Practitioner Dies in Custody

BEIJING, Sept. 27 -- A Chinese intelligence officer who refused to renounce his belief in the banned Falun Gong spiritual movement died last week at a labor camp where he was confined to a cell and denied medical treatment for two months, a Hong Kong-based human rights group said today.

Tao Hongsheng, 44, had been serving a three-year term of "thought reform through labor" for unfurling a banner in Tiananmen Square in December protesting the government's continuing crackdown on Falun Gong, which it considers a dangerous cult. He died Sept. 20 after suffering from extreme diarrhea and edema for weeks, the Information Center for Human Rights and Democracy said.

"He couldn't get out of bed for 20 days . . . but the officials wouldn't do anything," his wife, Yu Fengyun, said in a telephone interview from their home in Shijiazhuang, the capital of Hebei province, about 175 miles southwest of Beijing.

Tao's treatment fits the government's pattern of meting out harsh punishments to followers of Falun Gong, the Buddhist-like spiritual practice that the government has declared a threat to Communist rule. Yet more than 13 months into the country's largest campaign of repression since the 1989 crackdown on student-led protests in Tiananmen Square, China has been unable to crush the movement.

The Communist Party has been especially troubled by Falun Gong's penetration into the military and security apparatus, key pillars of government stability. Tao was one of many security and military officials who participated in Falun Gong.

Tao's wife said her husband served 18 years in the air force and achieved the rank of deputy battalion commander at a base outside Shijiazhuang. In 1994, Yu said, he transferred to the Hebei State Security Bureau, which reports to the Ministry of State Security.