Sunday, May 13 4:14 PM SGT

HONG KONG (AP)--Members of the spiritual [group] Falun Gong celebrated the second World Falun Dafa Day Sunday on that portion of Chinese soil where the group pledges to thrive despite recent government pressure. Clutching flowers, balloons, and banners reading, "Celebrating World Falun Dafa Day," more than 300 members in Hong Kong cheered the introduction of Falun Gong by its U.S.-based founder, Li Hongzhi, and performed slow-motion exercises to mellow Chinese music. Afterward, they paraded from the promenade to a tourist hot-spot.

In Tokyo, about 200 followers paraded through downtown streets and held exhibitions of their meditation exercises in parks. Falun Gong in Japan has about 400 members, many of them Chinese.

The meditation [group], outlawed as an [Chinese government's slanderous term omitted] in mainland China but still legal in Hong Kong, has faced pressure recently by the government's decision to closely monitor its activities.

It claims that more than 100 of its overseas members were barred from entering Hong Kong during a recent global business forum.

"Our activities have become a symbol of the strength of freedom, human rights and the spirit of the rule of law in Hong Kong," said Kan Hung-cheung, a local Falun Gong leader. "We will be able to prosper amid greater public and overseas awareness."

Kan also said that Chinese President Jiang Zemin is responsible for the death of more than 200 Falun Gong practitioners during the often-brutal crackdown in mainland China. That is a claim that the mainland Chinese authorities have repetitively denied.

Pro-Beijing figures in Hong Kong have said Falun Gong disrupts public order with its high-profile protests [...]

Kan disputed the claim, and pledged that the group will continue to stage peaceful protests and exhibitions, and starting a weekly class to promote Falun Gong.

Critics see the Hong Kong government's tolerance of the meditation [group] Falun Gong as a crucial test for the strength of its capitalist ways and Western-style freedoms, which were guaranteed when Hong Kong was returned to China from Britain in 1997.