March 11, 2002

BEIJING (AP)--An Australian couple, the latest in a series of foreigners detained in recent months for protesting China's crackdown on Falun Gong, were deported by the Chinese government Monday, a spokesman for the spiritual movement said.

Emma Hall and her husband, Jarrod, were put on a flight for Singapore and were flying from there back to their home in Melbourne, said Chris Cominos, an Australian spokesman for the [group]. He said Jarrod Hall phoned him from Singapore.

The Halls, both 23, were detained Sunday on Beijing's Tiananmen Square just seconds into their protest. Police questioned them before expelling them, Cominos said.

"Police seem to think there is some big master plan behind this," he said in a telephone interview. But "it's pretty much independent people wanting to go to appeal."

China's Foreign Ministry said it had no information on the deportations.

The Halls' protest was the sixth by foreign followers of Falun Gong on or near Tiananmen Square since November and the second by Australians in four days. On Friday, China deported 10 Australians detained a day earlier in a similar protest.

In a statement written before their arrest and released by Falun Gong organizers abroad, the Halls said they wanted "to clarify the truth to the Chinese people and government that Falun Dafa" - another name used by the [group] - "is good."

China banned the group in 1999 as an [Jiang Zemin regime's slanderous term omitted]. Authorities have detained thousands of Chinese followers, imprisoning many in labor camps. Falun Gong organizers abroad claim 375 Chinese followers have been killed.