong members protesting at Tiananmen Square has risen dramatically this year.
It says Beijing has intensified its crackdown on the banned sect, with more than 100 members being arrested daily. The centre says that among those arrested were members of the Public Security Bureau and People's Liberation Army who had joined the sect led by a former PLA soldier.
Three mainlanders were sentenced to jail terms ranging from 18 years to life after they spilt ink on Chairman Mao's portrait in May 1989, a spokesman for the centre claimed.
Meanwhile, Kan Hung-cheung, spokesman for the Falun Gong in Hong Kong, said he learnt that the four deported sect members had resumed their sit-in protest outside the Central Government's Liaison Office (formerly Xinhua News Agency) in Wan Chai before they left Hong Kong for abroad.
Mr Kan was worried the action of the group could be ``misinterpreted'' as a political movement to provoke Beijing.
The spokesman said he believed his fellow Falun Gong members only tried to express their wishes for freedom of religion. But he called on the sect members to express their views in a peaceful manner instead of taking any dramatic action.
``We want to reiterate that Falun Gong is only a religious belief and has nothing to do with politics,'' he said.
Although it has been outlawed on the mainland since July, the religious group is free to practise its belief and to stage peaceful protests in the SAR.
But the religion may not be equally tolerated by the Macau SAR.
On its handover day on 19 December, Macau authorities intensified their crackdown on the sect by arresting about 40 followers.

BEIJING (AP) - Police detained 16 members of a banned meditation sect after they tried to cover the massive portrait of Mao Tse-tung that overlooks Tiananmen Square with a picture of their leader, a rights group said Saturday.
Police detained Tao Hualian, of Macau, on Monday at the security checkpoint to the imperial Gate of Heavenly Peace, where Mao's portrait hangs. Fifteen others were detained when they tried to open a portrait of Falun Gong founder Li Hongzhi nearby, the Hong Kong-based Information Center of Human Rights and Democratic Movement in China reported.
Tao and three members from Hong Kong were deported to Hong Kong. The 12 others, who were from China, remained in detention, the Information Center said.
Beijing banned Falun Gong in July, calling it a threat to Communist Party control. Li's blend of exercise, meditation, Buddhist and Taoist concepts and his own theories attracted millions of followers around the country.
In 1989 Yu Zhijian and Yu Dongyue were convicted of splashing paint on Mao's portrait during the huge democracy protests in Tiananmen Square. Yu Zhijian was sentenced to life in prison, and Yu Dongyue, who was not related, to 18 years. Both remain in prison, the Information Center said.

HONG KONG (AP) - A practitioner of the Falun Gong sect has died while on hunger strike in Chinese police custody in the southern city of Guangzhou, a newspaper reported Wednesday. Another Falun Gong believer died while in custody in a police station in suburban Beijing, a rights group said. The Hong Kong Standard quoted Falun Gong adherents as saying Gao Xianmin was held in a criminal detention center in Guangzhou after being arrested Dec. 31during a picnic lunch with 10 other members of the sect banned in July by China's communist government. Some of the Falun Gong practitioners went on a hunger strike but were forced to drink salt water, according to information the Standard said it got from afriend of Gao, Hu Hui. The Hong Kong-based Information Center of Human Rightsand Democratic Movement in China said Gao went on the hunger strike to protest being severely beaten and tied up by police. Gao was taken on Jan. 17 to a hospital but his heart had stopped when he arrived, the Standard said. It quoted a Falun Gong practitioner from Hong Kong, Kan Hung-cheung, as saying Gao died ``from circulation and breathing failure.'' Gao began practicing Falun Gong in 1994 and had already been jailed for 15 days after demonstrating in Beijing last summer, the newspaper said. In Beijing, Liu Zhilan, a Falun Gong believer at the Changgouyu coal mine, was detained Jan. 10 after she tried to submit a petition to authorities in the capital, the Information Center said in a statement.
Police at the Zhoukoudian station forced Liu to clean their offices, and she died from breathing gas while resting in the station's furnace room Jan. 14, the Information Center's report said. Police at the station Wednesday refused to comment. China's communist leadership banned Falun Gong because it feared that its widespread appeal and organizational ability could threaten Communist Party authority. Thousands of Falun Gong adherents have since been arrested and some jailed for as long as 18 years. Falun Gong remains legal in Hong Kong, where adherents frequently hold demonstrations and complain about treatment of practitioners on the Chinese mainland.

A Shenzhen court yesterday tried Li Jianhui, a leader of the banned Falun Gong, but proceedings ended without a verdict, the Hong Kong-based Information Centre of Human Rights and Democratic Movement in China said.
Li, head of a Falun Gong training centre, was arrested in September and charged with "using a cult to undermine the law", the centre said.
Police refused to let Li's wife, Dai Ying, into the courthouse because she is also a Falun Gong member, the centre said. She was arrested with him but released in November.

