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Chinese courts convict 151 Falun Gong members |
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August 26, 2000
BEIJING (AP) - Chinese courts have convicted 151 leading members of the Falun Gong spiritual movement since it was banned last year, a Chinese religious official visiting the United States was quoted Friday as saying. The figure given by Ye Xiaowen, however, did not include as many as 5,000 Falun Gong adherents human rights groups estimate have been sent without trial to labor camps in the government's 13-month crackdown on the group. Ye, China's most senior official in charge of religious affairs, said 22 of the 151 Falun Gong adherents were sentenced to up to five years imprisonment, the official newspaper China Daily reported. It did not say whether Ye detailed the punishments handed out to the remaining 129 adherents. Key Falun Gong organizers have been sentenced to up to 18 years imprisonment, Chinese official media has previously reported. The newspaper said those convicted were "hardcore" members of the group. Ye said they "either leaked state secrets, made use of Falun Gong to create social chaos or committed other crimes," the China Daily said. Ye, who was speaking Wednesday in Los Angeles, is part of a delegation of Chinese religious leaders visiting the United States ahead of the U.N. Millennium World Peace Summit to be held in New York on Aug. 28-31. Chinese authorities say Falun Gong is an evil cult that led more than 1,600 practitioners to their deaths. Alarmed by the group's popularity and organization, the Communist Party banned Falun Gong on July 22, 1999. Founded eight years ago, Falun Gong attracted millions of followers with its blend of slow-motion exercises and ideas drawn from Buddhism, Taoism and the group's leader, Li Hongzhi, a former government grain clerk believed to be living in the United States. |