BEIJING (Reuters) - Police detained about 40 Western members of the Falun Gong spiritual group Thursday after they briefly threw Tiananmen Square into chaos with scattered protests against a crackdown on their faith, state media and witnesses said.
Clusters of demonstrators unfurled yellow banners and shouted "Falun Gong is good!" in a bid to highlight China's campaign against the banned movement ahead of a visit to Beijing by President Bush in a week.
Several of the protesters, mostly young men and women, sprinted across the vast plaza waving banners and screaming slogans as hundreds of uniformed and plainclothes police officers chased after them.
Police tackled demonstrators to the ground, kicking and punching some of them in the face, before wrestling them into police vans, witnesses said.
Astonished Chinese tourists, sightseeing on the square in the heart of Beijing for the Chinese Lunar New Year holidays, crowded round to watch as almost every Westerner on the square was detained for protesting.
Altogether, the drama lasted about 15 minutes.
"Members of various countries decided to go there to expose the truth about the persecution of Falun Gong in China," said Gail Rachlin, a spokeswoman for Falun Gong in New York.
"There are innocent people being tortured and persecuted," she told Reuters. "We want President Bush to bring up this issue in his meeting with President Jiang Zemin ."
TURMOIL IN BEIJING'S HEART
The official Xinhua news agency said police had detained more than 40 foreign Falun Gong followers "who agitated for the evil cult and produced uproars" on the square.
China banned Falun Gong as an "evil cult" in 1999.
"This turmoil at the center of the Chinese capital was aimed to undermine the happy atmosphere of the Spring Festival, the traditional family reunions for the Chinese," it said.
The detainees continued to shout slogans and practice Falun Gong -- a blend of meditation and traditional Chinese breathing exercises -- after they were taken to a local police station, witnesses said.
It was the second demonstration this week by Western Falun Gong members in Tiananmen and security on the square was unusually tight, with police officers checking foreigners' identity papers and searching their bags.
China expelled a Canadian and an American follower of the movement Tuesday, one day after they too protested in the square.
Rachlin said 14 more Western followers of Falun Gong were seized by police from their Beijing hotel rooms overnight and seven of those detained Thursday were from Germany.
All the protesters were Westerners and several were from Britain, she said.
There was no immediate comment from the British and German embassies or from the Chinese government.
China expelled 35 foreign Falun Gong members after they protested on the square in November and another Canadian woman for a Falun Gong protest there last month.
CHINESE PROTESTS DIE DOWN
Once frequent protests by Chinese members of Falun Gong have all but dried up in the last year.
Their cause was dealt a harsh blow on the eve of Lunar New Year last year, when five alleged Falun Gong members, including a 12-year-old girl and her mother, set themselves ablaze in the square. The girl and her mother died of their injuries.
Falun Gong has denied any involvement.
But the government has used graphic footage of the incident and the perpetrators' horrific burns in a nationwide media campaign to discredit the group.
It has also jailed leaders for subversion and sent thousands more to "re-education through labor" camps, according to Falun Gong and rights groups.
Falun Gong says more than 1,600 followers have died as a result of abuse in police custody or detention centers.
The government says only a handful have died and those were from suicide or natural causes. It blames Falun Gong for the deaths of at least 1,900 people through suicide or refusing medical treatment.