China told the U.S. Embassy in Beijing that no American was detained after the breakdown of a Falun Gong protest in Tianamen Square last Friday night, Agence France-Presse reported, citing the mother of missing U.S. Falungong member Tracy Zhao. Zhao telephoned her boyfriend, who was in Beijing trying to find her, that she was being taken to a detention center in northern Beijing, the report said. The mother accused China of denying detaining her daughter to cover for the fact that she had been beaten by the police, AFP reported.
Falun Gong, which claims 60 million members inside China, combines Buddhist and Taoist teachings with traditional Chinese meditation practices, and was outlawed by the Chinese government last July.

BEIJING, Feb. 10 (Kyodo) - The Hong Kong-based Information Center of Human Rights and Democratic Movement In China reported Thursday that at least 2,000 Falun Gong supporters had been arrested across China over the Spring Festival.
The figure represents totals from more than 40 cities, including Beijing, Shijiazhuang, Changchun and Chengdu, the group said.
In Beijing, more than 500 people were arrested in demonstrations that began Saturday, the first day of the Chinese New Year. Among those arrested were two soldiers of the People's Liberation Army (PLA) caught performing Falun Gong exercises in Tiananmen Square. A similar incident apparently occurred Jan. 27, before the beginning of the holiday, the report noted.
The group estimates that more than 5,000 practitioners have been sent to ''reeducation through labor'' camps and more than 300 jailed since the crackdown began. On Jan. 28, the same Hong Kong-based group reported 34 Falun Gong adherents were sentenced to jail terms ranging from four months to seven years.
Falun Gong, branded an illegal ''evil sect'' by China's leadership, is a homegrown blend of Buddhist and Daoist teachings whose exercise methods attracted millions of followers in China and abroad.
The group's open confrontation with the government began last April when thousands of adherents peacefully surrounded Zhongnanhai in central Beijing, the home of China's ruling elite. The demonstration, aimed at securing official recognition of the group, apparently caught the government off guard.
China's leadership struck back in July with a nationwide crackdown, which prohibited the public practice of Falun Gong exercises and banned Communist Party members from being in the sect. The suppression culminated in an outright ban of the group.
Falun Gong's spiritual leader, Li Hongzhi, lives in self-imposed exile in the United States.

BEIJING (AP) - Chinese authorities have seized 2,000 members of the banned Falun Gong sect in the past five days, a human rights group reported Thursday.
The arrests began as Falun Gong members staged a protest timed for the start of the Lunar New Year early Saturday. The Hong Kong-based Information Center of Human Rights and Democratic Movement in China said that since then, police in Beijing had seized more than 500 people.
Altogether, authorities had detained 2,000 people in 40 Chinese cities, the group said.
It said among those arrested were several members of the People's Liberation Army who had demonstrated in Tiananmen Square.
The Information Center said authorities were using various methods to pressure members of the sect to recant. Apart from being detained, some are fined, while others lose their jobs or are denied housing allocations and their children are prevented from getting jobs, it said.
With Chinese offices closed Thursday for the Lunar New Year, officials were not available to comment on the report.
Falun Gong members have staged repeated peaceful protests in Tiananmen Square since the ruling Communist Party outlawed the group as a public menace last July.
Falun Gong is a blend of meditation, slow-motion exercises and ideas drawn from Buddhism, Taoism and founder Li Hongzhi. Followers say it is not a religion but promotes health and morality.
The government banned Falun Gong out of fears 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.

Steelworker Niu Jinping says he was beaten by police and jailed in a squalid cell, yet he refuses to renounce his Falun Gong membership.
Another Falun Gong member Zhang Lianying, 38, an accountant, said: "I've never broken the law in my life . . . but my basic right to exist has been stripped away."
Mr Niu said his troubles began in October, when he was one of thousands of adherents taken away after protests at Tiananmen Square.
His first detention lasted six days, during which he said he was in a cell with 11 others.
He said that after he was beaten by guards who caught him meditating, he simply got up earlier before the guards were awake. He said he was released after six days because the police could not handle the overflow of Falun Gong detainees.
He was given a sedative and put through psychological tests at the Huilongguan hospital in Beijing. He was released seven days later.
"My case was reported on the Internet, and the hospital paid close attention to that," he said.
Weeks after his release, the now jobless Mr Niu went to Guangzhou for a Falun Gong meeting, an act that got him a 28-day detention spell in the Beijing suburb of Shunyi. He was released in January.
Ms Zhang, who joined Mr Niu at the Guangzhou meeting and was given the same 28-day sentence in Shunyi, recounted a similar cycle.
She said she was trussed up and dragged by her ponytail repeatedly.
"A policeman told me: 'Don't lecture me on human rights or read me the constitution. I only know the Government has declared your sect evil and you a criminal,' " she said.

