HKiMail : Hubei cadre expelled for Tiananmen [group] protest

A TOP municipal official in central Hubei province has been expelled from the party for staging a protest in Tiananmen Square against the ban on the Falun Gong qigong group, an official report said. Luo Jianzhong was chairman of the standing committee of the people's congress in Shiyan city, the China News Service said yesterday, the first time mainland media have admitted any cadre or officials were involved in a [group] protest at the capital's square. Luo ``not only practised Falun Gong obsessively but also went to Tiananmen Square, brandishing banners and shouting slogans for them'', the report said.

The party's city disciplinary committee and the city government's supervision bureau made the announcement jointly on Tuesday. ``The action against Luo was intended to warn officials against sympathizing with the Falun Gong,'' said Zhang Erping, the [group]'s spokesman at New York. ``But it will only cause more cadres to call for the verdict on our group to be reversed.'' Mr Zhang said many high-ranking officials in government and the army were sympathetic to the group, which was outlawed in July 1999. He said the latest action could signal the start of a new purge of cadres and government officials who were against the crackdown.

Mr Zhang claimed that more than 50,000 people had lost their freedom on the mainland for voicing their opposition against the ban.

18 January 2001 / 12:15 AM

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