MACAU, Sept 2 (Reuters) - Four members of the Falun Gong spiritual movement staging a hunger strike in Macau on Sunday were taken to a police station for questioning and released four hours later.
A police spokeswoman said the four activists were taken away because they had not received approval from authorities to stage a protest outside the building housing China's Liaison Office in the former Portuguese colony.
A sect member at the scene, who declined to be named, said the hunger strike was aimed at putting pressure on China to release 300 imprisoned Falun Gong members on the mainland.
None of the four members detained in Macau was charged. They later joined three other sect members, who had prior approval to stage a hunger strike in a park, to continue their protest.
Although Falun Gong is not officially registered in Macau the group is not banned there, as it is in mainland China.
Independent observers believe the sect has fewer than two dozen members in Macau, which was returned to Chinese rule in December 1999.
Falun Gong leaders say more than 50,000 practitioners in China have been sent to prisons, labour camps and mental hospitals since China banned the group in 1999.
Human rights groups estimate some 200 Falun Gong adherents have died from torture during detention.
Falun Gong, branded by China as an "evil cult," was banned in 1999 after stunning top leaders with a mass protest around the Zhongnanhai leadership compound to demand official recognition of their faith.
China says the group is trying to overthrow the Communist Party and has caused the death of at least 1,800 people by suicide or refusal of medical treatment.
Falun Gong follows a mixture of Taoist and Buddhist beliefs and traditional Chinese physical exercises.
06:39 09-02-01
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