Falun Gong Protesters Arrested
More than 100 Falun Gong protesters who were marking a massive demonstration a year ago were arrested by Chinese police Tuesday.
Despite swarms of plainclothes officers and uniformed police who patrolled the vast square, small-scale protests erupted in all directions, with all sorts of protesters.
One group of 15 people sat down together to meditate and were pulled to their feet and pushed into a minibus.
Police quickly tackled four people who unfolded a banner, punching one man in the face. A middle-aged woman was muzzled by police and pulled backward as she tried to yell. A group of at least six other women, all carrying children in their arms, were bundled into a van on the square's edge.
"The Great Way of Falun is good," shouted one protester, leaning out of a police bus window, with his fist raised.
Adding to the chaos were throngs of Chinese and foreign tourists who excitedly ran across the square to glimpse the rare acts of civil disobedience. Police tried separating sect followers from tourists.
The protests materialized swiftly. Much of the square was closed off early Tuesday so the Kazak defense minister could lay a wreath at the Monument to the People's Heroes in the plaza's heart. The protests erupted soon after the square reopened.
Compared to last year's demonstrations, Tuesday's arrests, sometimes violent, were larger than usual. Police rushed from one part of the square to another putting a stop to the outbursts.
On April 25 last year, 10,000 followers surrounded the communist leadership's compound near Tiananmen, meditating in silence for a day to protest official harassment.
During that protest, police kept their distance. But the group's ability to mobilize followers alarmed Chinese leaders.
President Jiang Zemin ordered a crackdown. In July, Falun Gong was officially banned, its leading members arrested and its rank-and-file told to cease or face jail.
Falun Gong attracted millions of followers with its blend of traditional beliefs, slow-motion exercises and the ideas of founder Li Hongzhi, a former government grain clerk who now lives in New York. Followers say Falun Gong promotes health and good citizenship.
Since last April, 35,000 followers have been detained, with another 5,000 sent without trial to labor camps, a New York-based spokeswoman for Falun Gong said in a statement.
Others have died in custody since the ban, a Hong Kong-based group, the Information Center for Human Rights and Democracy said.
Recently, police in the eastern city of Shouguang beat to death 40-year-old practitioner Li Huixi and cremated his body without first informing his family, the group said Tuesday.
But according to the government, detained practitioners have died from suicide or health problems, but not from official mistreatment.
Authorities says Falun Gong is an evil cult that threatened public order and Communist Party rule. It also says the movement has caused 1,559 deaths among folowers.
On Tuesday, the government declared victory again against the group, but said foreign supporters, which it did not identify, were keeping the movement alive.
In response to the suppression and a smear campaign in state media, Falun Gong followers have staged daily protests in Tiananmen Square -- a difficult feat in the most sensitive part of the tightly controlled capital.