Subscribe to one of our news e-mail lists . Small groups of protesters kept Chinese police busy for hours, popping out of crowds of tourists to unfurl banners or adopt the meditative postures of the group. As each group appeared, plainclothes police arrived to drag the unresisting protesters to waiting vans. CNN's Rebecca MacKinnon has background information on Falun Gong. The sometimes violent arrests were in sharp contrast to the demonstration the Falun Gong practitioners were commemorating.
Chinese officials deny the charges of abuse.
Health problems and suicide, they say, have caused the deaths of the Falun Gong members. And the movement itself, the government claims, has caused the deaths of more than 1,500 of its own followers. These methods are not popular in China, and their plot will not succeed. But Falun Gong insists it is no threat to anyone. They merely strive to cultivate 'Truthfulness, Compassion and Tolerance,' in daily life.