WASHINGTON, Sept 6 (Reuters) - A handful of Falun Gong followers started a walk across America on Thursday in their latest effort to draw attention to the plight of practitioners they say are held and persecuted in labor camps in China.
The latest protest by the Falun Gong spiritual group, outlawed in China as an evil cult, drew about 25 practitioners to the U.S. Capitol building in their trademark yellow T-shirts.
The walk, which follows on from a hunger strike scheduled to end on Thursday in front of the Chinese Embassy, aimed to call for the release of practitioners jailed for violating the ban.
The group has intensified its activities overseas in recent months and has staged walks and hunger strikes in several countries and cities including Hong Kong, Macau and New York.
Chinese government officials have denounced the events as ploys to recruit new members as the group loses credibility.
Falun Gong says more than 50,000 practitioners have been sent to prisons, labor camps and mental hospitals since China banned the group in 1999.
Human rights groups estimate some 200 Falun Gong adherents have died from torture during detention in China.
Chinese authorities, meanwhile, have acknowledged several deaths of Falun Gong members in custody, but say most resulted from suicide or illness.
Most of the walkers who set out on Thursday planned to stop after three days to a week but one, David Lee Jerke, planned to go all the way to Los Angeles, a 3,000-mile (4,829 km) journey. He hopes other followers will join him along the way.
"I tell you, this is not a political issue, nor is this a Chinese issue. This is a human issue, and these are crimes against humanity," Jerke said in a speech.
Among the practitioners being held is Teng Chunyan, a permanent U.S. resident sentenced to three years in a labor camp whose case has been raised with Beijing by the administration of President George W. Bush.
Falun Gong, also called Falun Dafa, mixes traditional Chinese exercises with Taoist and Buddhist elements of meditation and philosophy. Its practitioners extol its powers of healing both physical and emotional ailments.
China says the group is trying to overthrow the Communist Party and has caused the death of at least 1,800 people through suicide or refusal of medical treatment.
Beijing banned the movement in 1999 after it staged a mass protest around the Zhongnanhai leadership compound to demand official recognition.
17:05 09-06-01
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