Chinese authorities have seized about 2,000 members of the banned Falun Gong sect in the past five days, a human rights group reported.
The arrests began as Falun Gong members staged a protest timed for the start of the Lunar New Year early on Saturday.
The Hong Kong-based Information Center of Human Rights and Democratic Movement in China said that since then, police in Beijing had seized more than 500 people.
Altogether, authorities had detained 2,000 people in 40 Chinese cities, the group said.
It said that among those arrested were several members of the People's Liberation Army who had demonstrated in Tiananmen Square.
The Information Center said that authorities were using various methods to pressure members of the sect to recant.
Apart from being detained, some are fined, others lose their jobs or are denied housing allocations and their children are prevented from getting jobs, it said.
With Chinese offices still closed Thursday for the Lunar New Year holiday officials were not available to comment on the report.
Falun Gong members have staged repeated peaceful protests in Tiananmen Square since the ruling Communist Party outlawed the group as a public menace last July.
Falun Gong is a blend of meditation, slow-motion exercises and ideas drawn from Buddhism, Taoism and founder Li Hongzhi. Followers say it is not a religion but promotes health and morality.
The government banned Falun Gong out of fears 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.

BEIJING (AP) - Chinese police have been holding an American woman in detention for five days since she took a picture at a protest by members of the banned Falun Gong meditation movement, her boyfriend said today.
Tracy Zhao, 30, of New York City, was taking a picture of police breaking up a Falun Gong protest around midnight Feb. 4 at Tiananmen Square when police detained her, said Lin Chong-li, who also is an American from New York.
He said she was not taking part in the protest but was there to observe it and show support.
She was among at least 50 Falun Gong followers detained at the protest, which was held as China welcomed the lunar new year. Police kicked, punched and dragged demonstrators before putting them in vans.
Lin said Zhao borrowed a mobile phone while in the van and called him twice early Saturday to say she was being taken north of Beijing to a detention center.
He said he has not heard from her since, although police have called asking about her luggage and plane ticket. Lin gave Zhao's passport to U.S. Embassy officials, who gave it to the Chinese police.
Zhao, who was born in Beijing, emigrated to the United States at age 20 and works as a flight attendant for Northwest Airlines, Lin said.
The Chinese government banned Falun Gong in July as a menace to the public and a threat to Communist Party control.
Founded in 1992 by a former Chinese government clerk who now lives in New York, Falun Gong attracted millions of followers drawn to its mix of slow-motion exercises, Buddhist and Taoist ideas and message of moral living.

BEIJING, Feb 9 (AFP) - A follower of the banned Falungong spiritual group said Wednesday she was repeatedly beaten while in police custody following a Tiananmen Square protest on Lunar New Year's Eve last Friday.
"I was first beaten with another girl when we tried to unfurl a banner on the Golden Water Bridge in front of the Tiananmen Rostrum," Jennifer Xiao told "Police came and hit us in our faces, threw us on the ground and stomped on us," she told AFP from a public phone in Beijing.
Xiao, a Chinese citizen who has recently lived in Japan, was among several hundred members of the banned group who were rounded up by police after doing exercises on Tiananmen Square about midnight on Chinese New Year's Eve.
Xiao said that she and her friend had also been beaten while in the basement of a detention center near Tiananmen Square where they were held for several days with some 50 other group members.
"There were two children that were also detained, including a young girl from Beijing who was there with her mother and grandmother, but police did not beat them," she said.
Xiao said that up to 100 other members were believed to be held in the first floor of the detention center, with most of the detainees being women aged between 30 and 40 years.
Other Falungong members told AFP that up to several thousand practioners of the traditional Chinese meditation group were detained in the Lunar New Year's round up, with most being held in the northern Beijing Xiaotangshan detention center.
The whereabouts of Tracy Zhao, a US passport holder who was reportedly detained during the round up, remained unknown Wednesday with police refusing to answer questions. The US Embassy was closed due to the New Year holiday.
Zhao contacted other Falungong members late Friday night on her mobile telephone and said she was being held with "two to three thousand" other members in the Xiaotangshan detention center.
Gail Rachlin, a Falungong spokeswoman based in New York, said Tuesday that an Australian Falungong practitioner, Shelley Jiang, and 14-year-old Chinese-born US green card residency holder David Cui had been released on Monday.
Cui had been beaten repeatedly by police while in custody, she said.
Xiao said most of the 50 members of the group detained in the basement of the Tiananmen detention center had been released with her earlier this week.
Police from Xiao's hometown in eastern Jiangsu Province had been summoned to Beijing to escort her back home but once back in Jiangsu Province she "escaped" and returned to Beijing, she said.
Xiao said she was detained by police from December 31 to January 28 for a similar protest on Tiananmen Square on New Year's Eve.
Falungong, led by exiled guru Li Hongzhi, preaches Buddhist and Taoist maxims and advocates clean and healthy living.
Chinese authorities have admitted more than 35,000 members of the banned group were detained during similar protests between July and mid-November, after Falungong was outlawed.

