At least 180 Falun Gong members have been detained in a northern Chinese province on charges of sabotaging anti-SARS work by distributing pamphlets promoting the banned spiritual group, the main Communist Party newspaper said yesterday.
The crackdown in Hebei Province, just outside Beijing, reportedly began in mid-April at about the time officials ordered tougher measures to control the spread of SARS.
As of Wednesday, 180 followers had been rounded up, the People's Daily reported. It didn't give any details of their identities and officials in Hebei didn't immediately respond to requests for information about them or what charges they might face.
The People's Daily report didn't give any details of SARS-prevention work that was disrupted by the activists. But it cited an incident in which a Falun Gong activist gave workers at an anti-SARS health checkpoint a booklet on Falun Gong that he said contained "the secret route to SARS prevention."
Falun Gong was banned in 1999 as a threat to public safety and communist rule. The group had attracted millions of adherents with its mix of eastern philosophy, meditation and traditional calisthenics.
Thousands of followers have been detained and activists say scores have died from police abuse. Authorities deny killing anyone, but say some have died in accidents or from hunger strikes.
Although Hebei has been aggressive in its moves against Falun Gong, the World Health Organization says the province has failed to gather adequate data on the spread of SARS.
Hebei has reported eight SARS fatalities and 192 cases, while the total death toll for China stands at 336, with more than 5,000 people infected.
Meanwhile, the SARS crisis in China has shown the need for the government to be more open toward the public, an editorial in the state-run China Daily said yesterday.
This openness, channeled through the media, will also help officials be aware of what people think, said the editorial, by Xue Baosheng, a researcher at Peking University's School of Government Administration.
"[The] facts clearly demonstrate that only by actively upholding the citizens' right to know can the government be better supervised by the public and in turn win the trust and respect of those it serves," it said.
Xue argued in the editorial that the failure to own up to the facts reflected officials' outdated convictions that unpleasant news can cause social disorder.
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