HONG KONG, July 3 (Reuters) - Sixteen followers of the Falun Gong spiritual movement attempted mass suicide last month in a labour camp in China and 10 may have died, a Hong Kong human rights group said on Tuesday.
The 16 hanged themselves in Harbin city in the northern province of Heilongjiang on June 20 after their sentences were extended for staging a hunger strike, the Information Center for Human Rights & Democracy said in a statement.
Communist authorities have been keeping the case secret, the group said.
About 30 Falun Gong practitioners in the labour camp began a hunger strike on June 15 to protest against the frequent beatings of the movement's adherents there. As a result, the camp lengthened their terms of imprisonment by three to six months.
A family member of one of those who had been rescued, told the information centre 10 had died in the incident.
Chinese policemen confirmed to the group there was a mass suicide and "many people" died.
The Hong Kong group said 153 Falun Gong practitioners have died because of persecution by the Chinese government since Beijing banned the movement in July 1999.
More than 10,000 Falun Gong adherents have been sent to labour camps since the crackdown, it said.
Overseas-based Falun Gong activists put the death toll in Chinese police custody at more than 200.
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 died of suicide or neglected illnesses while in police custody.