Hundreds of Falun Gong followers in Hong Kong are expected to hold a public gathering on Saturday to mark the first World Falun Dafa Day.
But, according to group spokesman Kan Hung-cheung Falun Gong is still awaiting the green light from police.
At least 200 practitioners here are due to turn up at the gathering, likely to be held at a park. But it is not known if devotees from other parts of the world _ including the mainland _ will come.
``We don't encourage or invite Falun Gong followers on the mainland to attend Saturday's gathering because we understand their difficult situation,'' Mr Kan said, adding that no mainland practitioner had contacted them by yesterday.
He said the group had submitted an application to hold the gathering to the police last Thursday, and they expected approval to be given no later than tomorrow.
According to Mr Kan, the aim of the assembly is to celebrate the eighth anniversary of the founding of Falun Gong by its leader, Li Hongzhi, who lives in the United States.
``We will practise Falun Gong together at the gathering on May 13 _ the first World Falun Dafa Day. We hope more people could understand the movement,'' he said.
Mr Kan, a businessman who became a Falun Gong follower in May 1996, said the local Falun Gong community wanted to publicise the fact that Beijing had been cracking down on mainland practitioners since last July.
``We hope to solve any problem through peaceful dialogue,'' he said.
There are about 500 Falun Gong followers in the SAR, who usually practise meditation and breathing exercises at 30 sites each day, according to Mr Kan.
Taiwan's Falun Gong branch will also hold its own activities this weekend to mark the occasion.
``May 13 is the eighth anniversary of Master Li Hongzhi spreading Falun Gong,'' Taiwan Falun Gong spokesman Wu Ching-hsiang said.
``To show that Falun Gong is not an evil cult and to seek support from peace-loving peoples around the world, Falun Gong practitioners in the US, Germany, France, the United Kingdom, Australia, Singapore and Hong Kong have decided to make May 13 World Falun Gong Day. On that day, Falun Gong members all over the world will celebrate,'' he said.
More than 400 Taiwan Falun Gong members will gather in the central city of Taichung on Saturday and Sunday to practise and to express support for their fellows on the mainland.
There are 10,000 Falun Gong practitioners in Taiwan, who meet daily in parks and squares to practise their meditative exercises.
GENEVA, May 9 (Reuters) - The U.N. Committee against Torture urged China on Tuesday to investigate fully all allegations of torture and abolish administrative detention.
Its diplomatically-worded conclusions, issued after a two-day examination last week of China's record, fell far short of condemning Beijing.
The committee, composed of 10 independent experts, expressed concern about the ``continuing allegations of serious incidents of torture, especially involving Tibetans and other national minorities.''
The committee welcomed China's continuing moves to bring its domestic legislation into line with the 1987 U.N. Convention against Torture, which it ratified a year later.
But it called for further reforms to incorporate the pact's definition of torture into domestic law. Human rights training should be provided for law enforcement officers, it said.
Rights groups charge that torture and ill-treatment occur frequently in administrative detention, where inmates are in legal limbo for up to three years with little chance of redress.
In a statement, Amnesty International criticised the U.N. committee for omitting reference to ``numerous cases of torture leading to death'' during secret or incommunicado custody.
The London-based rights group called on China to eliminate torture, which it alleges is widespread despite what it called Beijing's ``official whitewash'' of the problem.
Amnesty also regretted that the committee failed to address ``attempts by the Chinese authorities to suppress information on torture by imprisoning those who report it.''
``Despite these major gaps, the committee's recommendations, if fully implemented, would be a significant contribution toward the elimination of systemic torture in China,'' Amnesty said.
Human Rights in China also accuses the world's largest country of widespread torture, including ill-treatment of detained members of the banned spiritual movement Falun Gong.
Spokesmen for the U.S.-based group said they regretted that the committee failed to denounce China for allegedly allowing evidence extracted by torture to be heard in court and for forcing women to undergo abortions and sterilisations.
Qiao Zonghuai, China's ambassador to the United Nations in Geneva, said that some of the committee's conclusions were based on ``totally unfounded'' allegations by non-governmental organisations.
He invited committee members to visit China to ``see the reality of the situation,'' but made no reference to the U.N. special rapporteur on torture. That investigator, British law professor Nigel Rodley, has been seeking a visit for one year.
