Tuesday, December 19, 2000

REUTERS in Macau

Macau police detained and turned back pro-democracy activists and followers of the Falun Gong spiritual movement trying to disrupt this week's celebrations marking a successful first year of mainland rule over Macau.

Police turned back some 20 members of the Falun Gong group, which is outlawed in the mainland, when they arrived by ferry from Hong Kong.

The adherents were all wearing yellow tee-shirts depicting pictures of Falun Gong followers under detention in the mainland.

Macau authorities also slammed the door on Hong Kong-based human rights campaigner Frank Lu Si-qing, and the leader of the anti-Beijing April-Fifth Action Group, Leung Kwok-hung, sending them back to the territory.

Protesters said officials gave no reason for refusing their entry. ''They kept saying it was an order from the higher level,'' Mr Leung said.

Falun Gong is banned in communist China but it is still legal in the former Portuguese enclave of Macau and Hong Kong.

Police also detained some Falun Gong members who held a news conference, where they called for members jailed in China to be freed, and others who exercised in front of a main Macau casino.

Political activists and Falun Gong campaigners have vowed to disrupt a three-day visit to Macau by President Jiang Zemin to protest against Beijing's jailing of pro-democracy figures and Falun Gong practitioners.

Falun Gong spokeswoman Wong Yiu-hing said: ''Jiang Zemin is totally wrong in not letting us [our members] go to Macau. This is supposed to be one country, two systems but it's not.''

Mr Lu's Hong Kong-based human rights group wants to give Mr Jiang a letter urging Beijing to free dissidents, including veteran activist Xu Wenli, jailed in 1998 for forming China's first opposition party.

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