DATE=5/13/2000
TYPE=CORRESPONDENT REPORT
TITLE=CHINA-FALUN GONG (L)
NUMBER=2-262316
BYLINE=LETA HONG FINCHER
DATELINE=BEIJING
CONTENT=

VOICED AT:

INTRO: Chinese police have arrested at least 50 
followers of the banned Falun Gong sect in Beijing's 
Tiananmen Square. As VOA's Leta Hong Fincher reports 
from Beijing, demonstrators are celebrating the eighth 
anniversary of the birth of their movement.
 
TEXT:  Saturday's protest is the third major 
demonstration by Falun Gong followers in the last 
several weeks. Plainclothes policemen are monitoring 
Tiananmen Square closely, and rush to suppress any 
sign of defiance within seconds.  

Witnesses say the protesters are peaceful and do not 
resist arrest as they are pushed into waiting police 
vans.  But some protesters were knocked to the ground 
as they tried to raise yellow banners emblazoned with 
red characters such as "truth, beauty and endurance," 
one of the mottoes of the Falun Gong movement. Several 
people raised yellow chrysanthemums to mark the 
anniversary of their movement. Some foreign tourists 
have also reportedly been detained for videotaping the 
protests.  

The Chinese government has banned the Falun Gong sect 
for the last nine and a half months, calling it an 
evil cult.  Communist Party leaders also accuse the 
sect of causing more than 15-hundred deaths, mainly by 
members refusing medical treatment.

But followers continue to stage protests in defiance 
of the ban.  Last Thursday, dozens of sect members 
were arrested in Tiananmen Square as they marked the 
birthday of their founder, Li Hongzhi, who lives in 
exile in the United States.  On April 25th, more than 
a hundred Falun Gong followers were arrested on the 
first anniversary of a mass sit-in of ten-thousand 
people outside the headquarters of the Communist 
Party. (Signed)
  
NEB/LHF/PLM



13-May-2000 03:13 AM EDT (13-May-2000 0713 UTC)
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Source: Voice of America
.