Friday | December 22, 2000

Associated Press

BEIJING - In an unusual display of support for a follower of the banned Falun Gong movement, hundreds of mourners attended the funeral Wednesday of an adherent who died after suffering severe neck injuries that police are accused of inflicting.

Despite the official view that Falun Gong [...], hundreds of Zhao Xin's friends and relatives gathered at a cemetery Wednesday in west Beijing, including five busloads of people from the university where she taught.

The 32-year-old lecturer died Monday, six months after she and 20 other Falun Gong followers were arrested after practicing their slow-motion exercises in a Beijing park - an act prohibited since the Chinese government banned the group in July 1999.

Up to three dozen uniformed and plainclothes police kept watch Wednesday inside and outside the cemetery but did not turn mourners away. Foreign reporters were ordered away and trailed by officers, apparently to deter mourners from giving interviews.

Besides Ms. Zhao, at least 74 other Falun Gong followers have died in detention during the sustained 17-month government crackdown on the [group], according to a Hong Kong-based rights group that has tallied the reported deaths. Falun Gong says the number is much higher.

The government has denied any mistreatment of detained Falun Gong members and says it is protecting society by outlawing the group.

Ms. Zhao, an assistant professor at Beijing's Industry and Commerce University, had practiced Falun Gong for two years and been repeatedly arrested during the crackdown after joining protests against the ban on the group, said Falun Gong followers in the United States.

After her last arrest June 19, Ms. Zhao refused to tell police her name or where she worked and began a hunger strike, the U.S.-based adherents said.

On June 22, detention center guards sent Ms. Zhao to a hospital with three fractured neck vertebrae, minor head injuries and breathing problems, the adherents' statement said. After surgery and three months of hospital treatment, she was moved home because her family could not afford the medical fees. She died Monday evening, the U.S.-based adherents said.

They disputed police claims that Ms. Zhao fractured her neck by banging her head against a wall.

Authorities have detained tens of thousands of followers, sending up to 5,000 to labor camps, rights groups said.

In a vitriolic campaign in the state-run media, the government has claimed that Falun Gong founder Li Hongzhi [...].

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