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Sect denies suicide claims
Falun Gong says members were killed
Leaders of the Falun Gong sect and a Hong Kong-based human-rights group have joined in rejecting a Communist Chinese report that 14 members of the banned Falun Gong died as a result of suicide in a Chinese labor camp.
Reporting on the deaths for the Beijing government, Lan Jingli—director of the regional judicial bureau in the Heilongjiang province—said the 14 inmates made ropes from sheets and hanged themselves from bunk beds during a gap between patrols by prison guards. Another 11 were rescued by camp guards as they tried to kill themselves, Lan said.
The Information Center for Human Rights and Democracy said the detainees had recently had their sentences extended by three to six months because they had staged a hunger strike. A Falun Gong spokesman added that at least several women were tortured to death on or around June 20, and said suicide was impossible because prisoners were watched around the clock.
The Falun Gong, like religious groups that refuse to be controlled by the Beijing regime, has been outlawed and its members jailed and persecuted.
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