China's top religious leaders have warned foreign countries against meddling in domestic affairs on the pretext of upholding religious freedom.
The leaders are from the five major religions recognised by China Buddhism, Taoism, Islam, Catholicism and Protestant.
They met in Beijing to prepare for the Millennium World Peace Summit, to be held from August 28-31 in the United States and of which China is a participant.
The leaders warned of the dangers of American "hegemony' and rejected international criticism that China lacked religious freedom.
Fu Tieshan, the Bishop of Beijing, who will lead the Chinese delegation at the Religious Summit, warned against the possble presence of the banned Falungong sect at the summit.
He says all of the religions and the conference, will be tarnished if they are given the authority to attend.
SYDNEY, Aug. 17 (Kyodo) - Australia raised concerns about China's treatment of Falun Gong practitioners and reports of harassment of the sect's followers in Australia during bilateral talks in Canberra this week, Foreign Minister Alexander Downer said Thursday.
Downer said the issue was raised during the fourth round of annual human rights talks that ended Wednesday night.
Some Australian followers of Falun Gong -- a Chinese sect combining religious teachings with meditation and exercise -- have made complaints to local media that they have been harassed and put under surveillance by Chinese diplomatic officials here.
''We obviously wouldn't want to see harassment of any Australian citizens in Australia or for that matter anywhere by any embassies or diplomatic officials,'' Downer told reporters.
''We raised these concerns...with the Chinese not only in the past couple of days but also back in May,'' he said.
Earlier this week China's embassy in Canberra issued a statement rejecting the charges of harassment and claiming Falun Gong activities in Australia were damaging relations between the two countries.
''Falun Gong practitioners gathered on many occasions for long periods of time in the front of the Chinese Embassy in Canberra and the consulate general in Sydney to cause trouble, seriously interfering with the normal work of the Chinese diplomatic missions,'' the statement issued Tuesday said.
About 100 Falun Gong followers staged a peaceful protest outside the Department of Foreign Affairs and Trade building in Canberra during the human rights talks.
China has accused the "heretical" Falun Gong sect of damaging Sino-Australian ties and interfering with the work of its diplomats in Australia through protests and demonstrations.
The Chinese Embassy in Canberra yesterday dismissed as a "pure fabrication" a Herald report that Australian security services and police were monitoring suspected Chinese Government harassment of Falun Gong followers in Australia.
In a statement, an embassy spokeswoman, Ms Ren Xiaoping, said the movement's followers in Australia had "widely distributed the propaganda materials of Falun Gong heresy" and spread rumours that the Chinese Government persecuted and tortured the sect in China.
"All in all, what the Falun Gong organisation is currently doing in Australia is clearly politically intentioned and is damaging Sino-Australian relations," she said. "It is an out-and-out heretical cult which is anti-science, anti-humanity and anti-society in nature."
On the eve of top-level human rights talks between China and Australia, a spokesman for the Minister for Foreign Affairs, Mr Downer, confirmed yesterday that the Australian Government had raised the issue with Chinese authorities.
However, he said Mr Downer had refused to answer questions put to him by the Herald about the diplomatic exchange and harassment of the sect in Australia.
"The minister's only response is: 'My department has discussed this matter with the Chinese Embassy as long ago as May. It has denied being involved in any such activity'," he said.
Mr Downer yesterday cancelled a joint press conference he planned to hold in Canberra with the leader of the visiting human rights delegation from Beijing, Chinese Vice-Foreign Minister, Mr Yang Jiechi. Mr Yang also cancelled a press conference scheduled for last night.
The Herald has interviewed Falun Gong followers from Sydney and Canberra who have been approached by the Australian Security Intelligence Organisation and the Australian Federal Police and warned that a campaign of harassment was under way.
The Herald has also confirmed that Chinese diplomats contacted local government authorities, including Hurstville and Blacktown councils, asking for the sect to be denied access to community facilities.
China has banned Falun Gong, a sect combining elements of Eastern philosophy, exercise and mediation, after the movement shocked the authorities with co-ordinated protests and demonstrations throughout the country.
The Australian Government will protest over the persecution of the group at today's human rights talks. The protest will include the detention of two Australian citizens in Guangzhou.
