Reuters

Jun. 11, 2005 - Protesters rallied in several Australian cities on Saturday urging the government to grant political asylum to a Chinese diplomat who is in hiding saying he fears for his safety and that of his family if returned to China.

Chen Yonglin, 37, has formally applied for political asylum after defecting last month but the Australian government has discouraged the application, which has been granted only very rarely in the past.

About 50 people demonstrated in each of the rallies in Melbourne, Brisbane and Adelaide in support of Chen.

The Falun Gong movement also demonstrated in support of the diplomat by staging a gruesome re-enactment in Sydney of torture that it says its practitioners are regularly subjected to by a branch of the Chinese security service known as 610.

Chen, a political affairs consul, told the Australian Immigration Department last month that he had been troubled by his role at China's Sydney consulate prosecuting practitioners of Falun Gong.

The movement, which embraces a form of meditation blended with [Master Li's teachings], is denounced by the Chinese government [and persecuted brutally].

Australia's Immigration Department is examining Chen's application for a protection visa, which is granted to asylum seekers under the U.N. Refugees Convention, after Foreign Minister Alexander Downer discouraged the diplomat's application for political asylum.

Chen is now in hiding with his wife and 6-year old daughter. He did not appear at any of Saturday's rallies.

The Chinese defector made his political asylum bid public a week ago at a Sydney rally held to mark the anniversary of the Chinese army's crushing of the 1989 Tiananmen Square pro-democracy protests.

"Trade or human rights is the issue," John Deller, a Falun Gong spokesman, said at the Sydney rally.

Speakers at rallies in Melbourne and Brisbane also accused the Australian government of putting trade over human rights in discouraging Chen's application for political asylum.

Beijing, Australia's third-largest trading partner with annual trade worth almost A$29 billion (more than $22 billion), is in talks with Canberra on a free-trade agreement. Negotiations over major resources deals between the two countries are also under discussion.

Saturday's rallies also called on the Australian government to grant asylum to a second defector, Hao Fengjun, who says he had worked as a state security officer for the 610 agency at its branch in Tianjin, northern China.

More rallies are planned for Sydney and Perth in coming days. ($1 = A$1.32)