HONG KONG, Jun 26, 2001 -- (Agence France Presse) Hong Kong followers of the Falun Gong spiritual group called Tuesday on Beijing to stop torturing mainland practitioners, claiming 233 of them had died in custody.

Falun Gong spokeswoman Sophie Xiao said the death toll among followers of [term omitted] had reached an "alarming stage" with at least 20 reported to have died in police custody last month alone.

This brought to 233 the number of deaths since Falun Gong was outlawed as an [Jiang Zemin government's slanderous term omitted] on the mainland almost two years ago, she said from Hong Kong, where the [group] remains legal.

"We hope to bring to people's attention to the inhumanity suffered by Falun Gong followers in China to mark the UN international day in support of victims of torture," on Monday, said Xiao.

"We again call for global help to eradicate torture and inhumanity of Falun Gong practitioners on the mainland," she said.

To highlight their concerns, around 100 practitioners staged a meditation exercise outside the Chinese liaison office in Hong Kong.

They also prepared a petition to Chinese president Jiang Zemin calling on him to stop torture.

"The brutality is beyond people's imagination and the methods used in torture is beyond the limit people can endure," said Xiao, citing the use of water torture as well as electrocution and sexual abuse.

Xiao spoke of a case in which a mother and her eight-month old son from the northeastern province of Shandong died after being allegedly tortured in a labor camp in Beijing.

"The mother suffered a crushed neck and skull, while the baby had bruises on his ankles after being hung outside down," Xiao claimed.

Xiao also said there had been reports of torture methods such as Falun Gong practitioners being tied to motorcycles and dragged until they died, as well as sexual abuse against female [group] followers.

Mainland authorities consider Falun Gong -- which advocates clean living and daily meditative exercise -- the biggest threat to [party' name omitted] Party rule since the 1989 pro-democracy demonstrations which were crushed in Tiananmen Square.

According to figures compiled by human rights groups, since the mainland ban was imposed around 120 Falun Gong followers have died in police custody with hundreds of group leaders jailed and thousands of adherents sent to labor camps.

There have been reports Falun Gong could also be banned soon in Hong Kong after the territory's Chief Executive Tung Chee-hwa also referred to it as an [Jiang Zemin government's slanderous term omitted]

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