At least two foreign members of the banned Falun Gong sect, an American and an Australian, were unaccounted for after being detained by police during a weekend protest in Tiananmen Square, a sect member said yesterday.
American Tracy Zhao and Australian Shelley Jiang were among about 100 people taken away in several buses in the early hours of Saturday, said the Falun Gong member, who witnessed the detentions.
The Falun Gong adherents were taken to a detention centre in the city of Xiaotangshan, north of Beijing, she said.
The sect member described herself as a New York-based Chinese citizen who came to Beijing with several other Falun Gong members to meet Chinese adherents amid the crackdown.
She said she witnessed the demonstrations and detentions, but did not participate or get detained.
In a second incident, she said a 14-year-old Chinese-born holder of a US "green card" residency permit was grabbed by police on Saturday and gagged and beaten for defending the sect's leader from police insults.
David Cui, the son of a Falun Gong practitioner, was released on Sunday after being held overnight without food, his eyes swollen and red from beatings, she said.
Plain-clothes police swarmed over the square on Lunar New Year's Eve as members of the banned group marked the Year of the Dragon with a big demonstration in which protesters tried to unfurl Buddhist banners near China's most prominent flagpole.
As Lunar New Year's revellers looked on, police detained more than 100 people, kicking and punching some, witnesses said.
They said police beat one man unconscious before dragging him on to a bus, where they kicked him as he lay motionless on the floor.
Despite the beatings, Falun Gong members kept up chants of "Falun Dafa" - "Great Law of the Wheel" - even when inside the detention centre, the witnesses said.

A U.S. citizen who took part in a Lunar New Year protest by the outlawed Falun Gong spiritual group is missing after Chinese police arrested and detained her, Agence France-Presse reported, citing Gail Rachlin, a U.S.-based Falun Gong spokeswoman, and U.S. embassy officials. Tracy Zhao, a flight attendant, was rounded up and beaten along with up to 1,000 other Falun Gong members during a peaceful protest that began Friday night on Tiananmen Square, Rachlin said, adding that the Falun Gong reported Zhao's disappearance to the U.S. State Department following her arrest early Saturday. An Australian citizen and a 14-year-old Chinese resident of the U.S. were released from police custody yesterday, the report said.
In December, a Chinese court sentenced four accused leaders of the Falun Gong movement, which has millions of followers, to prison terms of up to 18 years.

CHINA has jailed the organiser of a clandestine Falun Gong press conference held under the nose of Beijing for 12 years the group said yesterday.
The news came yesterday, a day after another protest by the sect in Tiananmen Square was forcefully broken up by police, with up to 3,000 people said to have been detained.
Jiang Zhaohui, 35, was secretly sentenced to 12 years imprisonment by a Beijing court after being arrested on 22 November, less than a month after the press conference, sect member Chen Dan said by telephone from the United States.
Most of the other group members who took part in the press conference have also been arrested, she said.
``We heard about the sentence from two practitioners in Beijing who were questioned by the police who accidentally told them,'' she said.
But she added she had not been able to confirm the information and did not know when Mr Jiang was tried.
Another Falun Gong member, Gu Linna, who also took an active role in organising the press conference, was arrested at the same time along with 15 other people as they were preparing a group meeting in southern Guangzhou, Ms Chen said.
Mr Jiang, a former director of a foreign investment firm in southeastern Fuzhou, and Ms Gu organised the 28 October press conference along with 20 other people in a Beijing suburb, which was attended by about six Western journalists.
The press conference was an open challenge to the authorities and provoked anger from police who interrogated several journalists who covered the event, temporarily confiscating their work permits.
Ms Chen said Ms Gu, 37, was being held in northern Shijiazhuang, where she worked as a television presenter until April.
She was fired after managing to broadcast a report favourable to the Buddhist-inspired sect.
On Saturday Chinese police detained hundreds and possibly thousands of members of the banned group, using force to break up a string of peaceful Lunar New Year protests.
One sect member who had travelled from the United States said 2,000 to 3,000 people could have been detained since Friday evening, but the figure could not be confirmed.
By yesterday calm had been restored, although there was a heavy police presence, with police vans driving slowly through crowds.
An organiser of the Lunar New Year protest said police detained at least 900 Falun Gong practitioners early on Saturday, although the number could not be independently verified. The spokesman's office for the city's police refused to comment.
Those detained were taken by bus to a detention centre in the countryside to the north of the city, the organiser said.
The protest was the most violent confrontation between police and sect members since the first days after the ruling Communist Party outlawed Falun Gong six months ago as a menace to the public. Since then, the group has staged repeated peaceful protests in the square.
The latest clash took place amid decorations for the Lunar New Year, China's most important holiday and a time of family reunions and feasting. Trees around Tiananmen Square were strung with colorful lights, and a sign in the centre said ``Welcome Spring Festival,'' another name for the holiday.
Hong Kong Falun Gong spokesman Kan Hung-cheung expressed regret over the arrests saying: ``We hope the suppressive policy will not continue. Members who tried to practice or unfurl banners at Tiananmen Square were only trying to express what Falun Gong was about.'' Falun Gong spokeswoman Sophie Xiao, also in Hong Kong, said she did not think defiance was the best way for practitioners to express their beliefs.
``That's not what the master taught us,'' she said, referring to the group's leader Li Hongzhi, who lives in exile in the United States.
``But in another sense, it gives us international attention and leads more people to pay attention to the human rights issue. It makes people conscious of what is happening and keeps them lobbying on these issues in China,'' she added.

