A Chinese court yesterday sentenced four leaders of the banned Falun Gong spiritual movement to up to 18 years in prison.
The severity of the sentences, meted out by a judge at the Intermediate People's Court in western Beijing, shocked diplomatic observers in the Chinese capital.
The trial was closed to the public and the foreign media, and the streets around were sealed off by police who questioned passers-by. The four defendants, arrested on July 20th, were charged with stealing state secrets and causing people to die by refusing medical treatment.
They were also accused of masterminding a 15,000-strong protest by Falun Gong adherents outside China's leadership compound in Beijing in April. The protest was peaceful - the practitioners did not march, shout slogans or carry banners, and they asked only for state recognition - but their very ability to organise unnerved the communist government, which banned the seven-year-old sect in July as an "evil cult".
State media called the protest the most serious political incident since the 1989 student-led demonstrations for democracy in Tiananmen Square which were crushed by the People's Liberation Army. Falun Gong was also clearly seen as a major threat because it contained so many senior government officials.
Li Chang (59), sentenced yesterday to 18 years in prison for illegally obtaining state secrets and using a cult to undermine the implementation of the law and cause human deaths, was a former deputy director of the Public Security Ministry. Wang Zhiwen (50), who received 16 years, was a former Railways Ministry official.
Ji Liewu (36), who got 12 years, was a former manager of a state-owned non-ferrous metals company in Hong Kong. Yao Jie, a 40-year-old woman who worked at a real estate firm, received a seven-year prison sentence. All four are members of the Communist Party, the Hong Kong-based Information Centre of Human Rights and Democratic Movement in China said.
The government maintains that 1,400 practitioners of Falun Gong died after refusing medical help when ill. The movement calls itself a "cultivation practice" which combines five exercises with concepts of Buddhism and Taoism.
It has no religious rituals, but members are told in the writings of its exiled leader, Li Hongzhi, that Falun Gong will cure ill health. Li Hongzhi preaches salvation from a decadent world and claims Falun Gong poses no threat to Communist rule.
The Hong Kong centre said the trial had been postponed twice, apparently due to international pressure.
In the first Falun Gong trial in China last month a court on Hainan island jailed four leaders for up to 12 years for "using a cult to violate the law". Meanwhile six leaders of underground churches in China's Henan province have been sentenced to labour camp for being criminals of an "evil cult", the Hong Kong rights group said.
In August the six defendants representing two Christian sects met to join forces, find a new direction, and appeal to the government for recognition, the centre said. Police invaded the meeting and arrested the group.