Police crackdown fails to deter Falun Gong

`You hear about these things happening but it is really strange to see it in real life,’ said one German tourist. `We were very shocked.’

In previous days, Falun Gong protests near the Great Hall of the People, where parliament’s top body was meeting to discuss strengthening anti-cult legislation, were so low key it was easy to miss them.

Members, in a silent, unaggressive protest against the government crackdown, sat or stood around until approached by police who asked if they belonged to FalunGong. They would declare their adherence and calmly stroll onto police mini vans.

While dozens did the same today, it was clear from the beginning of today’s protests that some had decided to be much bolder following the government’s decision to declare the movement a cult. Cults are illegal in China.

Half a dozen women sat at the base of the pole where the national flag is raised ceremonially at dawn, clinging onto each other in pairs to make it harder for police to take them away.

Plainclothes police punched and kicked the protesters and pulled them apart by the hair, and it took several minutes to get them into waiting mini vans, witnesses said.

One woman was picked up by the hair and feet and thrown onto the mini van as a crowd of up to 200 people, including foreign tourists, gathered to watch.

Soon afterwards, a group of about 25 sat down in the lotus position in the square and were treated similarly.

Three middle-aged women, one with a very young child on her lap, were also hauled to theirfeet by the hair, kicked and beaten. The woman with the child had blood pouring from her head as she was thrown onto the mini van.

The child, aged about two, was left screaming until a plainclothed policemen reunited mother and child.

A couple in their 60s – the man dressed in a now old-fashioned Mao suit and seated facing the giant portrait of Chairman Mao Zedong which dominates the Square – were treated the same way.

The protesters remained completely silent, but police identified them in conversations with each other as adherents of Falun Gong.