Thursday, 14 February, 2002, 10:46 GMT

Chinese police have arrested more than 40 foreign followers of the banned Falun Gong spiritual movement attempting to hold a protest in Beijing's Tiananmen Square.

The demonstrators unfurled yellow banners and began to shout "Falun Gong is good".

Previous protests by foreigners
11 Feb: Two North Americans arrested and later deported
Jan 2002: One Canadian woman protester expelled
Nov 2001: 35 Westerners expelled after protest

Hundreds of police, stationed in the square in anticipation of such demonstrations, immediately converged upon the protesters and threw them into waiting police vans.

BBC Beijing correspondent Rupert Wingfield-Hayes says the protest, the largest ever attempted by foreigners, appears designed to highlight the repression of the Falun Gong inside China ahead of US President George W Bush's visit to Beijing next week.

The AFP news agency reported an eye-witness account of Chinese police mistreating the Falun Gong members as they were taken away.

The incident is the second of its kind this week - two men, an American and a Canadian, were deported after a similar protest on Monday.

[...]

Britons 'deported'

On Wednesday evening a further 14 foreign members of Falun Gong, including four Britons, were arrested at a Beijing hotel.

They are believed to be part of the same group that carried out the Tiananmen Square protest.

The four Britons have already been deported.

A Falun Gong statement named the four Britons as Lee Hall, 21; Earl Rhodes, 36; Rosemary Katzen, 42; and Robert Gibson, 70.

Falun Gong

Falun Gong, which claims millions of followers around the world, says it is a peaceful law-abiding group, following a philosophy and regime of exercises which lead to spiritual enlightenment and improve health.

The most public manifestation of Falun Gong is the practice of a range of exercises related to the ancient Chinese art of qigong - a kind of breathing meditation.

[...]

Falun Gong issued a series of statements last year accusing Chinese officials of torturing or killing dozens of practitioners in detention centres and labour camps.

http://news.bbc.co.uk/hi/english/world/asia-pacific/newsid_1819000/1819771.stm