World

Beijing Protests Intensify

By CBSNews.com staff CBSNews.com staff

October 27, 1999 / 5:26 AM EDT / CBS

Calm protests turned violent Friday, as Chinese police dragged members of the outlawed Falun Gong movement from Tiananmen Square by the hair, kicking and beating adherents who stepped up their defiance of a government crackdown.

On the fifth day of protests, several dozen followers of the spiritual movement banned in July and declared a cult on Thursday sat down on the square in the lotus position and stayed stoically silent as police dragged them to minivans by the hair.

At least one woman had blood streaming from her head.

Â"You hear about these things happening but it is really strange to see it in real life,Â" said one German tourist. Â"We were very shocked.Â"

In previous days, the Falun Gong protests were so low key they could have gone unnoticed by onlookers. But on Friday, the adherents grew bolder.

Half a dozen women sat near the base of the pole where the national flag is raised ceremonially at dawn, clinging onto each other in pairs to make it harder for police to take them away.

Plainclothes police punched and kicked the protesters and pulled them apart by the hair, but it took several minutes to get them into waiting minivans, witnesses said.

One woman was picked up by the hair and feet and hauled onto a minivan as a crowd of up to 200 people, including foreign tourists, gathered to watch.

Soon afterwards, a group of about 25 sat down in the lotus position facing a giant portrait of Mao Zedong.

Police struggled for several minutes to drag them onto minivans, kicking, punching and dragging men and women by the hair in front of a crowd of several hundred people.

Â"I don't think they should be treated this way,Â" one Chinese bystander said. Â"I know Falun Gong is illegal, but some of these people were very old and none of them tried to fight with police.Â"

Three middle-aged women, one with a very young child on her lap, were also hauled to their feet by the hair, kicked and beaten after they too sat down in the lotus position.

The woman with the child had blood pouring from her head as she was dragged onto a minivan.

The child, aged about two, was left alone screaming until a plainclothes policeman reunited mother and child on the van.

Throughout Beijing, Police have arrested at least 3,000 group members this week from every part of China except Tibet, a Communist Party source said.

Falun Gong -- a mixture of Buddhism, Taoism, meditation and breathing exercises -- claims millions of members.

Hundreds, possibly thousands have come to Beijing, usually by car to avoid identity checks at railway stations and airports. They stay in safe houses Â– or on the streets -- to avoid similar checks at hotels.

Â"We've been forced to sleep on the streets, under bridges, along avenues, passageways, with the possibility of arrest at any time,Â" said Qu Dehong, who with his wife and 11-year-old son, left teir Jidong county home in the chilly northeast for Beijing nearly six weeks ago.

The protests by ordinary folk in Tiananmen Square, the political heart of China, are highly unusual. That they are being sustained is extraordinary.

On Thursday, members took another, almost equally extraordinary step, by calling a clandestine news conference and appealing for international help.

Beijing says the movement Â"seduces, brainwashes and blackmailsÂ" and vowed to show no mercy.

Â"To be merciful or tolerant to a cult is to trample citizens' human rights,Â" an official said Thursday.

In May, more than 10,000 adherents suddenly turned up to squat outside the Chinese leadership compound in the center of Beijing to demand official recognition.

But the communist leadership was jolted by the groupÂ's ability to mobilize so many in secret and considered the movement a threat.