DPA: Falun Gong Claims Eight More Deaths in Chinese Police Custody

Nov 28, 2001

BEIJING-- Eight more members of the banned Falun Gong spiritual movement have died in Chinese police custody, exiled organizers said in statements seen on Wednesday.

The eight died in incidents mostly involving torture or beatings in several areas of China, the group said in reports posted on its official U.S. website clearwisdom.net.

Qiu Pingan, 54, died at home last week in Hubei province, central China, "after more than a year of illegal detention, hard labor and torture", it said.

He was sent to a local labor camp following his arrest in Beijing in October last year.

A 33-year-old woman member in northeastern China died in a police car on November 8, just one hour after she was taken from her village.

Police denied any wrongdoing but relatives saw a hole in the back of Liao Qinying's head and other signs of injury, the group said.

Some 500 local people protested against Liao's death, it said.

Another man died after police pushed him down four flights of stairs, and three women practitioners died at a detention center in the southwestern province of Sichuan.

Falun Gong claims more than 300 followers have died in Chinese police custody since China banned it in 1999 and labeled it an "xx" [Chinese government slanderous term omitted.]

It says more than 500 practitioners have been jailed, some 1,000 confined to mental hospitals, and 20,000 sent to labor camps without trial since 1999.

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Last week China expelled 35 Western Falun Gong members who protested in Beijing's Tiananmen Square against the government [persecution] on the group.

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