BEIJING, Mar 1, 2001 -- (Agence France Presse) China said Thursday 37 key members of the banned Falun Gong movement have been sentenced to jail in the latest wave of trials in its sustained campaign against the sect.
One person, named as Xue Hairong, received a seven year sentence for downloading and distributing material from the internet, the official Xinhua news agency reported.
Xue was sentenced alongside four others at the Beijing No 1 Intermediate People's Court.
Some 11 members, including one named as Hang Xue, received sentences at the Fengtai District People's Court for "organizing illegal gatherings of Falun Gong ... followers, and printing and distributing materials propagating the Falun Gong ... doctrine," the agency said.
A further 21 members accused of similar activities received unspecified sentences at the People's Courts of Haidian, Fangshan and Tongzhou.
Earlier on Thursday a Chinese prosecutor confirmed four people had been arrested over suspicions that they helped organize the mass suicide attempt by alleged members of the banned Falun Gong movement on Tiananmen Square in January.
The apparent suicide attempt, which took place on the eve of Lunar New Year, the largest festival of the Chinese calendar, resulted in a new propaganda onslaught in the official media against the Falun Gong.
The Chinese government views the Falun Gong, which claims 70 million adherents in China alone, as the biggest threat to Communist party rule since the 1989 Tiananmen democracy protests.
A July 1999 ban on the movement followed three months after it gathered 10,000 followers for a silent protest at the Communist party headquarters in Beijing.
The crackdown on the Falun Gong has resulted in several hundreds being sentenced to up to 18 years, while at least 10,000 have been placed without trial in re-education through labor camps, human rights group say.
Some 120 Falun Gong followers are known to have died while in police custody, being beaten and mistreated, according to the Hong Kong-based Information Center for Human Rights and Democracy. ((c) 2001 Agence France Presse)
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