BEIJING, Feb 7 (Reuters) - At least two foreign members of the banned Falun Gong sect, an American and an Australian, were unaccounted for after being detained by Chinese police during a Tiananmen Square weekend protest, a sect member said on Monday.
American Tracy Zhao and Australian Shelley Jiang were among about 100 people taken away in several buses in the early hours of Saturday, said the spiritual movement's member, who witnessed the detentions.
The Falun Gong adherents were taken to a detention centre in the city of Xiaotangshan, about one hour north of the Chinese capital, she said.
Theq sect member declined to give her name but described herself as a New York-based citizen of China who came to Beijing with several other Falun Gong members to meet Chinese adherents amid the crackdown.
She said she witnessed the demonstrations and detentions, but did not participate or get detained.
In a second incident, she said, a 14-year-old Chinese-born holder of a U.S. ``green card'' (resident permit) was grabbed by police on Saturday and gagged and beaten for defending the sect's leader from police insults.
David Cui, the son of a Falun Gong practitioner, was released on Sunday after being held overnight without food, his eyes swollen and red from beatings, she said.
Chinese police and officials from the U.S. and Australian embassies were not immediately available for comment.

BIG NEW YEAR PROTEST

Plainclothes police swarmed over the square on lunar New Year's Eve as members of the banned group marked the Year of the Dragon with a big demonstration in which protesters tried to unfurl Buddhist banners near China's most prominent flagpole.
Police, who have spent the past year trying to snuff out the group's repeated protests, seemed astonished by the scale of the demonstration -- the latest evidence that a crackdown has failed to crush members' allegiance to the sect.
China banned Falun Gong in July last year and branded it an ``evil cult'' in October. Beijing has given harsh jail sentences to Falun Gong leaders, and detained thousands of members.
As lunar New Year's revellers looked on, police detained more than 100 people, kicking and punching some, witnesses said.
They said police beat one man unconscious before dragging him onto a bus, where they kicked him as he lay motionless on the floor.

CHANTS IN DETENTION CENTRE

Despite the beatings, Falun Gong members kept up chants of ``Falun Dafa'' -- ``Great Law of the Wheel'' -- even inside the detention centre, the witnesses said.
Beijing banned Falun Gong after members held a series of bold protests to demand official recognition of their faith, which combines elements of Buddhism, Taoism and traditional Chinese calisthenics.
In the largest of the peaceful protests, a gathering of 10,000 people surrounded the central leadership compound in Beijing last April.
China said the sect brainwashes and cheats its followers, and has caused 1,400 deaths, most by instructing followers to shun medicine and rely on meditation to treat serious illnesses.
The Hong Kong-based Information Centre of Human Rights and Democratic Movement in China has said China has sent more than 5,000 Falun Gong members to labour camps without trial and sentenced another 300 to jail since September.

BEIJING (AP) - Chinese police tightened security at Tiananmen Square today, after beating and detaining at least 50 members of the banned Falun Gong sect who staged a protest timed for the start of the Lunar New Year.
The clashes began at midnight's turn to the New Year, as dozens of Falun Gong members converged on the square under a sky crackling with holiday fireworks. Many of the protesters pulled out red banners, and about two dozen sat cross-legged in one of the group's typical meditation poses.
Police immediately rushed in, kicking, punching and dragging protesters away. At least two men were knocked down, their legs kicked out from under them. Within 25 minutes, police had stopped the protests and shut down the square.
By daybreak, the square reopened but with uniformed and plainclothes police out in force. Their presence apparently thwarted a second protest planned at the square's northern end, near the Gate of Heavenly Peace where Mao Tse-tung's portrait hands.
Police tried to separate sect followers from the throngs of Chinese families and tourists out taking pictures on the first day of the Year of the Dragon. At least a dozen people were questioned and then driven away in police vans.
One protest organizer said police detained at least 900 Falun Gong practitioners, though that number could not be verified independently. The spokesman's office for the city's police refused to comment.
Those detained in the midnight protest included followers from Australia and the United States, and all were taken by bus to a detention center in the countryside to the north of the city, protest organizer Hannah Li said in a faxed statement.
The protest was the most violent confrontation between police and Falun Gong members since July, when the ruling Communist Party first outlawed the group as a public menace. Since then, the group has staged repeated peaceful protests in the square.
A Hong Kong-based human rights group estimated that, since the crackdown began, at least 300 Falun Gong members have been tried and convicted by courts, and another 5,000 have been sent to labor camps without trial.
The communist government has accused the group of misleading followers and causing more than 1,400 deaths, mostly by advising its members to refuse medical treatment. But the group has also been branded a threat to party rule. Leading organizers have been jailed for up to 18 years.
Founded in 1992 by an ex-government clerk who now lives in New York, Falun Gong attracted millions of followers, drawn to its mix of slow-motion exercises, Buddhist and Taoist cosmology and message of moral living.
Today's clash took place under trees strung with colorful lights decorating the square for the Lunar New Year, China's most important holiday and a time of family reunions.
Wang Xiaoping, a Falun Gong member from Beijing in her 20s, said she felt it was more important to express her dissatisfaction with the government ban than spend the holiday with her family.
``They won't let us practice. They are trying to crush us,'' she said. ``We're not against the government. We just want the government to have peaceful talks with our master, Li Hongzhi.'' She then walked straight toward the police, pulling a red banner from her anorak, and was flung to the ground within seconds. As she tried to get up, she was knocked back to the ground and kicked several times. Wang and her two companions, a man in his 50s and a woman in her 40s, were also hit and shouted at by at least six policemen before being taken away.
Police also set upon a man who was strolling with a woman and a young girl. The man was punched in the face, while the girl screamed, ``Don't hit, don't hit!'' Three tourists were detained, apparently because one took pictures. The film was removed from the camera.

