Sect Marks Anniversary With Rain-Soaked Protest

Thursday, July 20, 2000

Updated at 7.30pm:

Hongkong (SCMP) - More than 100 Falun Gong members protested on Thursday outside the Central Government Liaison Offices to mark the first anniversary of the mainland's crackdown on the meditation sect, amid a growing rift within the movement.

Organizers said some 120 practitioners were at the afternoon protest with more expected for a candlelight vigil later in the evening.

Many of the demonstrators, including children, were soaked by the sporadic showers that fell as they meditated across from the iron-grilled entrance to the Happy Valley office building.

A dozen protesters accompanied by police officers crossed Queen's Road East in late afternoon to deliver a letter. But after rattling the handles of the locked doors to the liaison office, they left the message leaning against the steel-and-glass panes.

Spokeswoman Sophie Xiao said the protesters were trying to get their viewpoint across to Beijing.

''We want to send a letter to the Chinese government to explain our view on the mainland's crackdown on Falun Gong, and to tell China that we have no political aims and motivations - we just want to improve our health and general well-being,'' she said.

But despite the repeated and disciplined protests by members of the movement, cracks are appearing among the practitioners.

Ms Xiao denounced well-known Hong Kong member Belinda Pang San-san, who has allegedly fallen out with other practitioners and asserted herself as a leader of Falun Gong.

Ms Pang has put up a Web site on which she has called for the removal of the Falun Gong's US-based spiritual master, Li Hongzhi, whose whereabouts are unknown. She has reportedly suggested herself as a replacement.

Ms Xiao said she suspected some of those following Ms Pang were collaborating with the mainland's efforts to break up the sect, although she offered no proof.

Ms Pang could not be reached for comment.

A Falun Gong believer - five months pregnant, without proper visa and said to be a member of Ms Pang's faction - was recently refused entry to Kong Kong and went on an 11-day hunger strike at the airport in an unsuccessful bid to get immigration authorities to relent. She had said she wanted to join other believers to witness an anticipated manifestation of the Buddha on a Lantau mountain top.

Falun Gong is banned on the mainland but not in Hong Kong.

Among other charges, Beijing has accused the sect of contributing to the deaths of more than 1,500 followers who adhered to its principles of refusing medical care.

The SAR's Security Bureau has issued several statements since the crackdown began saying that Falun Gong members were free to practice their beliefs so long as they obeyed local laws.