Two More Falun Gong Members Die in China Custody

BEIJING, July 19 (Reuters) - Two members of the Falun Gong spiritual group died in police custody this month, bringing to 24 the number of deaths from abuse since China outlawed the group last year, a Hong Kong human rights group said on Wednesday. The reports came as Chinese police braced for Falun Gong agitation to mark the first anniversary on Saturday of the draconian ban Communist authorities slapped on the group. The Information Center for Human Rights and Democracy said it had confirmed with relatives or fellow adherents the July 7 beating death of 44-year-old Li Zaiji and the July 12 death by apparent suffocation of 68-year-old Wang Peisheng. Both men ran afoul of the law when they cme to Beijing to petition against the ban on the group -- a fate they shared with hundreds if not thousands of other Falun Gong members. Police told relatives of Li, who came from the northeastern province of Jilin, he had perished because of dysentry in a labour camp, but his body was covered with bruises, the centre said Shandong resident Wang"s death certificate said only "sudden death," but fellow Falun Gong members in the eastern province surmised he suffocated in a densely packed cell in stifling heat, it said. Falun Gong, which combines meditation with a doctrine rooted loosely in Buddhist and Daoist teachings, was banned in China in July and later declared an "evil cult." Beijing says Falun Gong cheats its followers and blames it for 1,500 deaths by suicide or refusal to accept medical care. But China moved to suppress the movement only after it shocked the atheist Communist party with a 10,000-member protest in Beijing on April 25, 1999. China has claimed "decisive victory" over the group, but its continued nervousness is evident in a new vilification campaign launched in state media against Li Hongzhi, a Chinese former granary clerk who founded the movement and now lives in exile in New York. The government, which claims the group had two million members at its peak, says membership has dwindled to roughly 40,000. Falun Gong says it has tens of millions of followers in China and 40 other countries.