HONG KONG (AP) - A scuffle broke out between Falun Gong followers and police and other officials Saturday when they forcefully took banners from sect members who were staging a sit-in protest.
Meanwhile, about a dozen followers in Singapore protested a photo exhibit that portrays the movement as a dangerous cult and criticized it as unjust.
One protester grabbed a microphone and said in Chinese that the exhibition was ``rubbish,'' while others yelled at China's ambassador to Singapore, Zhang Jiuhuan.
On Saturday afternoon, about 40 Hong Kong police and some environmental hygiene officials closed in on 10 Falun Gong members, some of whom were gripping tightly onto the poles holding up two long banners outside China's representative office.
Although Falun Gong is outlawed in mainland China as an ``evil cult,'' the group remains legal in Hong Kong and in Singapore. They frequently protest against Beijing's suppression of mainland followers.
China says the group is a cult that has caused the deaths of more than 1,600 people, mostly practitioners it says were told to use meditation rather than medicine to fight illness.
Chinese leaders fear the group - which until the crackdown had tens of millions of members and a close-knit organizational structure - threatens the Communist Party's monopoly on power.
``We are here to hold a petition,'' cried 32-year-old Chow Sing, one of the protesters, as several policewomen grabbed her neck and arms to drag her away from the banners.
Police also forcibly removed other members from the protest area, while a policewoman warned them that they have violated the law. No one was arrested.
``Does Hong Kong still have the rule of law?'' shouted one protester, Chan Yick-shing, 54, who has joined the sit-in against China's detention of adherents on the mainland after work every day since August.
``Anyone could tell that the banners were petition slogans,'' Chan said. ``Their argument didn't make any sense.''
The followers later boarded an ambulance and were sent to a hospital. They accused the Chinese government of exerting pressure on Hong Kong police, but a police spokesman denied that the Chinese liaison office was involved.
Spokesman Mackenzie Mak said police received complaints from the public over the group's sit-in protest and notified the Food and Environmental Hygiene Department to follow up.
Mak said the protesters have violated the public health and municipal service ordinance by displaying banners for more than three weeks.
It was the second time police here have taken action against Falun Gong this year. In August, police arrested 10 followers for the first time and removed them from the Chinese liaison office after Chinese officials complained to the authorities.
Although the arrested Falun Gong followers were later released without being charged, they are thus far the only adherents of the meditation group to have been arrested in Hong Kong.
Falun Gong teachings draw on Buddhist and Taoist philosophies and the theories of group founder Li Hongzhi, a former government clerk revered as ``Master'' by his acolytes. Li now lives in the United States.