Followers of a spiritual movement banned in China have called on U.S. officials to pressure the Beijing government to release eight Bay Area practitioners arrested over the weekend.

Trying to quash protests during the national legislature's annual session, Beijing police raided an apartment Saturday night and arrested 15 practitioners of Falun Gong, including the Bay Area residents.

Allen Zeng, 31, of San Jose said Monday that he and other Falun Gong followers were trying to exert pressure on the U.S. State Department to lobby for the detainees' release.

"I hope they (the U.S. government) can do more in pressing China to have a peaceful dialogue with us to resolve the crisis," said Zeng.

Zeng's younger brother Sheng "Johnson" Zeng, 30, and his wife, Yili "Vennessa" Wang, 28, Chinese citizens in the United States on work visas, were among those arrested Saturday because of their involvement in following Falun Gong activities.

Falun Gong practitioners are circulating petitions to protest China's crackdown and have gathered several thousand signatures in Northern California alone, said Zeng, a software engineer at Remedy Corp., an e-commerce company in San Jose.

The latest arrests follow months of government reprisals that include the mass detention of thousands of peaceful demonstrators, prison terms for four alleged ringleaders in December and a nonstop smear campaign against the movement founded in 1992 by Li Hongzhi, a former grain bureau clerk.

The regime fears the grass-roots power of Falun Gong, viewing the movement as a threat to public order and social stability.

Word of mouth

Passed along by word of mouth and via the Internet, Falun Gong incorporates aspects of Buddhism and Taoism, conservative moral values and qigong, an ancient Chinese tradition of breathing, motions and meditation to control inner energy. It has an estimated 60 to 70 million followers worldwide, with an estimated 400 to 600 in the Bay Area.

"There's no question that Falun Gong has chosen opportune moments to draw attention to their cause and organization," said Mickey Spiegal, a China expert and consultant to Human Rights Watch in New York. The National People's Congress, which convenes delegates from all over the country, just opened an 11-day session in Beijing. "These are important and high-level meetings."

U.S. Rep. Tom Lantos, D-San Mateo, who helped win the freedom of three Californians arrested in China for Falun Gong involvement last December, called the new arrests "the most recent preposterous outrage by this ruthless, totalitarian regime." He said he'd called the secretary of State's office, the U.S. ambassador in China and the Chinese Embassy to try to gain the release of the captives.

Lantos has been trying to get China to stop its crackdown since the issue surfaced last summer, and, "even before this latest outrage," had scheduled a hearing of the Congressional Human Rights Caucus on the problem next week in Washington.

Officials at the State Department said they were looking into reports of the arrests to confirm whether any U.S. citizens were detained and would try to act on their behalf.

Xiaozhong Yang, consul and spokesman at the Chinese Consulate in San Francisco, said he had no details of the arrests, though he provided a defense of his nation's ban on Falun Gong.

"Numerous irrefutable facts have shown that Falun Gong is an evil cult which has offended the law by organizing and employing cults, evading taxes, obstructing justice and causing human death," Yang said. "For foreigners who enter into China, we welcome them to visit, but we discourage them to do anything against the Chinese law."

According to Zeng, the Bay Area residents arrested who are U.S. citizens include Zhizhen "Mary" Qian and her son David Sun, 11, both of Fremont, Loretta Sukmei Lam of San Leandro and Jein Shyue of San Jose. Four other Bay Area residents arrested, who are not citizens but hold working visas, include test engineer Wenqing "Wendy" Fang, 30, and San Jose residents Wei "Sam" Guo, 26, Sheng Zeng and Wang.

Zeng has talked with other Falun Gong followers who were staying in the residence with those arrested but weren't there when police swept through Saturday between 9 and 10 p.m.

Rooms ransacked

"The practitioner went out to do something, and when he came back, it's all messy, all the people were missing," Zeng said. He said the place - an apartment or suite of rooms - had been ransacked, and all the luggage, passports and plane tickets were gone. Later, the follower confirmed that they had been arrested, he said.

His source in Beijing speculated that using their cell phone had alerted police to their presence, Zeng said.

As of Monday evening, he did not know their whereabouts but believed they were in custody.

Of the eight Bay Area residents believed arrested, six had gone to Beijing to try to appeal to the People's Assembly, China's Congress, Zeng said. They and the others also wanted to see the situation first-hand.

They went independently, Zeng said, but stayed together there because they all know each other through the practice of Falun Gong.

"They just wanted to do their part," Zeng said. "They just hoped (the Chinese government) will listen to them. They wanted to tell them they think this crackdown against Falun Gong is utterly wrong."

Several others were making return treks to China, despite police detention on previous occasions.