Some officials claim the government is close to eradicating the movement it regards as a cult. Last July 22, police detained about 100 protesters, including one group of about 25 people, on Tiananmen Square. While still heavy, security on the vast plaza was not as intense Sunday as it sometimes has been in the past. Officers played cards and read newspapers in the backs of some police vans stationed on the margins of the square, which was crowded with Chinese and foreign tourists. Falun Gong attracted millions of followers in the 1990s with a blend of slow-motion exercises and ideas drawn from Buddhism, Taoism and the group's exiled leader, Li Hongzhi.
Followers say practice promotes health, moral living and even supernatural powers.
It has accused Falun Gong of cheating followers and causing 1,600 deaths, mostly of practitioners who it said refused medical treatment according to what it claims are the group's teachings. Please read them.