China Cracks Down On Sect
Speeding a government crackdown against the banned Falun Gong spiritual movement, prosecutors in three Chinese cities have filed criminal charges against six group members, a court official and a human rights group reported Wednesday.
The spate of indictments comes less than three days after the national legislature revised the criminal law to allow harsher punishments for principal members of Falun Gong and other groups the communist government labels cults.
China's chief prosecutor's agency issued a nationwide directive Tuesday to accelerate indictments of "backbone members" of Falun Gong, the Information Center of Human Rights and Democratic Movement in China, a Hong Kong-based rights group, reported.
The move indicates that dozens, if not hundreds, of sect members rounded up since the Communist Party banned the group more than three months ago could be brought to trial quickly.
Prosecutors on Monday charged four members -- Song Yuesheng, Jiang Shilong, Chen Yuan and Liang Yulin -- with organizing a gathering by 183 Falun Gong members on Aug. 8 in southern Hainan province, the state-run China Women's News reported.
Two others -- Gu Zhiyi from southwestern Chongqing city and Cui Weirui from the eastern port city of Qingdao -- also were charged with ordering demonstrations, the Hong Kong-based center said.
Founded seven years ago by ex-government clerk Li Hongzhi, who now lives in the United States, Falun Gong combines traditional slow-motion exercises with ideas drawn from Buddhism, Taoism and Li's own theories.
It has proved widely popular, drawing by one official estimate 70 million members -- more than the 61 million people in the Communist Party.
Despite the July 22 ban, the group has proved difficult to intimidate, its members bound by zeal, careful organization and mobile phones, pagers and email.
Thousands of adherents from all parts of China seeped into Beijing over the past month and last week staged quiet protests in Tiananmen Square, embarrassing police who have been under orders to quash Falun Gong.
Police on Wednesday also questioned at least five foreign reporters who attended a secretively arranged Falun Gong news conference last week and confiscated their journalists' cards and residence permits, documents required for working in China. At least one reporter was threatened with unspecified consequences if there were more contacts with the group.
Among the Falun Gong members indicted, Song faces the harshest punishment, a minimum of seven years in jail if prosecutors convince the Intermediate People's Court in Hainan's Haikou city that his crimes were particularly serious.
He faces an additional charge for trying to escape from custody following his September arrest.
Song and his three codefendants could be put on trial within ten days, said an official at the prosecutor's office in Haikou, who gave only her surname, Lin. But, she aded, a trial date has yet to be announced.
Song's codefendants -- Jiang, Chen and Liang -- face a minimum of three years imprisonment if convicted. It was not clear what kind of punishment Gu and Cui face.