Human rights watchdogs Amnesty International and the Australia Tibet Council yesterday condemned the secrecy surrounding the closed talks. Amnesty spokesman Mr John Greenwell said China's human rights record had deteriorated since 1998.
"In the past few years, we have seen tens of thousands of arrests, detentions and expulsions of those daring to exercise their fundamental rights of freedom of opinion, belief, association and assembly," he said.
The Howard Government switched to the private human rights talks rather than public criticism of China's abuses in a bid to improve ties with the Beijing leadership.
CANBERRA, Aug 16 Asia Pulse - The Chinese Embassy has claimed that Australia's tolerance of Falun Gong sect members was damaging relations between the two countries.
A spokesman for the Embassy, Xiaoping Ren, issued a statement rejecting media reports that police were monitoring suspected Chinese harassment of the sect members in Australia.
"The truth, to the contrary, is that Falun Gong practitioners gathered on many occasions for long periods of time in the front of the Chinese Embassy in Canberra and the General Consulate in Sydney to cause trouble, seriously interfering with the normal work of the Chinese diplomatic missions," the statement said.
"This is quite rare in the world."
China announced a crackdown on the sect last year and there have been reports that many thousands of followers have been detained.
The embassy's statement accused Falun Gong followers of distributing propaganda and "heresy" in Australia and spreading rumours that the Chinese government had arrested, detained and tortured Falun Gong members on a large scale.
The statement said that what the Falun Gong organisation was currently doing in Australia clearly had politic intentions and was damaging Sino-Australian relations.
The group was not a harmless religious organisation but a cult which trapped and doped its followers, it said.
The statement comes as China's Vice-Foreign Minister Yang Jiechi heads a delegation for talks in Canberra this week, in which Australia is expected to raise the question of human rights in China.
BEIJING - A local leader of banned Chinese meditation group Zhong Gong has been sentenced to two years in prison, and police are questioning more than 20 other members, a human-rights group said yesterday.
Wang Xuemei, a Zhong Gong organizer in the southern city of Guangzhou, was charged with disturbing social order, said the Hong Kong-based Information Center for Human Rights and Democracy. It said Wang appeared in the Tianhe District Court in Guangzhou in late July without a lawyer or relatives.
Chinese leaders launched a crackdown on Zhong Gong shortly after banning the better-known Falun Gong in July 1999. Both groups have attracted millions of followers, including some senior government and military officials, with a mix of exercise and meditation.
Chinese authorities have banned the groups as a threat to communist rule. According to the rights center, about 600 Zhong Gong organizers have been detained, and 3,000 businesses linked to the group have been shut down. State media criticize Falun Gong and Zhong Gong as fraudulent and dangerous.
Last month, Zhong Gong founder Zhang Hongbao escaped to Guam, a U.S. territory, where he is seeking asylum. China has asked for his extradition, accusing him of leaving the country illegally and other crimes.
The Clinton administration is facing a potentially explosive decision on granting political asylum for Zhang.
On June 16, the U.S. Immigration and Naturalization Service indicated it would grant him asylum. But a final decision has been delayed since the Chinese Embassy in Washington requested July 16 that Zhang be denied asylum and returned to China.
Founded in 1987, Zhong Gong is similar to Falun Gong, the Buddhist-style meditation and exercise group that was banned by Chinese officials in July 1999 after a protest in Beijing by 10,000 members. Chinese officials refer to Falun Gong as a cult and have indicated to U.S. officials that the sect may threaten Beijing's ability to govern China.
Zhong Gong, which means "Chinese gymnastics for the cultivation of the body and the spirit," claims 38 million members, while Falun Gong claims 70 million members.
Tens of thousands of Falun Gong supporters have been arrested, according to human-rights groups, and more than 100 sentenced to severe prison terms. At least 27 Falun Gong followers have died in detention in the past year, according to the Hong Kong human-rights group.
U.S. officials want to support religious freedom and freedom of expression in China, particularly since Beijing's crackdown on Falun Gong.
The Clinton administration rejected Chinese requests, for example, to arrest Falun Gong leader Li Hongzhi, who lives in New York. But Li was never accused or suspected of criminal charges unrelated to freedom of speech or religion.
