Arrests China

Three more members of the banned Falun Gong spiritual movement have died after their arrest by Chinese authorities, a human rights group said. Police and government officials refused to comment. The government denies that Falun Gong members have been mistreated in custody. The three deaths bring to at least 57 the number of sect members who have died in custody during a nearly 15-month crackdown on Falun Gong, the Hong Kong-based Information Center for Human Rights and Democracy said.

Police in central China arrested 130 members of an underground Christian evangelical group, including three American citizens, a human rights group reported. The church members were seized in an afternoon raid in Henan province's Xihua county and have been detained at the county jail, the Information Center of Human Rights and Democratic Movement in China reported.

Police have arrested 37 gay men in southern China at the start of a nationwide anti-vice campaign, a rights group and a police official said. The arrests at a gym in Guangzhou were the largest detention sweep against homosexuality yet in China, the official said by telephone from the city, a thriving provincial capital near Hong Kong. Homosexuality is illegal in China, although a relaxation of social rules over the last 20 years has created a more tolerant atmosphere.

As tens of thousands of people held an emotional candlelight vigil in Hong Kong to mark the democracy movement crushed in Beijing 11 years ago, Chinese police Sunday quashed plans for private memorials and arrested a lone protester in Tiananmen Square. Commemorating the 1989 movement remains taboo on the mainland, and uniformed and plainclothes officers patrolled the vast square to block protests. But the police presence was much lower than on previous anniversaries.

Police in Beijing tackled, kicked and dragged away dozens of devotees of the banned Falun Gong sect who had attempted to mark the birthday of their movement's founder in Tiananmen Square. Sect followers who had dropped to the pavement to meditate or tried to unfurl banners were swiftly grabbed by plainclothes and uniformed security officers and forced inside waiting vans. Security officers raced through the square to stop the followers and by midmorning had detained about 50.

Chinese authorities have detained the parents of a high-ranking lama who fled Tibet for India in January, the London-based Tibet Information Network said. The group said China also detained a Tibetan security officer and a monk involved in security at Tsurphu monastery in February after the 14-year-old 17th Karmapa's escape to India. The Karmapa arrived in India on Jan. 5 after an arduous journey across the Himalayas.

A U.S. college librarian harmed China's national security by taking large batches of secret documents out of the country and has confessed, a Foreign Ministry spokesman said Tuesday. Song Yongyi, who worked at Dickinson College in Pennsylvania and had planned to become a U.S. citizen last September, was on a summer trip to China to collect source material on the 1966-76 Cultural Revolution. Police detained him and his wife in August but allowed her to return to the United States in November.

Police questioned and detained several dozen people in heavily guarded Tiananmen Square on Monday, one day after authorities sentenced four alleged ringleaders of the Falun Gong meditation group to up to 18 years in prison. About five people attempted to raise a banner in protest but were quickly stopped by uniformed and plainclothes police stationed in the square, the site of frequent protests by the group since the Communist government outlawed it five months ago.

After months of official denunciation and the harshest political campaign in a decade, four alleged ringleaders of the outlawed Falun Gong meditation group were tried, convicted and given lengthy prison sentences here Sunday for stealing "state secrets," organizing a cult to obstruct justice and causing deaths. The jail terms ranged from seven to 18 years--a sign of how seriously the Communist regime views Falun Gong as a threat to its rule of the world's most populous country.

Macau police today seized about 40 members of the Falun Gong spiritual movement, which is banned in China, as they performed exercises in central Macau ahead of the Portuguese territory's hand-over to China at midnight. The group--which combines Buddhist and Taoist beliefs with meditative exercises--was banned this year by China. Under Sino-Portuguese accords, Macau will have a high degree of autonomy within China for 50 years and, so far, Falun Gong is legal in the territory.