AFP: Swedes Protest China's Treatment of Falun Gong Followers

STOCKHOLM, Jul 5, 2001 -- (Agence France Presse) A group of demonstrators gathered at the gates of the Chinese embassy here Wednesday demanding a halt to the alleged killing of Falun Gong followers at the hands of Chinese police, Swedish news agency TT reported.

China banned the Falun Gong movement in July 1999, three months after a silent demonstration by 10,000 of the group's followers in the center of Beijing.

Since then around 120 Falun Gong followers have died in police custody, according to figures compiled by human rights groups.

"Women have been mistreated and tortured to death," said spokeswoman of the Falun Gong's Swedish branch Malin Nordstrand.

Stockholm's Chinese ambassador refused to accept a letter from the protestors, who later posted it in the embassy's letterbox. The Chinese-born Australian artist, Zhang Ciu-Ying, who has been imprisoned in Beijing four times since 1999 for being a member of the Falun Gong, was among the protestors.

"Torture and brutality occurs regularly in Chinese prisons. I was tortured everyday," she said.

Chinese authorities consider Falun Gong -- which advocates clean living and daily meditative exercise -- the biggest threat to Communist Party rule since the 1989 pro-democracy demonstrations which were crushed in Tiananmen Square.

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