BEIJING (Reuters) - Defiant members of the Falun Gong spiritual movement kept up protests in Tiananmen Square on Saturday after the banned group marked the Year of the Dragon with one of its biggest demonstrations on the vast plaza.
Plainclothes police swarmed the square, detaining at least half a dozen people, the morning after scores of Falun Gong protesters tried to unfurl Buddhist banners near China's most prominent flagpole bearing the national standard.
Police who have spent the past year trying to snuff out the group's repeated protests seemed astonished and bewildered by the scale of the demonstration on lunar New Year's Eve.
``Good God! There are so many of them,'' a witness quoted a policeman as saying in a detention center beside the square where more than 20 minibuses full of protesters were deposited during the night.
As lunar New Year's revelers looked on, police swooped across the square and detained more than 100 people, kicking and punching some, witnesses said.
They said police beat one man unconscious before dragging him onto a bus, where they kicked him as he lay motionless on the floor.
Despite the beatings, Falun Gong members kept up chants of ''Falun Dafa'' -- ``Great Law of the Wheel'' -- even inside the detention center, the witnesses said.

PROTESTS DARING

The demonstration is the latest evidence that a nationwide crackdown has failed to crush members' allegiance to the group which China's Communist leaders banned in July last year and labeled an ``evil cult'' in October.
Authorities have done their utmost to keep Falun Gong members from the capital, checking identity cards at railway and bus stations, and setting up roadblocks on routes into the city.
They have handed out harsh jail sentences to Falun Gong leaders, and detained thousands of members.
Yet Falun Gong has been attempting ever bolder acts of protest, according to one rights group.
Last month, members tried to hang a giant portrait of their U.S.-based guru, Li Hongzhi, over the painting of Mao Zedong which overlooks the square, the Information Center of Human Rights and Democratic Movement in China has reported.
They were thwarted by police, according to the Hong Kong-based human rights watchdog.
``We have done nothing wrong. The government has done wrong,'' said one member, who did not take part in the protest. She said she spent lunar New Year's Eve trying to contact her fiance who was detained a week ago after refusing to renounce his faith.
''We have no choice but to try to tell the world the truth about Falun Gong,'' said the woman. She said she recently lost her job at a prominent Chinese conglomerate because of her allegiance.

FOREIGN MEMBERS JOIN PROTESTS

Another Falun Gong member said the detained protesters were herded onto buses and taken to the outskirts of Beijing in the early hours of Saturday, including some members from Australia and the United States.
Officials from the U.S. and Australian embassies were not immediately available for comment.
Saturday, police detained at least half a dozen Chinese, including one man who sat down in the middle of the square, and two Western tourists who refused to hand over film, witnesses said.
Beijing banned Falun Gong after members held a series of bold protests to demand official recognition of their faith, which combines elements of Buddhism, Taoism and traditional Chinese calisthenics.
In the largest of the peaceful protests, a gathering of 10,000 people surrounded the central leadership compound in Beijing last April.
China said the sect brainwashes and cheats its followers, and has caused 1,400 deaths, most by instructing followers not to take medicine.
The Information Center said China has sent more than 5,000 Falun Gong members to labor camps without trial and sentenced another 300 to jail since September.
It estimated last week that at least 100 Falun Gong adherents had been detained since January 1 for protests at Tiananmen Square against the crackdown.

BEIJING, Saturday, Feb. 5 -- As fireworks thundered from Beijing's outskirts, police officers in Tiananmen Square beat, kicked and detained at least 50 members of the banned Falun Gong spiritual movement who welcomed the Year of the Dragon with one of their biggest protests in recent months.
Movement members began converging on the vast square on Friday minutes before midnight. Many pulled red banners from beneath their clothing and waved them. At least two dozen people emerged from a pedestrian tunnel onto the square and sat down cross-legged in unison, a pose typical of the group that the government banned in July as a threat to Communist Party control.
The police pounced on the protesters immediately, running toward them from all corners of the square. They kicked, punched and dragged them to their feet, herded them into vans and drove them away.
[One witness said he had spoken to a demonstrator who identified herself as an overseas Chinese from the United States, Reuters reported. She said many of the demonstrators came from abroad.]
Wang Xiaoping, a Falun Gong member in her 20's from Beijing, said she thought it was more important to express dissatisfaction with the government ban on the group than to spend the most important holiday of the year with her family.
"They won't let us practice," she said. "They are trying to crush us."
She then walked straight for the police, pulling a red banner from under her jacket, and was flung to the ground within seconds. As she tried to get up, she was knocked back to the ground and kicked several times. She and her two companions, a man in his 50's and a woman in her 40's, were also hit and shouted at by at least six police officers before being taken away.
After 25 minutes, columns of policemen ran into the square and closed it.

