South China Morning Post: Falun Gong activist jumps to death

ASSOCIATED PRESS in Bejing

Updated at 4.19pm:

A member of the banned Falun Gong spiritual movement who was detained by police in northwestern China has committed suicide by jumping from a building, a human rights group said on Tuesday. Yao Baorong, 52, leaped from the fifth floor of a police station in Lanzhou, capital of Gansu province, during a police interrogation on Saturday, according to the Hong Kong-based Information Centre for Human Rights and Democracy.

Yao died after being sent to a hospital, it said.

The Information Centre said Yao's detention on Saturday was the latest of several for refusing to renounce her beliefs in Falun Gong, a popular form of meditation and exercise banned by the government last July.

Officials at the Anning branch of the Lanzhou police, where Yao was reportedly detained, declined comment.

The Information Centre said police and officials with the Anning district's law-and-order committee had confirmed her death.

Thousands of Falun Gong adherents have been arrested and an unknown number sent to labour camps for defying the government ban on Falun Gong. Unconfirmed reports by human rights groups and Falun Gong organisers say at least 18 members have died in police custody, either of suicide, beatings or hunger strikes.

The government has denied the mistreatment and in certain cases attributed the deaths to suicide or ill health.

The mainland outlawed Falun Gong 10 months ago, declaring it a public menace and a threat to communist rule.

Falun Gong has attracted millions of followers. It combines traditional meditation exercises with Buddhist, Taoist and the often unorthodox ideas of its founder, a former government grain clerk. Believers say it promotes health and moral living.