Tuesday, April 25, 2000

Falun Gong members in the SAR will not bend to Beijing's pressure, and more promotional activities will be organised in the future, a spokesman said yesterday. Claiming there had been no centralised effort to organise protests outside Beijing's Liaison Office in the SAR today, spokesman Kan Hung-cheung said some individual members might stage protests on their own.

He denied adherents wanted to avoid enraging Beijing on the sensitive date.

"I believe there are many other ways to commemorate the anniversary [of the Zhongnanhai sit-in] apart from protesting outside the Liaison Office."

"We will have activities commemorating the date around the period anyway."

Mr Kan, who a State Council spokesman said last week was one of the tools used by "Western powers" to subvert the central Government, said practitioners were undeterred by Beijing's "unfounded" criticism.

He said Beijing was referring to a practice session in Victoria Park on April 16, days ahead of the voting on a US motion in the United Nations to denounce China's human rights record.

About 200 practitioners took part in the session.

"They said we wanted to lobby for the UN motion, but actually an application to hold the exercise session in Victoria Park had been filed long before we knew the date of the vote."

The SAR Government said in a letter people who exercised in parks did not need to seek permission.

The number of Falun Gong practitioners in Hong Kong is said to have dropped from 1,000 to around 600 since the crackdown in July.