The vehemence of China's insistence that Zhang Hongbao be returned to China also has prompted fears of an overreaction by Beijing if he is allowed to stay in the United States - an overreaction that could complicate passage of the historic U.S.-China trade deal that is still pending before the Senate.
The trade legislation, passed by the House in May, would open China's markets to U.S. goods in exchange for granting Beijing permanent normal trade status with the United States.
CANBERRA, Aug 16 (Reuters) - Australian followers of China's outlawed FalunGong spiritual group urged a visiting Chinese human rights delegation on Wednesday to stop what they say is harassment of its members in Australia.
Their allegations have been denied by the Chinese Embassy.
A spokesman for Australian Foreign Minister Alexander Downer said the issue of harassment of Australian followers had already been raised with the Chinese Embassy in Canberra.
``My department has discussed this matter with the Chinese Embassy as long ago as May. It has denied being involved in any such activity,'' Downer said through his spokesman.
About 100 of an estimated 2,000 Falun Gong practitioners in Australia staged a peaceful protest outside the Department of Foreign Affairs and Trade (DFAT) where Australian and Chinese officials were holding their fourth annual human rights dialogue.
``This is a peaceful appeal for the Australian government to urge the Chinese government to stop persecution of Falun Gong in China and Australia,'' Tony Dai, a Falun Gong follower from Sydney, told Reuters.
Dai said practitioners of Falun Gong in Australia had been harassed by Chinese officials stationed here, with strange telephone calls, stalking and even car break-ins.
``The Chinese Embassy is trying to persuade us to give up Falun Gong,'' he said.
Falun Gong, which combines meditation with a doctrine based loosely on Buddhist and Daoist teachings, was banned in China in July 1999 after rattling the Communist Party with a 10,000-strong protest in Beijing seeking official recognition.
China's crackdown on followers of the movement has drawn widespread criticism from Western governments for violating U.N. anti-torture and human rights treaties.
Practitioners and human rights groups say tens of thousands of group members have been arrested or detained since the ban and 5,000 sent to labour camps without trial. At least 24 members have died in police custody.
AUSTRALIA RAISES CONCERNS OVER FALUN GONG
Australian officials said they would raise concerns with China over its human rights record, particularly treatment of Falun Gong followers, during talks on Wednesday and Thursday with Chinese officials, led by vice-foreign minister Yang Jiechi.
Australian officials declined to comment on media reports that Australian security services and police were monitoring suspected Chinese government harassment of Falun Gong followers in Australia as the department never comments on security issues.
A DFAT spokesman said 32 Australians had been detained in China related to Falun Gong activities since last November but were then released and deported.
However two Australians returned to China without visas and were arrested in early March and sentenced to eight months jail earlier this month. They were due for release in November.
China accused the Falun Gong sect of damaging Sino-Australian ties and interfering with the work of its diplomats in Australia through protests and demonstrations.
Authorities in south China are stepping up a crackdown on Zhonggong -- a group similar to the banned Falungong spiritual movement -- increasing the imprisonment or interrogation of its members, a Hong Kong-based human rights group said on Tuesday.
Like Falungong, Zhonggong promotes moral virtue and clean living through traditional Chinese breathing and meditation exercises and adherence to its founder's philosophies.
Wang Xuemei, a Zhonggong leader in Guangzhou, was sentenced to two years in prison in late July by a court in the city, capital of Guangdong province, according to the Information Center for Human Rights and Democracy.
She was imprisoned for "disturbing social order," the center said.
Also in July, Sun Guifang, a leading Zhonggong member in the city of Shenzhen just north of Hong Kong, was detained while carrying a list containing the names of hundreds of the movement's followers, according to the center.
In the last month more than twenty of the people on the list have been interrogated by police, asked questions such as when they started practising Zhonggong, and where they go for their exercises.
For members with access to computers, police have been looking into their use of the Internet and written down their email addresses, the center said.
Zhonggong followers recently appealed to the United States to grant political asylum for their leader Zhang Hongbao, who is being detained as an illegal immigrant in Guam where he fled in January.
