Reuters: Falun Gong protesters demand China free prisoners

23 Oct 2002 18:46

LOS CABOS, Mexico, Oct 23 (Reuters) - Members of the Falun Gong, the spiritual movement banned in China, on Wednesday sat cross-legged, hands pressed together in prayer near the site of a summit in Mexico of Asia-Pacific leaders to demand Beijing stop its persecution.

The peaceful demonstration came one day after the movement said it had sued Chinese President Jiang Zemin in a U.S. court for his alleged role in the jailing of the group's followers.

Jiang was due to arrive in this luxury Mexican beach resort for a weekend summit of leaders of the Asia Pacific Economic Cooperation (APEC) group.

"We have to be a voice for the hundreds of thousands of members of the Falun Gong who have been arrested in China," said one Chinese woman, now a resident of Las Vegas, Nevada, but who declined to be identified.

"We want to make sure the Chinese government can see us," the woman said. "China is the only country where we cannot practice our beliefs."

Mexican highway police watched by the side of the road but took no action against the 20 demonstrators, all wearing their trademark yellow T-shirts printed with the slogan "China -- Free the jailed Falun Gong practitioners".

Falun Gong's U.S.-based information center said on Tuesday it had filed a suit at an Illinois court and handed Jiang's guards a legal complaint in Chicago, where he was visiting ahead of a meeting with U.S. President George W. Bush in Texas on Friday.

The activists staging the demonstration the outskirts of the smart resort town of Cabo San Lucas at the tip of Mexico's Baja California peninsula unfurled banners in Spanish reading "Truth, Compassion, Tolerance", and "The Falun Gong is good".

Falun Gong was outlawed in China in 1999 after thousands of adherents surrounded the walled leadership compound in Beijing to demand recognition of their faith, but instead shocked leaders into ordering a nationwide crackdown on the group.

Since then, the group says, more than 1,600 believers have been killed at the hands of police. The government, however, blames Falun Gong for the deaths of 1,900 people, most of whom it says committed suicide or died after refusing medical care.

Activists have urged Bush to press Jiang on human rights when the two leaders meet in Crawford, Texas this week.

Analysts say Bush is expected to soft-pedal on the sensitive issue to secure China's acquiescence to U.S. plans for possible military action against Iraq.

http://www.alertnet.org/thenews/newsdesk/N23188669