Falungong denies mass suicide and claims 15 tortured to death

The Falungong movement Wednesday denied reports of a mass suicide by followers at a labour camp in northern China and accused guards of torturing 15 female practitioners to death.

A Falungong statement from New York said the authorities at the Wanjia reeducation through labour camp in the city of Harbin had been ordered to portray the deaths around June 20 as suicide.

The statement said the camp had been authorised to use "many different kinds" of torture against detained practitioners to ensure they renounced their belief in Falungong, which was outlawed in China in July 1999.
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The Hong Kong-based Information Center for Human Rights and Democracy said Tuesday that at least 10 Falungong followers had died in a mass suicide attempt by 16 practitioners.

The center said the suicide attempt came after the camp authorities extended the practitioners' detention in response to a hunger strike.

Labor camp officials denied the report when contacted by AFP.

An official at a police station in the town where one of the deceased lived confirmed to AFP that ''several'' Falungong followers had died.

''We were told (by the camp) several of them died, but they didn't tell us how many,'' said the police official at Lequn township in Heilongjiang.
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The issue of alleged Falungong suicides has become a major issue in the propaganda war between China and the movement.

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