BEIJING, Jul 18, 2000 -- (Agence France Presse) Chinese police Tuesday cleared Tiananmen Square of protesters from the outlawed Falungong spiritual movement ahead of Russian President Vladimir Putin's visit.
In a procedure that has become routine for law enforcers in Tiananmen, police vans circled the square collecting groups of Falungong members who had been rounded up and speedily disappeared, witnesses said.
At least three groups of people belonging to the Falungong or suspected of being group members were cleared from Tiananmen during an 80-minute period in the early morning.
Almost all of the people taken into custody, numbering about 15, were middle-aged, and most of them were women.
Tiananmen was crowded with uniformed and plain-clothes police, who threatened several groups of visitors squatting on the square with detention if they did not disperse.
Tiananmen Square was cleared of visitors at 9.10 a.m. (0110 GMT) to prepare for Putin's official welcoming ceremony.
None of the Falungong members in Tiananmen appeared to be aiming to attract attention -- instead they made a silent protest against the government's treatment of the movement, which has now been banned for nearly a year.
One elderly woman who did not get into the waiting police van fast enough was pushed and beaten by a uniformed police officer, one witness said.
At least 22 Falungong followers have died after police maltreatment or hunger strikes, according to the Hong Kong-based Information Center for Human Rights and Democracy.
Since the movement was banned in China, tens of thousands of practitioners have been detained and core leaders given jail terms of up to 18 years for protesting and refusing to give up their beliefs.
Falungong is a traditional Chinese belief based on the teachings of exiled master Li Hongzhi, who advocates Confucian and Buddhist moral values, and group breathing and meditation exercises.
On Saturday, it will be one year since the government banned the Falungong movement, and protests are expected to increase in the run-up to the anniversary.
((c) 2000 Agence France Presse)