STOCKHOLM, Feb 22, 2001 -- (Agence France Presse) The European Union will press China to respect the rights of followers of Falun Gong and other religious and political movements in two days of EU-China talks that began here Thursday, Swedish officials said.

Swedish Foreign Ministry spokesman Bertil Jobeus told AFP the Falun Gong issue would come up in the meetings, which were to focus on human rights, freedom of expression and religion, the death penalty and torture.

He said the basis for the discussions was a list of top priorities drawn up by EU foreign ministers in Brussels in January.

Those priorities included the need to press China to show "respect for the fundamental rights of all prisoners, including those arrested for membership of the political opposition, unofficial religious movements and other movements, such as the Falun Gong."

The Chinese government views the Falun Gong, which claims 70 million adherents in China alone, as the biggest threat to Communist Party rule since the 1989 Tiananmen democracy protests.

It banned the movement as an "[Chinese government's slanderous phrase]" in July 1999, three months after it gathered 10,000 followers for a silent protest at the Communist Party headquarters in Beijing.

Falun Gong members, who follow the [...] teachings of guru Li Hongzhi, who lives in exile in the United States, insist they have no political agenda and members are taught how to attain high moral standards and physical well-being through meditation.

At Thursday's talks, "the Chinese and EU delegations are expected to discuss China's cooperation with the United Nations, in particular regarding China's ratification of human rights conventions," Jobeus said.

The EU delegation was headed by ambassador Thomas Hammarberg of Sweden, which currently holds the EU's six-month rotating presidency, while the Chinese side was represented by Li Baodong, a foreign ministry official in charge of human rights.

The EU wanted to see ratification and implementation of the UN covenants on civil and political rights, Jobeus said, and cooperation with "human rights mechanisms" including the Office of the UN High Commissioner for Human Rights.

It would also call for respect for the right to fair and impartial trials, and for the right of an accused to be defended, and was seeking "guarantees to strengthen legal protection with regard to the death penalty," he said.

Jobeus said he also expected the situation in the autonomous regions of China, which include Tibet and Xinjiang, to be discussed.

Such EU-China meetings are held every six months within the framework of the EU-China dialogue on human rights.

((c) 2001 Agence France Presse)