MAINLAND courts are rushing to try members of the banned Falun Gong group and political dissidents in the run-up to next month's Spring Festival, with two >trials slated for today, a Hong Kong-based human-rights organisation has said.
Sect member Li Jianhui is expected to be tried today by the Futian district court in the southern city of Shenzhen, the Information Centre of Human Rights and Democratic Movement in China said.
He is expected to be tried for ``using a sect to harm the implementation of the law'', the centre said.
Li was arrested by police along with his wife, Dai Ying, in September. Dai was released in November.
According to Ms Dai, the court appointed a lawyer for Li because his original
defence lawyer was dismissed for intending to plead ``not guilty'' on Li's behalf.
``The justice department in Shenzhen has labelled the Falun Gong a sect, so they cannot permit a lawyer to use a not-guilty defence, only guilty or slightly guilty defences are allowed,'' the centre said.
In another case to be tried today, the Puta district court in Shanghai will try a leading member of the local branch of the outlawed China Democracy Party, Dai Xuezhong.
He is to be tried for allegedly hitting and injuring a fellow worker at his place of employment.
However, he was arrested in September during a China Democracy Party activity.

Guangdong has begun to put Falun Gong members on trial, a Hong Kong-based human rights group reported yesterday.
Li Jianhui, a leader of the banned sect, would stand trial today at a court in Shenzhen's Futian district, the Information Centre of Human Rights and Democratic Movement in China reported.
It said he was the first Falun Gong member to stand trial in Guangdong and he was expected to be tried for "using a sect to harm the implementation of the law".
He and his wife, Dai Ying, were arrested by police in September. Ms Dai was released in November without charge.
The centre said a lawyer hired by Ms Dai had wanted to plead not guilty for Li but authorities ruled that this would not be acceptable and another lawyer was found.

A leader of China's banned Falun Gong sect has reportedly gone on trial in the southern city of Shenzhen.
A Hong Kong-based human rights group said the court prevented Li Jianhui from pleading innocent to charges of cult activity, telling him to only ask for leniency.
Last July, China launched a crackdown against the group, which numbers millions of members.

There are claims another member of the banned spiritual group Falun Gong has died in police custody in China.
According to his friends in the southern city of Guangzhou, Gao Xian Min died while in custody in a city police station.
He was apparently taken to hospital last week but was pronounced dead on arrival.
Guangzhou police and China's internal security bureau who are overseeing the crackdown on Falun Gong have made no comment.
But fellow practitioners like Hu Hui want Australia to join other countries in protest.

BEIJING, Jan. 20 -- More than 50 followers of the banned Falun Gong spiritual group are being held at a psychiatric hospital on the outskirts of Beijing, a Hong Kong-based human rights group said today.
They were sent to the Zhoukoudian Psychiatric Hospital a month and a half ago, after being detained by the police for continuing to support Falun Gong, a movement that combines traditional Chinese meditation and exercises with a smattering of Buddhist and Taoist beliefs.
"The followers have repeatedly asked the hospital how much longer they will be confined, but the hospital has indicated that this is a matter for the government to decide," said the Center for Human Rights and Democratic Movement in China. Both hospital staff and local police had verified the confinement, it said.
The once widely popular Falun Gong movement was banned last summer and, in a aggressive defamation campaign, China's top leaders have declared it an "evil cult" that fosters superstition.
The 50 people being held in the psychiatric hospital were detained last fall, when Falun Gong practitioners from other provinces flocked to Beijing to stage almost daily silent protests in Tiananmen Square in defiance of the government ban.
"They are not patients, they are there to be re-educated," Yang Yang, a spokesman for the police station near the hospital, told Agence France-Presse today. He added: "Most of them are Falun Gong extremists who have been to Beijing to protest at least 10 times."
Although hundreds if not thousands of Falun Gong members are still in detention or in labor camps, it had not been previously known that some were being kept in psychiatric hospitals.
The use of psychiatric hospitals to hold political troublemakers is thought to be relatively rare in China, although a few dissidents have endured that fate in a system of psychiatric hospitals run by the Public Security Bureau. Doctors at the far more numerous mainstream psychiatric hospitals do not participate in this work.
Last November, Wan Junying, a longtime democracy activist who had already spent seven years at a psychiatric hospital for "paranoid delusions" that caused him to "attempt to disturb the social order," was forcibly rehospitalized after he tried to hold a news conference to discuss his experiences as a patient.
Government officials have said in the past that rank-and-file Falun Gong members who came to Beijing to protest would be sent home and given short-term "education" about the evils of Falun Gong, although they acknowledged that some devotees had been unwilling to give their home addresses and so had remained in detention for a time in Beijing.
A number of members who had been sent home quickly returned to the capital to resume protesting.
The government has formally charged more than 300 people in connection with Falun Gong, some of whom have already been tried and sentenced to prison terms of more than 10 years. Human rights advocates estimate that thousands more have been placed without trial in labor camps or detention centers