HONG KONG (AP) - The Falun Gong sect said Monday that 10 overseas practitioners have been barred from entering Hong Kong and accused officials of turning them away to hinder planned protests during a visit by Chinese President Jiang Zemin.
Hong Kong Falun Gong spokeswoman Hui Yee-han said two women - Briton Xia Ze and an Australian citizen whose full name was not yet known - were stopped at the airport early Monday and told it was for security reasons.
They were still being held at the airport around midday, but eight other people stopped over about the past week, including two from the United States, have all been deported, Hui said.
``We have every reason to believe there is a blacklist,'' she said.
An Australian Consulate spokesman confirmed that an Australian citizen from Melbourne has been denied entry to Hong Kong and was waiting to be deported.
The official, using customary anonymity, said he could not reveal any details about the woman's identity because of privacy concerns.
Hong Kong authorities have said no one has been stopped at the border because of Falun Gong membership.
Hong Kong Immigration spokesman Chan Chi-kin said the department would neither release official figures of the number of people refused entry into Hong Kong nor comment on individual cases.
About 15 Taiwanese Falun Gong followers, who were among 110 due to arrive on five different flights Monday, said they entered Hong Kong without any problems.
``Everything went smoothly,'' said Justine Huang, the leader of the Taiwanese practitioners.
They intend to demonstrate against Beijing's often-violent crackdown on Falun Gong in mainland China while Jiang is in Hong Kong for a 3-day global economic conference that begins Tuesday.
The spiritual group has accused Hong Kong police of ``trying to cover up different voices'' by only allowing the practitioners to practice their meditation exercises well away from the Global Fortune Forum.
The conference has drawn many dignitaries, including Jiang and Bill Clinton, and police have imposed tight security measures in and around the venue in the past few days.
Authorities said there will be 3,000 police on hand, compared with 2,000 when Britain returned Hong Kong to China in a massive handover ceremony in 1997.
While she complained that Falun Gong's meditation exercises will hardly be seen or heard by Jiang, Sophie Xiao, another spokeswoman for the sect, said the group will adhere to the guidelines set down by authorities during demonstrations.
``Of course they want to keep us away from the convention site. We will do our practice within the sites they require,'' she said.
Despite being outlawed and often severely suppressed in mainland China, Falun Gong is still permitted in Hong Kong - where citizens enjoy Western-style freedoms of speech and religion that are holdovers from British colonial days.
Falun Gong's plans to protest during Jiang's visit have created a delicate situation for the territory's government, which has escalated its rhetoric against the sect but taken no against it.