Falun Gong members exercise in Hong Kong's Victoria Park. Chinese authorities are furious that the group, banned in mainland China, is speaking out in Hong Kong, now Chinese territory.
HONG KONG – Largely adopting Beijing's line on Falun Gong but stopping short of action, Hong Kong's leader on Thursday called the group a cult whose members set themselves ablaze in China and must be closely monitored.
"Anyone who has watched the self-immolation on Tiananmen Square would be very shocked," Chief Executive Tung Chee-hwa said in a legislative question-and-answer session that sharply escalated the war of words over Falun Gong's activities in Hong Kong.
"I certainly hope that such incidents will not happen in Hong Kong, and I believe the people of Hong Kong share this view," Mr. Tung said.
"We will have to monitor them very carefully," he added. "How can we protect Hong Kong security?"
Mr. Tung did not announce any sort of clampdown on Falun Gong despite Beijing's recent demands that the group be stopped from using Hong Kong as a base.
Falun Gong is outlawed in mainland China and subjected to an often-violent crackdown there but remains legal in Hong Kong.
Falun Gong insists it is not political but is campaigning only to gain the right to practice freely on the mainland. The group has attracted millions of adherents, mostly Chinese, with its combination of slow-motion exercises and philosophy drawn from Taoism, Buddhism and the often unorthodox ideas of exiled founder Li Hongzhi.
China's battle against Falun Gong spilled over into Hong Kong last month. Local government officials let Falun Gong rent space in City Hall to hold an international conference, where followers demanded the right to practice freely on the mainland and an end to what they call torture-killings by mainland security forces.
Beijing and its allies among local newspapers and politicians were outraged to see anti-China campaigning on Chinese soil.
Mr. Tung finds himself caught between Beijing's demands that Falun Gong be stifled and vigorous arguments from pro-democracy and human rights campaigners who say Hong Kong's cherished freedoms are under threat.
The issue is one of the biggest tests yet of the "one country, two systems" government put in place when Britain returned Hong Kong to Chinese sovereignty in 1997.
The system gives Hong Kong a high degree of autonomy, and citizens enjoy Western-style personal liberties unheard of on the mainland.
Despite Mr. Tung's harsh language, he said Hong Kong will deal with the group according to the rule of law, and he avoided any mention of alleged subversion of China by the group.
He sought to allay concerns the controversy would prompt Hong Kong to swiftly enact an anti-subversion law.