BEIJING, China - China has postponed sentencing six students arrested for posting articles on the Internet about the banned Falun Gong movement, days before President Bush is due in Beijing, a rights group said Tuesday.
A district court in the southern city of Zhuhai charged the students from Beijing's prestigious Tsinghua University last September with "using evil cult to undermine the enforcement of law," the Hong Kong-based Information Center for Human Rights and Democracy said.
The charge carries a maximum punishment of 15 years in prison, but the sentencing, originally set for soon after the Chinese Lunar New Year holidays ended on February 18, was postponed, probably until March, it said.
Bush is due in Beijing Thursday for talks with his counterpart Jiang Zemin and Premier Zhu Rongji and is scheduled to deliver a speech at Tsinghua Friday which will be broadcast live on national television.
The United States has long criticized China's human rights record and expressed concern about the government's suppression of Falun Gong.
Center spokesman Frank Lu said in the statement the delay was probably because of Bush's visit.
Court officials in Zhuhai were not immediately available for comment.
The students were arrested in November 2000 in Zhuhai for posting articles protesting against the government's crackdown on Falun Gong, the Center said.
It said they were among more than 300 Tsinghua students and faculty members who had been detained, put into labor camps or handed prison terms for Falun Gong related activities since the Communist Party launched its high-profile crackdown on the group three years ago.
In December, China jailed six other academics for downloading material on Falun Gong and distributing it over the Internet.
The Information Center said Beijing's Number One Intermediate Court sentenced the six, including four graduate students from Tsinghua, to jail terms of three to 12 years.
China has cracked down on Falun Gong, a mixture of Taoism, Buddhism and traditional Chinese physical exercises, since branding it an "evil cult" and banning it in 1999.
The banned group's U.S.-based information center says more than 1,600 followers have died as a result of abuse in police custody or detention centers.
Chinese authorities have acknowledged several deaths of Falun Gong members in custody, but say most resulted from suicide or illness. They blame the group for the deaths of at least 1,800 people through suicide or the refusal to take medical treatment.