WIRE:01/26/2000 08:45:00 ET

HONG KONG (AP) _ A practitioner of the Falun Gong sect has died while on hunger strike in Chinese police custody in the southern city of Guangzhou, a newspaper reported Wednesday.

Another Falun Gong believer died while in custody in a police station in suburban Beijing, a rights group said.

The Hong Kong Standard quoted Falun Gong adherents as saying Gao Xianmin was held in a criminal detention center in Guangzhou after being arrested Dec. 31 during a picnic lunch with 10 other members of the sect banned in July by China's communist government.

Some of the Falun Gong practitioners went on a hunger strike but were forced to drink salt water, according to information the Standard said it got from a friend of Gao, Hu Hui. The Hong Kong-based Information Center of Human Rights and Democratic Movement in China said Gao went on the hunger strike to protest being severely beaten and tied up by police.

Gao was taken on Jan. 17 to a hospital but his heart had stopped when he arrived, the Standard said. It quoted a Falun Gong practitioner from Hong Kong, Kan Hung-cheung, as saying Gao died "from circulation and breathing failure."

Gao began practicing Falun Gong in 1994 and had already been jailed for 15 days after demonstrating in Beijing last summer, the newspaper said.

In Beijing, Liu Zhilan, a Falun Gong believer at the Changgouyu coal mine, was detained Jan. 10 after she tried to submit a petition to authorities in the capital, the Information Center said in a statement.

Police at the Zhoukoudian station forced Liu to clean their offices, and she died from breathing gas while resting in the station's furnace room Jan. 14, the Information Center's report said.

Police at the station Wednesday refused to comment.

China's communist leadership banned Falun Gong because it feared that its widespread appeal and organizational ability could threaten Communist Party authority. Thousands of Falun Gong adherents have since been arrested and some jailed for as long as 18 years.

Falun Gong remains legal in Hong Kong, where adherents frequently hold demonstrations and complain about treatment of practitioners on the Chinese mainland.

See: http://abcnews.go.com/wire/World/ap20000126_719.html

Note from Minghui editor:
We appeal to the media to avoid pejorative terms in its coverage including "sect," "cult," "mishmash" as well as the term "mystical." Falun Gong is an advanced, traditional Chinese Qigong practice designed to improve the mind and body through exercise and meditation bringing people toward wisdom and enlightenment