The Associated Press
Sunday, Sept. 19, 1999; 8:10 a.m. EDT

BEIJING –– Members of a popular meditation group are defying a two-month-old ban by China's communist government, prompting a renewed wave of arrests, state media and a human rights group reported Sunday.

Police in nine cities have detained at least 300 practitioners of Falun Gong in the past week, ten of them on Sunday in a park in Changsha, a southern provincial capital, the Hong Kong-based Information Center of Human Rights and Democratic Movement in China reported.

While most are being held for 5 to 15 days as detention regulations allow, police are beating and mistreating those Falun Gong followers who insist on continuing their banned practice in prison, the group said.

One follower – Zhang Chunqing – claimed guards bound her arms and legs with a 22-pound rusty chain, taped her mouth shut and would not let her eat or go to the bathroom for 48 hours, the group said. It added that by the time she was released recently from the Nanguanling detention center in the northeastern port city of Dalian, sores on her wrists and legs were infected.

The Information Center's account could not be independently confirmed. Falun Gong followers overseas have frequently reported accounts of police mistreatment. But since the crackdown began in mid-July, thousands if not tens of thousands of Falun Gong members have been detained and forced into meetings to recant their beliefs.

Falun Gong teaches a blend of Buddhist and Taoist ideals and slow-motion exercises that are supposed to promote health and morality. It has drawn 2 million to 70 million followers – according to different government estimates – since being founded by an ex-government grain clerk seven years ago.

Chinese leaders banned Falun Gong, fearing that the group's popularity and high level of organization could challenge the ruling Communist Party's claim to be the legitimate representative of China's people.

"If we don't thoroughly destroy the organizational setup of 'Falun Gong' and instead allow it to develop and expand, this will severely interfere with the wholehearted efforts to modernize by all leading organs and people nationwide," the Communist Party's authoritative newspaper, People's Daily, said Sunday.

"Moreover, they will ultimately become an organized force that will publicly contend with our party and government in politics," People's Daily said in an editorial that called for a "complete victory" over Falun Gong.

Accompanying the editorial, a brief news report said that police in the southern city of Nanchang on Thursday acted on a tip and broke up a meeting of 20 Falun Gong followers. They were plotting acts of protest, People's Daily said.