Yu Ping, of the New York-based Human Rights in China group, told a news briefing: ``Under China's legislative system, evidence obtained through torture is still used in the courts. The committee didn't pay enough attention to this.
``Women in China are particularly vulnerable to torture, especially in family-planning programmes where there are enforced abortions, sterilisations, illegal detentions and sometimes monetary fines,'' he added. ``We wish that the Committee against Torture had highlighted these problems.''
Ngawang Drakmargyapon, of the Tibet Bureau for U.N. Affairs in Geneva, which represents the government-in-exile of the Dalai Lama, said more than 30 Tibetans had died as a result of torture in prisons since the committee last took up China in 1996.
BEIJING: China claimed a triumph over "evil" Monday, the first anniversary of NATO's bombing of the Chinese Embassy in Yugoslavia, and said the communist government would keep hostile international forces at bay.
In Beijing, there were no signs of the violence that erupted after the bombing last year. Then angry mobs gathered outside the U.S. Embassy and 20 other cities shouting anti-American slogans and hurling chunks of concrete and jars of ink. "We've got a nice quiet spring day in Beijing, for which we are grateful," US Ambassador Joseph Prueher said walking out of the renovated embassy compound, which a year ago was besieged, its front paint-smeared, its windows shattered.
Embassy spokesman Bill Palmer said China was asked to supply additional security for the anniversary. Five or six extra police were stationed in streets outside the embassy for the bombing anniversary - May 7 Belgrade time, but May 8 in Beijing.
But the mission's consular section remained open. Dozens of people patiently waited as usual for visa appointments on the sidewalk across the street. "Visiting the United States for business or to visit family has nothing to do with the bombing," said Zhang Wei, among those waiting in line. "That doesn't mean we have forgotten. We are still angry. If you'd been there and felt the atmosphere, you would have felt like throwing stones, too."
"It's an event that neither the people in the United States nor the people in China can forget," said Ambassador Prueher. "This is an event that occurred that is part of the fabric now of the US-China relationship. So we must deal with it."
The attack sent China-US relations to their lowest point in a decade and prompted an outburst of patriotism that the ruling Communist Party has seized to bolster its own hold on power.
"In this contest between justice and evil and between truth and power politics, we launched a firm struggle and won a major victory," the People's Daily, the party newspaper, said in a front-page editorial that was carried in all national newspapers.
"Why we can achieve triumph in opposing the hegemonic acts by the U.S.-led NATO lies in the fact that the Chinese people have stood up. The Chinese nation has become stronger and more prosperous," it said.
China adamantly opposed NATO's war with Yugoslavia over Kosovo and it still accuses the United States and other Western powers of bullying - or what China calls "hegemonism" - and interfering in the internal affairs of less powerful nations.
"International hostile forces continue to put pressure on China and engage in westernizing China," the editorial said. "As long as we maintain social stability under the firm leadership of the Communist Party of China, China will be stronger day-by-day and no forces can do anything harmful to us."
The authorities enforce tight controls on dissent and other policies intended to keep stable a populace dissatisfied by widespread corruption and job insecurity. Universities that last year organized buses from campuses to the embassy district were ordered to keep students under control.
Heightened security in recent weeks prevented members of the banned Falun Gong spiritual movement from carrying out plans for a large protest. Four Falun Gong followers held their arms aloft in a mediation pose beneath the giant portrait of Mao Tse-tung that overlooks Tiananmen Square. Police grabbed the arms of the three middle-aged women and a man and led them into a nearby van.
Despite its small size, the demonstration showed that Falun Gong members remain defiant of a 9 1-2-month government ban on the group. In contrast, most Chinese were either too busy, too indifferent or too scared of government reprisal to mark the anniversary of the embassy bombing with protests.
"That was last year's event," said Zhang Weijing, a middle-aged woman applying for a visa to visit family in the United States. "We should have more contact with America, not less."
About 30 members from a Falun Gong splinter group meditated at the Po Lin Monastery on Lantau yesterday in a show of defiance ahead of the movement's eighth anniversary. The group, which has separated from the mainstream Hong Kong Association of Falun Dafa, held a demonstration session from 10am to 5pm outside the temple near the Big Buddha.
accompany overseas followers to locations in Hong Kong to exercise before Thursday's anniversary. Anniversary events will include a march from Causeway Bay to Central.