BEIJING (Reuters) - Chinese police swooped on a Falun Gong demonstration in Tiananmen Square Friday night, detaining more than 100 people and shuttling them to detention centers amid revelry to welcome the Year of the Dragon.
Followers of the banned spiritual group attempted to unfurl Buddhist banners near the main flagpole on the square when uniformed officers closed in, punching and kicking some.
One man was beaten unconscious and dragged onto a bus.
Squads of plainclothes police sprinted from the shadows at the edges of the square to help shove suspected followers onto buses.
Journalists and befuddled bystanders celebrating the eve of the Lunar New Year were also packed onto vans and shuttled off to detention as a stream of empty buses raced to the scene.
Some demonstrators began chatting "Falun Dafa," another term for Falun Gong, as they were carted away.
One witness said he spoke to a demonstrator who identified herself as an overseas Chinese from the United States. She said many demonstrators came from abroad.
Tiananmen Square has been the focus of repeated agitation by Falun Gong adherents since the country's Communist rulers banned the sect last July and later labeled it an "evil cult."
Beijing banned the movement after members held a series of bold protests to demand official recognition of their faith, which combines elements of Buddhism, Taoism and meditation.
In the largest of the peaceful protests, a gathering of 10,000 people surrounded the central leadership compound in Beijing last April.
The Information Center of Human Rights and Democratic Movement in China, a Hong Kong-based human rights watchdog, has said China has sent more than 5,000 Falun Gong members to labor camps without trial and sentenced another 300 to jail since September.
China said the sect brainwashes and bilks its followers, and has caused 1,400 deaths by instructing followers not to treat their illnesses with medicine.
The center estimated last week that at least 100 Falun Gong adherents had been detained since January 1 for protests at Tiananmen Square against the crackdown.
On January 24, Chinese police thwarted an attempt by sect members to hang a giant portrait of their U.S.-based guru, Li Hongzhi, over the painting of Mao Zedong which overlooks the square, the center reported.

BEIJING (AP)--Police beat and kicked Falun Gong practitioners Saturday at a Tiananmen Square demonstration marking the Year of the Dragon, arresting 50 sect members and breaking up what had been one of the groups biggest protests since the meditation sect was outlawed.
Many of the Falun Gong protesters sat cross-legged in unison, a pose typical of the group. Many pulled red banners from beneath their clothing and waved them aloft.
The protest began shortly before midnight and lasted about half an hour later. Police ran toward the protesters from all corners of the square. After the violent roundup, they closed the square.
Beijing banned Falun Gong in July as a threat to Communist Party control. The blend of meditation, slow-motion exercises and ideas drawn from Buddhism, Taoism and founder Li Hongzhi had attracted millions of followers around the country.
The streets of Beijing had been eerily quiet earlier today as people headed home to welcome the Year of the Dragon with family reunions and feasts of steamed dumplings.
Many left work a day early, ahead of Saturday's start to the nation's most important holiday of the year. Prisons sent well-behaved inmates home to join families in eating, drinking and watching New Year's television specials. And villages prepared fireworks shows, staged to scare off evil spirits.
The communist leadership used the occasion to once again express hope for a reunification with Taiwan.
``At this occasion of reunion for millions of families, we miss our Taiwan compatriots more than ever,'' Premier Zhu Rongji said at a reception to celebrate the Lunar New Year, which ends the Year of the Rabbit and begins the Year of the Dragon--considered by Chinese to be one of the luckiest in the 12-year zodiac.
Zhu used his New Year's Eve speech to reiterate China's vision of a peaceful reunification, giving Taiwan autonomy under a formula already used by Hong Kong and Macau.
``After Hong Kong and Macau returned to the motherland, the sacred mission to resolve the Taiwan issue and completely reunite the motherland has become even more prominent for all the Chinese people,'' Zhu said.
Zhu steered clear of intimidation, though in the past China has tried to coax the island into unification talks by threatening to take it forcibly.
Taiwan, however, has insisted it will reunite with the mainland only when China becomes more democratic. President Lee Teng-hui in Taipei praised economic and democratic reforms today that have made Taiwan one of Asia's wealthiest and freest societies.
``All of our citizens not only enjoy prosperous lives, they also have freedom to express their opinions and the space to develop their abilities,'' Lee said in a televised address. He did not mention reunification.
In China, most people gathered with family at home to feast and watch a gala of song, dance and comedy on China Central Television _ the ancient holiday's newest tradition.
During the next five days of celebration, many families were expected to visit parks and temples that have been decked out with lanterns, dragon statues and stalls selling toys and food.
This year is particularly special for Chinese, many of whom identify themselves with the dragon, calling themselves the ``dragon's descendants.'' In ancient times, emperors regarded themselves as reincarnations of dragons, and children born during the year are considered blessed.
State media reported that airlines, railways and buses are expecting to carry 1.6 billion passengers around the holiday.
Beijing's 11 prisons gave 250 inmates three days of leave with their families as a reward for good behavior, the China Daily said.
In Tibet, thousands of Buddhist pilgrims stood in line Thursday to receive blessings from a reincarnated lama at Sera, one of Tibetan Buddhism's most important monasteries, located outside Lhasa, China's state-run Xinhua News Agency reported.
In Singapore, where ethnic Chinese make up about 78 percent of the population, Prime Minister Goh Chok Tong gave a New Year's speech urging Singaporeans to be more competitive at work to keep up with global competition, but without neglecting their families

