Mon Feb 11, 7:12 AM ET

By JOE McDONALD, Associated Press Writer

BEIJING (AP) - An American and a Canadian were detained Monday while protesting China's effort to blame the banned Falun Gong for a fiery group suicide attempt last year.

The two men unfurled a banner on Tiananmen Square in the center of Beijing and shouted the group's name. Within seconds, police rushed over, tore down the banner and pushed the two men into a nearby van as scores of curious Chinese tourists watched.

The men identified themselves as Levi Browde, 29, a software expert from New York, and Jason Loftus, 22, an engineering student from Barrie, Ontario, Canada.

Their protest came on the eve of the Chinese New Year - the day in the lunar calendar that five people set themselves on fire on the square last year.

Chinese authorities blamed Falun Gong for that Jan. 23, 2001, suicide attempt and made it the center of a massive propaganda campaign to discredit the spiritual group.

Falun Gong activists abroad deny the people involved were followers and suggest Chinese officials staged the event.

"The Self-Immolation is a Hoax; Falun Dafa is Good," said the banner held up Monday by Browde and Loftus.

They said they were combating a "massive slander campaign" aimed at teaching the public in China and abroad to hate and fear a peaceful group.

"(Chinese President) Jiang Zemin and the people who are carrying out this persecution do represent something evil," Browde said.

Browde said he had been a Falun Gong member for three years and Loftus for 3 1/2 years.

Browde and Loftus showed reporters a video produced by Falun Gong supporters abroad aimed at debunking the Chinese claims about the group suicide attempt.

"A Staged Incident" is based on footage of the event shown on Chinese state television. It points out what it says are inconsistencies in the official account and questions details of the event.

According to authorities, two people died in the self-immolation - a woman and her 12-year-old daughter. Four people were sentenced to life in prison on charges of organizing it, including one man said to have set himself on fire.

The video includes a sequence in slow motion apparently showing someone hitting a woman in the group in the head while police put out the fire.

Monday's protest was at least the third in Tiananmen Square by Western followers of Falun Gong.

In November, 35 Westerners were expelled from China after a protest. A Canadian woman who staged a lone protest last month was held overnight and expelled.

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In the late 1990s, Falun Gong claimed tens of millions of followers attracted by its slow-motion exercises and mix of traditional Chinese beliefs and the teachings of its founder, a former Chinese clerk named Li Hongzhi.

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Thousands of members were detained, and Falun Gong supporters abroad said 358 of them were killed in captivity.

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Chinese police and military police officers detain Falun Gong member Jason Loftus after he and Levi Browde, partly obscured, right, held a protest in Beijing's Tiananmen Square on the eve of the Chinese Lunar New Year Monday, Feb. 11, 2002. Loftus, of Barrie, Ontario, and Browde, of New York, were quickly detained and led away by police. (AP Photo/Greg Baker)

Chinese police detain American follower of the banned Falun Gong spiritual movement Levi Browde of New York after he and Canadian follower Jason Loftus (not in picture) staged a protest in Beijing's Tiananmen Square on the eve of the Chinese Lunar New Year, February 11, 2002. The two unfurled a yellow banner and shouted [statements] including "Falun Gong is good" in Chinese, witnesses said. (REUTERS/Str)