Officers threw another woman to the ground before hustling her and three others away. Falun Gong protests have dwindled in intensity in the face of the government's relentless crackdown on the group. Thousands of practitioners are in jails or labor camps. Many more have been pressured into renouncing the group. Others have been forced underground.
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.