BEIJING - China on Friday denied a human rights group's claim of mass roundups and detentions of followers of the banned Falun Gong spiritual group, saying the report was "without basis."
The Information Center for Human Rights and Democracy claimed on Thursday that 2,000 Falun Gong followers had been detained in the northern city of Changchun in recent weeks and more than 150 thrown into reform through labor camps.
The Hong Kong-based group said the crackdown came after March 5, when Falun Gong supporters plugged into cable TV transmissions in Changchun and nearby Songyuan and aired programs attacking government propaganda against the group.
The pirate broadcast, which cut into prime-time programming for close to an hour, was among the most audacious acts of defiance by Falun Gong against the often-brutal three-year-long government campaign to crush it.
Qi Yongli, a spokesman for the State Council Information Office in Beijing, said just nine people have been arrested thus far over the incident. They have been charged with sabotaging public telecommunications equipment and endangering public security, he said.
"The claim that 2,000 people have been arrested and 150 put in labor camps is without basis," Qi said in response to a faxed Associated Press request for information.
China's government banned Falun Gong in July 1999 as a threat to public order and the Communist Party's political monopoly. Thousands of followers have been detained, and the movement claims at least 400 have died in detention.
The government denies killing followers but says some have committed suicide, or died in hunger strikes or by refusing modern medicine.