Zhang, who founded the quasi-religious group in 1987, fears he faces the same danger as Falungong leader Li Hongzhi, who lives in New York and is wanted by Chinese authorities.
Zhonggong, which had an estimated 38 million followers in 1990, but now may boast many more, is considered as big a threat as Falungong by the Chinese government.
Following a protest by 10,000 Falungong members in 1999, authorities banned the group and began turning their attention on similar movements.
In the past year, 600 Zhonggong training center leaders have been detained without trial and 3,000 businesses set up by Zhonggong have been shut down nationwide.
The Chinese leaders see such spiritual groups as the biggest threat to their rule since the student uprising in 1989 which culminated in a bloody massacre in Beijing's Tiananmen Square.
Chinese diplomats denied Tuesday they were harrassing Falun Gong sect members in Australia.
"The truth, to the contrary, is that Falun Gong practitioners gathered on many occasions for long periods of time in the front of the Chinese Embassy in Canberra and the General Consulate in Sydney to cause trouble, seriously interfering with the normal work of the Chinese diplomatic missions," a spokesman for the Chinese Embassy, Xiaoping Ren, said in a statement.
"This is quite rare in the world."
China announced a crackdown on the sect last year and there have been reports that many thousands of followers have been detained.
The embassy's statement accused Falun Gong followers of distributing propaganda in Australia and spreading rumours that the Chinese government had arrested, detained and tortured Falun Gong members on a large scale.
The statement said that what the Falun Gong organisation was currently doing in Australia was clearly politically-intentioned and was damaging Sino-Australian relations.
The group was not a harmless religious organisation but a cult which trapped and doped its followers, it said.
The statement comes as China's Vice-Foreign Minister Yang Jiechi heads a delegation for talks in Canberra this week, in which Australia is expected to raise the question of human rights in China.
Australian security services and police are monitoring suspected Chinese harassment of Falun Gong sect members in Australia as the Howard Government prepares to open human rights talks with Beijing on Wednesday.
Officers from the Australian Security Intelligence Organisation (ASIO) and the Australian Federal Police (AFP) have contacted Falun Gong devotees in Sydney and Canberra to warn them of the campaign.
Chinese diplomats have also been involved in attempts to curtail the activities of the sect in Sydney and Canberra with pressure put on local governments to deny members the use of community facilities.
Chinese diplomats have warned Blacktown and Hurstville councils that the sect, banned and persecuted in China, is destructive and should be discouraged.
It is understood that Blacktown Council has continued to allow the group to take part in its community activities and use its facilities.
Falun Gong followers in Australia say they have been followed by people who appeared to be Chinese, have had their telephones tapped, and property and vehicles damaged.
They believe the Chinese Government has identified followers in Australia, because they could not get visas to visit China.
China's Vice-Foreign Minister, Mr Yang Jiechi, will lead a delegation to talks in Canberra this week where Australia will protest over the crackdown on Falun Gong in China and other human rights abuses.
However, a spokesman for the Department of Foreign Affairs and Trade refused to answer questions on the harassment of the movement in Australia or confirm that diplomatic protests had been lodged with Beijing over these activities.
The AFP did not return the Herald's calls.
A Campsie Falun Gong instructor, Mr Li Qizhong, said the harassment appeared to be concerted. "We know in China these things happen, but this is Australia."
A number of sect followers confirm that ASIO and AFP officers have approached them, and were grateful that the officers appeared to be aware of the harassment.
Mr Li, who said his car was broken into and sect literature stolen, believes it is clear that the Australian authorities are aware of the campaign. "They know what is going on."
A Canberra sect follower, Ms Jasy Fu Luanqing, said she had complained when her telephone kept cutting out when she was talking with fellow Falun Gong members.
BEIJING (AP) - A local leader of banned Chinese meditation group Zhong Gong has been sentenced to two years in prison, and police are questioning more than 20 other members, a human rights group said Tuesday.
Wang Xuemei, a Zhong Gong organizer in the southern city of Guangzhou, was charged with disturbing social order, said the Hong Kong-based Information Center for Human Rights and Democracy.
It said Wang appeared in the Tianhe District Court in Guangzhou in late July without a lawyer or relatives.