TROY -- Dressed in khakis, cable-knit sweaters and turtlenecks, they look more like an ad for J. Crew than like subversive criminals.
But the group of Chinese Americans, mostly engineers, seated on gray carpeting in the Troy Community Center with legs crossed and eyes closed, is practicing a form of exercise and meditation that could lead to mass arrests, beatings, prison sentences and worse, if attempted in China.
The Chinese government is scared because it teaches people to be good people, to become more compassionate," said Tim Sun, an engineer from Bloomfield Township. "They fear that the Chinese will be focused on something other than what the government wants them to hear." It is Falun Gong, a set of five exercises, some performed seated and some standing, combined with reading an accompanying book on the pursuit of truthfulness, benevolence and forbearance, or zhen, shan and ren.
As most of Metro Detroit's Chinese community prepares to celebrate the Chinese New Year on Saturday, the Falun Gong has become a focus of international attention that reaches into Michigan.
There are groups practicing weekly in Canton Township, Farmington Hills, Ann Arbor, Troy and other areas of Metro Detroit without fear of retribution. There are no dues or fees and the groups are open to everyone. But detractors describe Falun Gong as a cult of fanatics who are preparing for the end of the world, similar to the cults led by Jim Jones, Branch Davidians and Heaven's Gate.
Then there is the swastika. It is the Falun Gong emblem, but the literature describes it as an ancient symbol that has been used the world over to represent good fortune and virtue, before it was adopted in the 1920s as a symbol of hate by Nazis. "When I got on the Internet and first saw the swastika, I thought: Hey, this is never going to fly," said Vince Contrera, 57, of Warren.
He was the only non-Asian practicing in the Troy group. "But I got past that once I understood what it represented. I feel a lot more energetic and compassionate since I've started practicing." The group's leader is Li Hongzhi, or "Master Li," who created Falun Gong in 1992 and now lives in New York.
He claims that the practice, which has attracted what leaders claim is more than 100 million practitioners worldwide, fosters moral qualities. "We are just like everybody else," said Mandy Lin, a financial planner from Rochester Hills. "I just try to allow some time every day to practice this to become a better person."
About 10,000 Falun Gong practitioners staged a peaceful demonstration in Beijing last year to gain recognition as a legitimate group. In response to the ensuing crackdown in China, a group of local practitioners held a rally in Hart Plaza last September, distributing literature and inviting people to try the exercises.
The exercises have attracted members. "I feel much more energetic than I used to," said David Xie, 39, a Troy engineer who was among the 11 people practicing Falun Gong in Troy recently inside the community center. "I've tried different types of exercises before, but I didn't feel any different. Master Li has a book that explains a lot of things about why it is effective."
His wife, Jennifer Zhou, a software engineer for General Motors Corp., even claims that the practice of Falun Gong healed muscle aches she has suffered from for more than eight years. "I tried acupuncture, traditional Chinese medical treatments and many other treatments," she said. "But I began practicing Falun Gong in 1996, and I felt the pain going away. Now I don't have any pain." But not everyone is as enthusiastic. "A lot of my friends practice it, and they're really good people. But sometimes I think it can become a bit extreme," said Troy resident Dazong Wang, a director of engineering at GM. "I know of someone who works during the day and then comes home and reads the Falun Gong book. That's all he does. He doesn't go out or anything anymore. He just comes home and reads the book." The English version of the Falun Gong book discusses topics such as abolishing jealousy and attachments, as well as how to strengthen supernormal powers, fight demonic interference and cultivate energy.

China has jailed 32 members of the Falun Gong spiritual movement for between four months and seven years in a crackdown ahead of the Lunar New Year holiday.
The followers of the banned group were sentenced in two separate trials in Beijing on January 28, the Hong Kong-based Information Centre of Human Rights and Democratic Movement in China said yesterday.
The centre added that up to 300 members were expected to be tried and sentenced in secret trials before the holiday begins on February 5.
The report said two sisters - Li Xiaobing and Li Xiaomei - were convicted of "illegal trade" for using their Beijing video store to sell Falun Gong literature and films.
Li Xiaobing was jailed for six years and her sister for seven.
The pair were accused of being leaders of the movement in the capital, and were alleged to have sold 1.8 million Falun Gong books through their store.
In a second trial at the same court on January 28, 30 Falun Gong members were sentenced to between four months and two years for carrying out protests in Beijing's Tiananmen Square, said the centre.

