BEIJING, Apr 17, 2001 -- (Agence France Presse) Two middle-aged women who refused to denounce their faith in the outlawed Falun Gong spiritual group have died in police custody in China, the [group] said Tuesday.

The women, Liu Lanxiang, 40, and Wang Aijuan, 43, were detained at separate police detention centers and died after being beaten and tortured, the group said in a press statement sent to Beijing.

Local sources confirmed the deaths, but refused to say how the women died.

"According to an inside source within the department of public security, Liu Lanxiang from Minqing county, Gansu province, was tortured to death in the No. 2 Detention Center in Lanzhou City," the Falun Gong statement said.

Liu, who was arrested in connection to a number of Falun Gong flyers and posters being posted around the northern city of Lanzhou, was beaten and tortured on numerous occasions while being held at a detention center, the statement said.

Police ordered her to reveal who was printing and distributing the flyers.

"Finally, on the evening of April 9, Ms. Liu was again beaten, hand-cuffed and then hung up by her hand-cuffs. The police in the detention center fell asleep and upon awakening, early the next morning, they found Ms. Liu dead," the group's statement said.

A worker at the Chinese Medicine Hospital where Liu worked said: "I heard she died." But the woman said she did not know how Liu died.

Police are required to inform work units of deaths of employees.

Two people who answered the phone at the detention center rejected the report.

"We're still building the detention center," said a jail employee. "We don't have any prisoners here. Even if we locked up someone, we can't tell you anything."

Wang, the other practitioner, died a few days after she was arrested on April 2 while she and other Falun Gong practitioners were putting up a banner calling for an end to the government's ban on Falun Gong, the statement said.

She was beaten at a detention center in the Fangzi district police station in Weifang city, northern Shandong province, the group said.

Her body was quickly cremated on April 8. The group said witnesses saw wounds on Wang's body.

An official at the No. 1 Cotton Mill in Weifang, where Wang worked, confirmed Wang had died.

"I heard she died of a heart attack," said the official.

Pressed further about where Wang died, he referred questions to the police.

Falun Gong's headquarters in New York claimed the two latest deaths raised to 191 the number of practitioners who have died in police custody since the group was banned by Beijing in July 1999.

The Hong Kong-based Information Center for Human Rights and Democracy has been able to confirm 114 of the deaths as of mid-February.

In many of the cases, police claim the deceased died of illnesses, not police abuse.

The group, which advocates clean-living and spiritual purity, was banned after staging an unprecedented 10,000-strong protest in Beijing in April, 1999.

The Chinese leadership considers it the biggest threat to social stability since the 1989 pro-democracy demonstrations.