HONG KONG, Oct 3, 2000 -- (Agence France Presse) Some 90 members of the Falun Gong spiritual movement in Hong Kong staged a protest on Tuesday, calling on Chinese President Jiang Zemin to release practitioners arrested in Beijing.

The group assembled outside the Chinese central government liaison office here to deliver a petition, urging Jiang to release some 1,000 Falun Gong practitioners arrested in Beijing while holding protests during national day celebrations on Sunday. The petition letter was left on the office doorstep after officials did not appear to receive it.

"In our petition, we have asked Jiang Zemin to release all practitioners, from whom we have not heard anything of since their arrests," HuiYee-han, a Falun Gong spokeswoman, told AFP. "We also ask the Chinese government to stop all brutal suppression against Falun Gong," said Hui, adding that the Chinese authorities were planning to stage a total crackdown on the group within three months. "Our reliable sources also told us that the Chinese government is planning to build a prison big enough for 500,000 prisoners," she said.

The Chinese government considers the Falun Gong, which combines martial arts, Buddhism and sect founder Li Hongzhi's moral teachings, to be the biggest threat to its rule since 1989 student demonstrations. In July last year, the government banned the [group] after accusing it of seeking to overthrow the state. Since then, some 450 members have received prison sentences of up to 18 years, more than 600 were sent to mental hospitals, 10,000 were placed in labor camps and another 20,000 locked up in temporary detention centers, according to the Hong Kong-based Information Center for Human Rights and Democracy.