BEIJING, July 5 (Reuters) - China said on Thursday three followers of the banned Falun Gong spiritual group died and eight were saved in a mass suicide attempt at a labour camp.
The statement by Foreign Ministry spokeswoman Zhang Qiyue followed a report from a Hong Kong-based rights group on Tuesday that 16 people attempted suicide at the Wanjia Labour Camp on June 20 and 10 of them may have died.
Falun Gong followers based overseas denied on Wednesday there had been a mass suicide and said more than 15 female followers were tortured to death around June 20 at the camp in Harbin, capital of the northeastern province of Heilongjiang.
Zhang told a news conference the 11 women, detained for "disrupting social order," tried to hang themselves with ripped sheets.
"Eleven female Falun Gong practitioners at a women's dormitory in Harbin's Wanjia Labour Camp attempted suicide in the early hours of June 21," she said.
"Camp guards on duty immediately rushed the women to hospital for treatment, where three of them died and the rest were revived and declared safe," Zhang said.
In January, five people identified by Chinese officials as Falun Gong followers set fire to themselves on Tiananmen Square in an apparent mass suicide attempt. A mother and her 12-year-old daughter died.
Falun Gong followers denied the five were adherents.
SENTENCES EXTENDED
The Hong Kong-based Information Centre for Human Rights & Democracy said the Falun Gong adherents at Wanjia tried to hang themselves after their sentences were extended for staging a hunger strike.
But the Falun Dafa Information Centre said they were beaten and tortured, and could not have committed suicide as they were under 24-hour surveillance.
Falun Gong says it does not sanction killing of any sort, including suicide.
China says the group is an "evil cult" responsible for the deaths of 1,660 people by suicide or refusing medical treatment. It says a handful of Falun Gong followers have committed suicide or died from illnesses while in police custody.
"This again shows that Falun Gong is an evil cult that destroy lives," Zhang said of the labour camp incident.
"The legal rights of inmates at labour camps are consistently protected by Chinese laws and there were no such things as persecuting and abuse against them as rumours had it," she said.
Followers outside China say more than 200 Falun Gong adherents have died in Chinese police custody since Beijing banned the movement in July 1999.
Falun Gong, also known as Falun Dafa, combines meditation and exercise with Buddhist and Taoist teachings. The group has disavowed any any political aims.