Report: 600 Falun Gong Leaders Held

BEIJING (AP) - Chinese authorities have arrested at least 600 leading members of a meditation-exercise sect they outlawed as an ``evil cult,'' similar to the Falun Gong spiritual movement, a human rights group said Saturday.

Meanwhile, with security tight ahead of Sunday's opening of the annual 10-day legislative session of the National People's Congress, police in Beijing seized at least 10 Falun Gong members who attempted to sit in a meditation pose in Tiananmen Square. The would-be protesters were quickly dragged off the pavement and put into waiting vans.

The vast square is adjacent to the Great Hall of the People, where the legislature meets.

The government has quietly expanded the crackdown it began in July, when it banned Falun Gong. Since October it has rounded up many leading members of Zhong Gong, another offshoot of a traditional health practice known as qigong, according to the Hong Kong-based Information Center of Human Rights and Democratic Movement.

The moves against Zhong Gong members have come with no official public comment, unlike the government's vehement and aggressive campaign to portray Falun Gong as a public menace.

However, the police this week notified relatives of Cheng Yaqin, a Zhong Gong leader in the northeastern city of Qiqihar in Heilongjiang province, that she had been formally arrested and would be charged, the Information Center said.

It said Cheng and several other Zhong Gong leaders were arrested on Oct. 12 in the southern city of Guangzhou.

The report could not be immediately confirmed.

Like Falun Gong, Zhong Gong has attracted huge numbers of followers, including senior government officials. Both groups use qigong-style exercises they say promote good health, while Falun Gong adds a spiritual dimension, claiming its practice also improves morality.

The popularity and organizational flair of such groups alarmed Chinese leaders who feared they might undermine Communist Party rule.

Police have quietly moved against the group while trying to round up its leaders, closing more than 100 Zhong Gong centers. The group's founder, Zhang Hongbao, has gone into hiding as the government has begun confiscating the assets of his Qilin Group, a conglomerate based in the port city of Tianjin that employed more than 400,000 people.

According to the Information Center, Zhong Gong was founded in 1988 and has 20 million followers.