BEIJING - Demonized in the press and driven underground by relentless police pursuit, Falun Gong is turning to a new tactic in its fight against the Chinese government's ban on it: mass phone calls.
In a pair of identical phone messages received Tuesday evening at The Associated Press office in Beijing, a recorded woman's voice denounced the ban and called the spiritual movement a force for good in the world.
"Please remember that Falun Gong is about truthfulness, benevolence and forbearance," the voice said.
It wasn't known where the call originated or how many people received the message Tuesday night.
Levi Browde, a Falun Gong spokesman in New York, said he had heard of individual Falun Gong members making such calls before, sometimes using recorded messages.
"They are trying to tell a little bit of the truth, because, we all know we're not going to get much airtime within China," Browde said in a telephone interview.
The call came one day after the government accused Falun Gong followers overseas of hijacking a peak-hour satellite television broadcast last month to briefly air propaganda. State television and official newspapers seized on the reported June 23 broadcast to launch new broadsides against the group.
The incident "again reveals the 'Falun Gong' evil cult organization's anti-humanity, anti-science, anti-social cult base nature," the Xinhua News Agency said in a report Tuesday whose tone was typical of the commentaries.
Browde said he had no information on the source of the broadcast.
China's communist government banned Falun Gong in 1999, calling it a cult that cheated members and drove hundreds to commit suicide or murder others. Falun Gong says it is a form of spiritual cultivation drawn from Chinese tradition and promotes health and morality.
The Chinese leadership has arrested and imprisoned hundreds of Falun Gong members during a crackdown in which Falun Gong claims over 400 of its members have died from torture and maltreatment while in police custody.
Over the past year, public protests against the ban by Chinese followers have largely been stamped out. Yet hardcore members have continued to defy the ban by stuffing letter boxes with promotional materials, using e-mail to keep in contact with other followers and hijacking cable television broadcasts to air pro-Falun Gong clips.
The phone message repeated Falun Gong's claims of brutal repression and accused the government of staging the January 2000 self-immolation of Falun Gong followers in Beijing's Tiananmen Square. Falun Gong has made that claim repeatedly with limited effect on a Chinese public that was outraged by the event.
"Never before has there been a tragedy like this in 5,000 years of Chinese culture," the voice on the message said, rising for dramatic effect.
The message also gives listeners an option of hearing more information about the crackdown or listening to a song about the group.
"Please remember Falun Gong is good and thank you for listening," the five-minute message ends.