China has closed 100 offices and training centres of Zhong Gong, a qi gong group similar to the banned Falun Gong spiritual movement, a Hong Kong-based human rights group reports.
The Information Centre of Human Rights and Democratic Movement in China said yesterday police had begun cracking down on Zhong Gong in November after President Jiang Zemin called it a cult, which at its peak was said to have close to 20 million adherents on the mainland.
Police raided Zhong Gong's head office in Beijing and confiscated 50 million yuan (HK$44.7 million) in assets, the group said.
In the past two months, police had closed down 40 Zhong Gong centres in provinces including Shaanxi, Sichuan, Shanxi, Anhui and Jiangsu. Police dispersed more than 2,000 Zhong Gong followers from their Shaanxi base.
Police also closed the Tianjin-based Qilin Group - a network of companies in the tourism and health-products business. According to the centre, Zhong Gong was financed mainly by the Qilin Group, which had offices in Inner Mongolia, Guangxi and Yunnan.
Zhong Gong's Web site had also been shut down and Zhang Hongbao, 45, who founded the group in 1988, is now in hiding.
The crackdown on Zhong Gong came as authorities began to put Falun Gong leaders on trial for engaging in "evil cult" activities.
The information centre claimed that President Jiang, on the advice of Hubei's Communist Party secretary, consulted senior Zhong Gong master Zhang Chongping in 1992 to try to cure his arthritis and back problems.
The Zhong Gong group was said to have more than 1,000 propagation centres and boasted more than 180,000 coaches.
"The crackdown has led to a serious split among Zhong Gong members over whether they should protest as Falun Gong members did," said information centre spokesman Frank Lu.
Although some Zhong Gong leaders had called on its 400,000 employees at the Qilin Group to defend their jobs and practitioners to protect the movement, the majority of members had stayed silent about the crackdown.

Chinese authorities have launched a major crackdown on a cult similar to the banned Falun Gong sect amidst heightened tensions between Beijing and Washington over China's human rights record.
In a statement issued yesterday, the Hong Kong-based Information Centre of Human Rights & Democratic Movement in China said Beijing had closed down around 100 offices of the Zhong Gong group.
The Zhong Gong group, which reportedly has as many as 10 million members on the mainland, adheres to the Qigong-based spiritualism practised by the Falun Gong sect. Qigong is a traditional meditation exercise involving deep breathing According to the Hong Kong human rights organisation, Chinese police raided Zhong Gong's head office in Beijing and confiscated 50 million yuan ($9.46 million) in assets last November.
A large training base operated by the Qigong group in the northwestern province of Shaanxi was closed down by police in December, according to the human rights group, with around 60 offices of a company linked to the sect in the provinces of Inner Mongolia, Guangxi, and Yunnan shut over recent months.
News of the latest crackdown on the Zhong Gong sect came as Beijing stepped up its criticism of proposed moves by the United States to censor China over its human rights record at a meeting of the United Nations Commission on Human Rights in March.
China's Vice-Minister for Foreign Affairs, Mr Wang Guangya, accused Washington of making groundless allegations about Beijing's actions in Tibet and towards the Falun Gong.
Differences between developed and developing countries over human rights should not become an obstacle to the development of their relations, nor a means to interfere in others' internal affairs, Mr Wang said.
Confrontation will not solve any problems. No-one should venture to be the teacher of others, he said.
Since 1990 the US has tried on eight occasions to muster enough support within the 53-member UN Commission on Human Rights to censure China over its human rights record, but has always failed.
Mr Wang said Washington's attempt to condemn China's record on human rights was without justification and doomed to failure.
Since declaring the Falun Gong sect illegal last July, the Chinese authorities have jailed more than 1,500 of its adherents. Earlier this year, a number of the sect's mainland leaders were given jail terms of up to 18 years longer than terms handed down for political dissidents.

BEIJING (AP) - In quietly convened trials, a Chinese court sentenced two sisters who helped lead the banned Falun Gong spiritual movement to six and seven years in prison and 30 other members who held a protest to terms of up to two years, a rights group reported Tuesday.
Beijing's Dongcheng District Court convicted the 32 in one-day trials in separate courtrooms last Friday, the Hong Kong-based Information Center of Human Rights and Democratic Movement in China said, citing relatives of the defendants.
China's entirely government-controlled news media have not reported the trials, and court officials refused to comment. But the trials were the capital's biggest since four leading organizers of Falun Gong were sentenced to terms of up to 18 years on Dec. 26.
Sisters Li Xiaobing and Li Xiaomei apparently had ties to those leaders. As with the four organizers, the women were members of the group's inner circle, the Falun Gong Research Association, the center said. The government claims the association controlled Falun Gong in China and worked with sect founder, Li Hongzhi, who now lives in New York.
The sisters ran a shop in Beijing that was the main place in the capital for buying Falun Gong books, tapes and other materials, and prosecutors claimed it had sold 1.8 million books, the center said. It added that they were convicted of running an illegal business. Li Xiaobing got six years in prison and her younger sister received seven years.
The other 30 people, from Beijing and Jinzhou in northeastern China's Liaoning province, were tried on the same day in a separate courtroom and convicted of using an evil cult to undermine the law, the group said.
They were sentenced to terms ranging from four months to two years for unfurling a banner in a protest in Tiananmen Square.
Falun Gong is a blend of meditation, slow-motion exercises and ideas drawn from Buddhism, Taoism and its founder, and it is believed to promote health and morality.