BEIJING, Apr 13, 2000 -- (Agence France Presse) The Chinese authorities have hacked into Falungong websites causing them to crash as part of a new crackdown on the banned movement, U.S.-based group members told AFP on Thursday.
Starting on Tuesday at least five Falungong web sites, three in the United States and two in Canada, were attacked simultaneously with an overload of carefully-prepared information, said group spokeswoman Gail Rachlin.
Falungong practioner Yuan Li, a computer expert, said the group's main website www.Falundafa.org. received an anonymous tip off on April 12 warning of an imminent attack.
"We received an anonymous e-mail from a Chinese computer employee on April 12 warning us that the police software security bureau had offered to pay the computer company money to hack into our sites," said Yuan.
He said the messages were sent to the Falungong's websites from China using U.S.-based e-mail site Yahoo.com.
"They used a method called ICMT Packet flooding which is a way of overloading websites with too much information," said Yuan.
"This type of computer hacking requires a lot of effort and preparation. They must have been studying our sites for a long time."
He said the Chinese authorities previously attacked the sites on August 5, and that it took 24 hours to get them back up and running.
At Thursday 0430 GMT, it was impossible to access the group's main U.S. website www.Falundafa.org., however other Falungong sites were up and running.
It was not immediately possible to obtain any reaction from the Chinese authorities.
News of the alleged hacking attack came as the Falungong movement staged a series of coordinated protests in Beijing's Tiananmen Square on Thursday which were violently broken up by police.
Five vanloads of protesters, many of them middle-aged women, were rounded up and police could be seen arresting a steady stream of people around the square.
An AFP correspondent estimated more than 100 people were detained.
China banned the group in July last year, labeling it an "evil cult", and has since detained tens of thousands of practitioners and sentenced alleged core leaders to long jail terms.
The movement preaches clean living and combines physical exercise with spiritual beliefs, which it claims can cure illnesses without the need for a doctor. The group claims 100 million adherents worldwide.
((c) 2000 Agence France Presse)