Published: January 1 2001 16:30GMT

Chinese security police detained hundreds of followers of the outlawed spiritual movement, the Falun Gong, after they staged another daring demonstration in Tiananmen Square in Beijing on Monday.

Witnesses said that the Falun Gong members, mainly women, were taken away from the square in buses after unfurling banners demanding that their movement be legalised.

Falun Gong supporters in Hong Kong said that 700 adherents had been dragged from the square, but that figure could not be confirmed.

Falun Gong's tenacity in the face of an 18-month crackdown is proving troublesome for a government that does not want human rights issues interfering with its campaign for Beijing to host the 2008 Olympics. China has dismissed human rights concerns as irrelevant to the Olympics, but the crackdown on Falun Gong may galvanise Beijing's critics in the US Congress to oppose its bid. Nearly 80 members of the Falun Gong, branded by the Beijing government [...], have died in detention since their banning in 1999, according to the Hong Kong-based Information Centre for Human Rights and Democracy in China.

Many others have been detained and sent to labour camps for refusing to renounce their membership. Despite the campaign, Falun Gong has persisted in staging demonstrations in Tiananmen Square through a highly organized underground network.

Falun Gong's leader, Li Hongzhi, says that the [group]'s meditation and breathing exercises improve health and mental clarity in a way beyond the understanding of modern science. Mr Li lives in exile in the US.

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