HONG KONG, May 13 (Reuters) - Followers of the Falun Gong rallied in Hong Kong on Sunday to mark the ninth anniversary of the founding of their spiritual movement and to protest against its harsh suppression in mainland China.
Some 300 adherents, clad in yellow t-shirts bearing the slogan "China, stop persecuting Falun Gong" performed ritual exercises and sat in the lotus position along a waterfront promenade.
Human rights groups which monitor Beijing's crackdown on the movement say some 50,000 people have been detained across China because of their connection with the movement and that more than 100 have died of abuse in police custody.
The Chinese government has branded the Falun Gong, which practises meditation exercises and bases its teachings loosely on Taoism and Buddhism, an "evil cult" and banned it outright on the mainland.
But the movement remains legal in the former British colony of Hong Kong, which was was promised a high degree of autonomy when it was handed back to China in mid-1997.
Members complained however that immigration officials denied entry to Hong Kong to almost 100 overseas Falun Gong followers who had hoped to take part in the demonstration.
Beijing's Tiananmen Square, the scene of protests by Falun Gong followers in the past, remained calm.
Anyone attempting to protest there since the the movement ws banned in July 1999 has been swiftly seized by police. A group of people said by authorities to be Falun Gong followers set fire to themselves in the square in January.
Two years ago 10,000 Falun Gong followers surrounded the compound housing China's communist leadership compound in Beijing to protest against vitriolic attacks on the group in state media.
SECT FORCED OUT OF SIGHT IN CHINA
Since then the group has been bludgeoned into submission on the mainland or driven deep underground, but according to adherents it is flourishing elsewhere.
"It's been nine years and it has spread to 40 countries and to over 100 million people. This is really a blessing," a spokeswoman for the Falun Gong in Hong Kong, Sophie Xiao, told Reuters.
There were nearly twice the number at the Hong Kong rally as atttended a similar event last year. After a three-hour meditation session, the participants marched to a park and then distributed leaflets around the city.
Last week, the group staged a protest to coincide with a visit to Hong Kong by Chinese President Jiang Zemin, who they blame for suppressing the movement.
In a separate case, a Hong Kong-based human rights group said a Chinese court had thrown out an appeal by an ethnic Chinese New York acupuncturist jailed in China for espionage.
Teng Chun-yian was sentenced to three years in prison last December for "supplying state intelligence to spies outside of the territory."
A Beijing court decided to uphold the original ruling on Friday, the Information Center for Human Rights & Democracy said in a statement.
The centre said Chinese authorities had arrested Teng in Beijing last May for gathering information and taking photographs of detained Falun Gong members being sent to psychiatric hospitals and rehabilitation centres.
08:13 05-13-01
Copyright 2001 Reuters Limited.< All rights reserved.