Police took at least two dozen sect members from the square Friday in protests timed to coincide with the first anniversary of the communist government's crackdown. One year ago Thursday, police began rounding up key organizers of the group and then publicly announced the ban two days later. Falun Gong followers have streamed into Beijing this month from around China to renew the civil disobedience campaign. In recent weeks, police have detained about 200 followers daily in Tiananmen Square, according to a Communist Party official. Tiananmen Square was the site of pro-democracy protests and the ensuing government crackdown in 1989.
Followers say practice promotes health, moral living and, in experts, supernatural powers.
Li has been arrested twice for practicing and let go. Chinese leaders, however, have declared the group a public menace and an unprecedented threat to Communist Party rule. It has accused the group of cheating followers and causing 1,500 deaths, mostly among practitioners who refused medical treatment, an alleged tenet of founder Li Hongzhi, who lives in New York. Since launching the crackdown, the government has pressured tens of thousands of followers into renouncing Falun Gong, offering leniency to ordinary members. Nearly 100 group leaders have been sentenced to prison terms of up to 18 years and thousands of others sent to labor camps.