Sep 12, 2001 -- (BBC Monitoring) Text of report in English by Taiwanese Central News Agency web site.
Taipei, 11 September: Fifteen Taiwan followers of Falun Gong set off Tuesday [11 September] on a two-week walk around the island to bring attention to the suppression of members of the [group] in Mainland China.
More than 400 Taiwan Falun Gong followers coming from every corner of Taiwan gathered at the plaza in front of the Chiang Kai-shek Memorial Hall in downtown Taipei to back the walkers.
The protesters all wore T-shirts bearing Chinese characters reading "SOS - Urgent Rescue of Falun Gong Practitioners in Mainland China." Photos showing Beijing's harsh treatment of followers were also on display at the gathering.
Professor Chang Ching-hsi of National Taiwan University, a spokesman for the organizers, said that the main purpose of the activity was to tell the world that "no person should live with terror." "No person should be persecuted simply because he or she is practicing a belief," Chang said. "Our efforts to rescue Falun Gong practitioners in Mainland China will not stop until the Beijing authorities completely stop the suppression," he said.
Chang also urged human rights organizations around the world to send their investigators to Mainland China to look into the current situation of Falun Gong practitioners there.
Taiwan Falun Gong followers plan to set up a humanitarian association to offer assistance to members in Mainland China, Chang said.
Legislator Chien Hsi-chieh of the ruling Democratic Progressive Party and lawyer Wang Ching-feng also attended the event.
The 15-member group will walk from Taipei along the western coast to Kaohsiung where they will join another group of five people 24 September who will be walking from Ilan along the eastern coast to Kaohsiung.
According to unofficial statistics, at least 260 Falun Gong followers have been killed, 500 others illegally sentenced, 20,000 sent to re-education camps and 100,000 arrested and jailed since Beijing began to crack down on the [group], Chang said.
The Falun Gong is banned in China because Beijing considers it the biggest threat to the [party' name omitted] regime since the 1989 student pro-democracy demonstrations which were crushed at Tiananmen Square.
Source: Central News Agency web site, Taipei, in English 1435 GMT 11 Sep 01
(C) 2001 BBC Monitoring
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