"This is to raise awareness of the suppression of our activities on the mainland," Ms Pang said. The anniversary marks the supposed 48th birthday of movement founder Li Hongzhi, a date mainland officials have disputed because it is also the Buddha's birthday. Mr Li lives in the United States. The mainstream association issued a statement last week which distanced itself from Ms Pang's activities.
AFP -- A REPORT alleging widespread and systematic use of torture in China will be tabled at the United Nations on Tuesday.
The 10-member UN Committee Against Torture is reviewing the mainland's compulsory periodic progress report on its moves to eradicate torture.
Hong Kong Amnesty International China researcher Catherine Baber said the committee was particularly concerned about the level of deaths in police custody.
``Although the use of torture has been prohibited for three decades and has been a criminal offence in some circumstances since 1979, the gap between law and practice is still very wide,'' Ms Baber said.
``China has to be more transparent about how it deals with this.
``There is no justification for punishing people who speak out against this sort of thing,'' she said.
Falun Gong spokeswoman Hui Yee-han said 16 of their members had died in police custody on the mainland since the Central Government declared the group a cult in September last year.
``We hope the UN can help us so we are not persecuted,'' she said.
Ms Hui said Hong Kong members would publicly celebrate the first World Falun Dafa Day in SAR parks next Saturday.
``We hope to hold this day every year to proclaim to the world that Falun Gong is a good way,'' she said.
``We want to tell Hong Kong citizens about our group and show them the ordinary public practises Falun Gong.''
Ms Hui said mainland members had been directed not to take part publicly in the celebrations because they feared another crackdown.
Although Falun Gong is banned on the mainland, it is still legal in Hong Kong and its activities are permitted as long as they comply with local laws.
An Amnesty International statement yesterday called on the UN Committee Against Torture to condemn China's use of torture in police stations, detention centres, prisons, ``re-education through labour'' camps and repatriation centres.
``Torture and ill-treatment are not only carried out behind closed doors,'' the statement says. ``It is inflicted in public as a humiliation and a warning to others.
``Reports of torture increase during periodic `strike hard' campaigns when police are given the green light to use every means to achieve quick results.
``Officials frequently deny responsibility for deaths in custody, and in many cases, there is no autopsy, with police acting swiftly to cremate bodies before a full investigation is possible,'' the Amnesty International statement says.
More than 30 local and overseas Falun Gong followers held a group practice session on Saturday opposite the Central Government's Liaison Office in Wan Chai in a show of defiance and solidarity.
The session marked the start of a week-long international conference in Hong Kong to celebrate the eighth anniversary of the movement's creation and the 48th birthday of its founder, Li Hongzhi, who now lives in the United States.
Organisers said the conference aimed to enhance global practitioners' advancement as a whole, and to promote the importance of defending the movement.
The Falun Gong movement was banned on the mainland after more than 15,000 sect members surrounded the Communist Party's Zhongnanhai leadership compound in Beijing in a mass protest April last year.
The conference has been subject to controversy as it is being organised by a splinter group of the movement from which the mainstream group, Hong Kong Association of Falun Dafa, has publicly distanced itself.
A report alleging widespread and systematic use of torture in China will be tabled at the United Nations on Tuesday.
The 10-member UN Committee Against Torture is reviewing the mainland's compulsory periodic progress report on its moves to eradicate torture.
Hong Kong Amnesty International China researcher Catherine Baber said the committee was particularly concerned about the level of deaths in police custody.
``Although the use of torture has been prohibited for three decades and has been a criminal offence in some circumstances since 1979, the gap between law and practice is still very wide,'' Ms Baber said.
``China has to be more transparent about how it deals with this.
``There is no justification for punishing people who speak out against this sort of thing,'' she said.
Falun Gong spokeswoman Hui Yee-han said 16 of their members had died in police custody on the mainland since the Central Government declared the group a cult in September last year.
``We hope the UN can help us so we are not persecuted,'' she said.
Ms Hui said Hong Kong members would publicly celebrate the first World Falun Dafa Day in SAR parks next Saturday.
``We hope to hold this day every year to proclaim to the world that Falun Gong is a good way,'' she said.
``We want to tell Hong Kong citizens about our group and show them the ordinary public practises Falun Gong.''
Ms Hui said mainland members had been directed not to take part publicly in the celebrations because they feared another crackdown.
Although Falun Gong is banned on the mainland, it is still legal in Hong Kong and its activities are permitted as long as they comply with local laws.
