PRINCETON BOROUGH -- Human rights activists staging a march to Washington, D.C. to raise global awareness of the persecution of Falun Gong practitioners in China plan to make a pit-stop demonstration in downtown Princeton Sunday afternoon.

About 100 demonstrators are expected to participate in an hour-long protest slated to stop along Nassau Street outside Princeton University's Firestone Library. Marchers are planning a press conference at 1 p.m.

Demonstrators who seek to rescue people imprisoned in China following the [party' name omitted] regime's 1999 crackdown on Falun Gong will walk south from Franklin Township on Route 27 into Princeton Borough starting at 8 a.m.

Falun Gong is a traditional Chinese meditation and exercise similar to Tai-chi.

At least 250 Falun Gong followers have been killed in police custody in China, with 25 deaths reported in the last month, according to the protest organizers.

Since being introduced to the public in 1992, Falun Gong, also called Falun Dafa, has drawn tens of millions of followers in more than 40 countries. Most major cities and universities in the U.S., Canada, Australia and Europe have English-speaking Falun Gong practice groups.

At 8 a.m. Monday, the demonstrators will leave Princeton and head to the State House steps in Trenton via Princeton Pike and Calhoun Street for a 1 p.m. press conference.

The protesters will continue their trek with planned stops in Philadelphia and Baltimore along the way to the nation's capital.

Their walk will culminate July 19 in Washington D.C. in a mass march from the Washington Monument to the Capitol, where a rally expected to draw thousands will be staged.

The journey symbolizes the courageous, determined efforts of thousands who have demonstrated in China and is an appeal for the immediate release of all in China who are jailed and imperiled for their practice of Falun Gong, according to march organizers.

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