BEIJING, Jan 11, 2001 -- (Agence France Presse) Three female members of the banned Falun Gong spiritual movement have died after severe beatings or force-feeding by Chinese police, a human rights group said Thursday.

The cases raised the number of deaths of Falun Gong practitioners in suspicious circumstances in detention to 98, said the Hong Kong-based Information Center for Human Rights and Democracy.

Liu Guimin, 30, is believed to have died as a result of force-feeding by police while she was on a hunger strike in jail following her arrest during a New Year's Day Falun Gong protest in Beijing's Tiananmen Square.

Liu, a resident of Beijing's suburb of Miyun, suffered damage to her lungs when police forced her to eat, the center said.

Police released Liu on January 5 when she was in a critical condition and she died on January 7, just seven days after she was arrested along with 700 Falun Gong members during a mass protest in the square.

The center said local police and government officials confirmed Liu's death, but an official at the local police station told AFP he had never heard of Liu and declined to comment further.

Amnesty International has alleged that many detained Falun Gong members suffer death or injury due to force-feeding by police officers and jail staff who have no training.

The second victim, Chu Congrui, 30, died last month at a police station in Beijing. The native of northern Jilin province was arrested while protesting on Tiananmen Square on December 1.

Police notified her family on December 17 that she had died and when they went to see the body they saw it had several bruises and that Cong's ears had blood around them, a sign she was severely beaten, the center said.

The center also said local officials confirmed the death. A government spokesman for the township, Tiande, where Chu is from said he heard she died, but did not have any details.

The third victim, Yu Lianchun, from Jinan city in Shandong province, was also beaten to death, the center said.

Yu, 45, was a worker at a factory in Shandong. She was sentenced to labor camp and on December 30, the labor camp staff notified her family she had died.

Family members also found several bruises on her body.

Labor camp officials and factory workers confirmed the death to the center, the center said.

A factory spokesman on Thursday, however, told AFP he was not aware of the case.

China banned Falun Gong in July 1999 and since then 98 Falun Gong members have died in police custody, hundreds sentenced to prison and thousands sent to labor camp without trial, the center said.

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