Reuters: HK Falun Gong Calls for China to Halt Crackdown

Friday August 24 8:19 AM ET

HONG KONG (Reuters) - About 100 Hong Kong disciples of the Falun Fong spiritual movement on Friday called for the release of practitioners kept in Chinese jails and labor camps and for an end to Beijing's persecution on the group.

Dressed in their trademark yellow tee-shirts, they marched through the streets of the former British colony and handed in petitions at government offices and at Beijing's local representative office.

They said they would mount a hunger strike on Saturday to support some 300 practitioners presently on hunger strike and languishing in Chinese labor camps.

''There are about 300 Falun Gong practitioners who have been on hunger strike for over three weeks in three labor camps,'' said Hui Yee-han, a spokeswoman for the movement in Hong Kong.

Falun Gong is banned in Beijing as an ''[Jiang Zemin government's slanderous term omitted]'' but it is legal in Hong Kong, which was promised a high degree of autonomy when it reverted to Chinese rule in 1997.

The spiritual movement says over 50,000 practitioners have been thrown into prisons, labor camps and mental hospitals around China where they are mentally and physically abused.

Human rights groups estimate some 200 Falun Gong adherents have died from torture during detention in China.

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