An Amnesty International statement yesterday called on the UN Committee Against Torture to condemn China's use of torture in police stations, detention centres, prisons, ``re-education through labour'' camps and repatriation centres.
``Torture and ill-treatment are not only carried out behind closed doors,'' the statement says. ``It is inflicted in public as a humiliation and a warning to others.
``Reports of torture increase during periodic `strike hard' campaigns when police are given the green light to use every means to achieve quick results.
``Officials frequently deny responsibility for deaths in custody, and in many cases, there is no autopsy, with police acting swiftly to cremate bodies before a full investigation is possible,'' the Amnesty International statement says.
BEIJING (AP) - China has banned books by a popular exercise and meditation sect, expanding a crackdown against quasi-religious groups, a human rights group said Friday.
Bookstores were ordered to destroy copies of nine books published by Zhong Gong, said the Hong Kong-based Information Center for Human Rights.
Zhong Gong is one of a series of meditation and religious groups attacked in a crackdown whose best-known target is the Falun Gong sect.
China's leaders see such groups, which have tens of millions of followers, as a threat to communist rule.
It wasn't clear how widely Zhong Gong books have been distributed, but the group claims as many as 38 million followers.
Zhong Gong is one of many schools of qi gong - traditional Chinese slow-motion exercises meant to improve health and spirituality by focusing unseen forces.
The Information Center and Zhong Gong say nearly 600 of its followers have been detained since the government banned it in October.
GENEVA (AP) - China defended its rights record Friday, telling a U.N. human rights panel it banned the Falun Gong spiritual movement ``according to law'' and rejecting allegations that Chinese prisoners are tortured.
Responding to questions from the U.N. Committee Against Torture, Chinese officials also defended ``re-education through labor,'' saying the practice ``has redeemed many people and prevented them from sliding further down the road to crimes.''
The U.N. panel is reviewing China's periodic report on its compliance with a 1984 convention against torture. The panel is to issue its conclusions Tuesday.
Human rights groups in China have said beatings, forced labor, bad food and poor medical care are common in Chinese prisons. While top Chinese officials have expressed opposition to the use of torture, such policies are often not enforced at the local level, the groups say.
The government has allowed the media to report some torture cases, though officials withhold information about cases involving political prisoners and people linked to the Falun Gong movement.
China banned Falun Gong last July, rounding up its leaders and warning adherents to renounce the movement or risk punishment. It says the group is politically motivated and caused the deaths of hundreds of people who avoided medical care due to their beliefs.
``As a responsible government, the Chinese government cannot and should not sit idly and tolerate the cult Falun Gong endangering society and bringing harm to our people,'' Chinese Ambassador Qiao Zonghuai said.
China ``banned it according to law,'' Qiao said. ``As for the handful of Falun Gong plotters, organizers and core members who engaged in illegal activities ... the judicial organs in China have cracked down on them according to law.''
He also denied that prisoners were tortured in China.
The Chinese delegation insisted all prisoners in China enjoy equal treatment, adding ``the allegation that the Chinese government applies torture in areas inhabited by ethnic minorities is scandalous.''
Several hundred mainland followers of a Buddhist sect defied a tough crackdown on their group and crossed into Hong Kong to attend a rally attended by almost 3,000 followers in the government-owned Hong Kong Stadium.
This was disclosed yesterday by the Hong Kong-based Information Centre for Human Rights and Democracy, which said the mainlanders ``risked dangers'' as a result of their trip.
The Guang Yin Method's Taiwan-based leader was among the participants at the unpublicised rally, held on Tuesday, the rights group said.
The sect, which has a branch in Hong Kong, spread to the mainland in 1992 and.
claims to have half a million believers there. It is one of several groups, including the Falun Gong, Zhong Gong and 14 Christian groups, that has been branded an ``evil sect'' by Beijing.
A Hong Kong government spokeswoman said the venue had been rented to a registered group in accordance with the law and there was no question of ``increasing tensions'' with Beijing.
Liza Chow, a member of the Supreme Master Ching Hai International Association.
_ the Hong Kong branch _ said about 2,700 members attended the rally in the stadium between 7pm and 9pm on Tuesday. They also included followers from other Asian countries such as Indonesia.