Chinese leaders launched a crackdown on Zhong Gong shortly after banning the better-known Falun Gong in July 1999. Both groups have attracted millions of followers, including some senior government and military officials, with a mix of exercise and meditation.
Chinese authorities have banned the groups as a threat to communist rule. According to the Information Center, about 600 Zhong Gong organizers have been detained, and 3,000 businesses linked to the group shut down. State media criticizes Falun Gong and Zhong Gong as fraudulent and dangerous.
Last month, Zhong Gong founder Zhang Hongbao escaped to Guam, a U.S. territory, where he is seeking asylum. China has asked for his extradition, accusing him of leaving the country illegally and other crimes.
Also last month, police arrested a Zhong Gong organizer in the city of Shenzhen, bordering Hong Kong, and seized a list naming more than 20 other participants, the Information Center said.
Followers were then questioned about where they practiced and to whom they had sent e-mail.
Falun Gong has used e-mail extensively to organize protests in defiance of ongoing efforts to crush the group. The extent of Zhong Gong's use of e-mail is unknown.
HONG KONG, Aug 15 (Reuters) - China has sentenced a member of the banned Zhong Gong meditation group to two years in jail for ``disturbing society order,'' a Hong Kong-based human rights group said on Tuesday.
The Information Centre for Human Rights & Democracy in China said in a statement Wang Xuemei, who was arrested last November, was sentenced in late July.
Wang was one of the leaders of the Zhong Gong group in the southern Chinese city of Guangzhou, it said.
The human rights group also said Sun Guifang, one of the group's leaders in Shenzhen, was arrested by police last month.
It said Sun had a list of several hundred Zhong Gong members in the southern Chinese city and that more than 20 of the members on the list had been questioned by police in the past month.
Zhong Gong was banned last year along with the better-known Falun Gong.
The Information Centre said more than 600 Zhong Gong members had been detained by the Chinese authorities since the crackdown.
Its leader, Zhang Hongbao, is in U.S.-administered Guam seeking political asylum in the United States. Zhang fled to Guam in February.
The case forces an awkward choice on the U.S. between sending the meditation guru home to political persecution and possible execution and giving a home to a fugitive China says has committed unspecified ``criminal offences.''
SYDNEY, Aug. 15 (Kyodo) - A fourth round of annual human rights talks between Australia and China began Tuesday amid tension over China's treatment of Falun Gong practitioners and Australia's support for the proposed U.S. national missile defense (NMD) system.
Australian Foreign Minister Alexander Downer met Chinese Vice Foreign Minister Yang Jiechi in Canberra to formally launch this year's talks.
The meeting proper will take place Wednesday, with Yang leading the Chinese delegation and Deputy Secretary Miles Kupa of the foreign department leading the Australian side.
Australian officials have foreshadowed a difficult meeting during which they will raise what they perceive to be ''negative developments'' in human rights in China over the last year.
''I'm thinking here of what we see as some negative developments in the treatment of religious groups, be they Catholics, be they Tibetans (or) be they evangelical groups, and the treatment also of dissidents, groups like the Chinese Democracy Party,'' said a senior foreign department official on the condition of anonymity.
Also up for discussion will be the treatment of members of the banned Falun Gong sect, tens of thousands of whom have been detained since the sect was banned by Chinese authorities in July last year.
''The way the Chinese authorities have treated the practitioners of Falun Gong does raise issues, in our view, of freedom of expression and freedom of association and freedom of assembly,'' the official said.
This year's talks also take place against the backdrop of tension between Australia and China over NMD.
Although not on the agenda of the human rights talks, the official said Yang would undoubtedly raise the issue in separate talks with Australian government officials before his departure Aug. 18.
China has already lodged diplomatic protests both in Beijing and Canberra over Australian support for research into U.S. missile defense shields, he said.
China vigorously opposes the U.S. proposal to build defense shields to protect both the U.S. mainland and U.S. allies in Asia against missile attacks from ''rogue states.''
The human rights dialogue was first held in Beijing in August 1997 after Australia agreed to abandon its support for an annual U.S. resolution critical of China at the U.N. Commission for Human Rights.
What Is Falun Gong? See "Falun Gong 101", by Massimo Introvigne
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