BEIJING--National Day, Oct. 1, is when 1.2 billion Chinese are meant to show their loyalty to the motherland and the Communist Party. But the opposite happened in Tiananmen Square yesterday, as hundreds of falun gong practitioners fought for their spiritual freedom, prompting a police crackdown that highlights the Communist regime's tenuous control over its citizens' spiritual lives.

...

China has made similar accusations against falun gong, the meditation movement that shocked the regime last year when 10,000 practitioners showed up for a protest outside the Communist leaders' compound.

...

Falun gong followers and human-rights groups monitoring the crackdown have countered that Beijing has jailed thousands of followers, allowing at least 50 people to die in custody.

It was clear yesterday that falun gong, whose leaders claim millions of members, has yet to be eradicated in China. As hundreds of red flags marking National Day flapped in the autumn breeze, police were forced to close off Tiananmen Square, China's political epicentre, to arrest the practitioners who had managed to infiltrate the square.

The falun gong members, many of whom had managed to avoid checks set up in train and bus stations across the country, once again protested peacefully, with many sitting in the lotus position as they were arrested and sometimes clubbed.

...

"This is certainly not the image the Chinese want to project to the world," one Western diplomat said. "I don't think the International Olympic Committee would like to see this sort of thing go on during the 2008 Games. And I don't know how the Chinese government will be able to guarantee there will not be such protests."