Ms Chow said the sect's guru from Taiwan, the Supreme Master Ching Hai, a woman, made a one-hour speech and later answered participants' questions.
She said the sect's Hong Kong centre had provided detailed documents to the SAR government when applying to use the stadium and the government had endorsed their application as expected.
The government spokeswoman said the group was legal in the SAR.
``It is not a matter of increasing tension (with Beijing), we do everything by the law,'' she said.
Under Leisure and Cultural Services Department rules, any organisation that holds activities at the stadium has to be registered in Hong Kong.
``They would have had to meet certain requirements for holding a gathering, for instance football games can only be held at certain venues, and management would have to check whether it's suitable,'' she said.
The rights information centre said the mainland followers risked danger as Beijing has launched a severe crackdown on the sect.
Ms Chow said they had no figures on how many participants came from the mainland.
About 250 mainland tourist groups entered Hong Kong on May 1 as the mainland started a one-week Labour Day holiday.
The information centre said Beijing had listed the Guan Yin Method as an ``evil cult'' because of its anti-communist beliefs and worship of its guru.
Ye Xiaowen, Director of the State Council's Bureau of Religious Affairs, said.
in December that the Guan Yin Method and the underground Christian Full Circle Church were evil cults posing dangers to society, the rights group said.
Rejecting the accusation, Ms Chow said: ``Only those that teach people suicide or immoral acts are evil sects. Ours is not.''
The Buddhist sect preaches a clean life with high moral and spiritual pursuits and practises meditation and breathing exercise. All followers must be vegetarian and not involved in any work that involves taking of life.
Last July Beijing launched a nationwide crackdown on the popular Falun Gong spiritual movement labelling it as the biggest threat to social stability and.
the communist regime since the 1989 Tiananmen protests.
Political commentator Johnny Lau said the Tuesday gathering did not represent.
a fresh conflict between the SAR government and Beijing as the Falun Gong had.
conducted similar gatherings in recent months.
Recent political problems on the mainland illustrated Beijing's deep and continuing weaknesses and suggested a government that was uneasy with the outside world and with its own society, a report by the International Institute for Strategic Studies says. The annual Strategic Survey of worldwide security problems said Beijing was facing several difficult domestic and international problems that the leadership was struggling to cope with. But the report by the London-based institute said it was curious that Beijing saw the most potent social challenge to its rule as coming from the Falun Gong spiritual movement. The issue had acquired an international dimension as Beijing had demanded the extradition of the movement's leader from the United States and because of the concerns shown by foreign human rights groups.
"The sect's success at spreading its message at home and abroad, and the nervous and ham-fisted response by the regime, including Jiang Zemin personally, showed how far the Communist Party's capacity to control society had been diluted," it said.
The mainland's sluggish economy continued to cause concern, although if Beijing managed to achieve World Trade Organisation (WTO) membership, it would be seen by the outside world as a welcome augury of positive change. But WTO membership would also raise uncertainties about how the largely uncompetitive economy would cope.
"Membership will stimulate forces in society that threaten to further erode the leadership's grasp on power and at the same time Beijing will have to face continued challenges from Taiwan," the report said.
But the director of the institute, John Chipman, said Beijing's handling of relations with Taiwan further reflected a lack of confidence by the island's leaders in Beijing. "China's many political problems illustrated China's deep and continuing weaknesses and collectively they suggest a regime that is uneasy with the outside world and with its own society," Mr Chipman said.
"The country's leadership has become obsessed with the activities of the Falun Gong sect. It is concerned by the impact of WTO entry on domestic stability and is becoming more reliant on nationalism to keep the respect of some of its people."
Beijing's impatience in dealing with Taipei had constrained its options and reflected political leaders felt they were vulnerable because of a lack of progress, he said. "Relations across the strait have become so strained and the possibility of misunderstanding so acute that it is vital that the G8 [Group of Eight] heads of government address the need for dialogue," Mr Chipman said.
The upcoming G8 meeting in Okinawa should be used as an opportunity for the world powers to call on both sides to renew their official talks to achieve a common understanding on how peace across the strait could be maintained.
"While the PRC [People's Republic of China] considers this issue to be an internal matter, stability between China and Taiwan is of international concern. Given the escalating war of words, it is essential that the world's major powers meeting in Asia urge both to restart their official dialogue," he said.
What Is Falun Gong? See "Falun Gong 101", by Massimo Introvigne
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