An outlawed Chinese spiritual group Sunday called on the United Nations to help in the release its leader, who has been jailed in the US territory of Guam and is awaiting immigration procedures, a Hong Kong rights group said.
The "Zhong Gong" group asked that spiritual leader Zhang Hongbao be released from inhumane conditions on Guam where he has been held since a US immigration court agreed to grant him "asylum from torture" on September 20, the Information Center for Human Rights and Democracy said.
Guam island is a US territory in the Pacific Ocean.
The group maintained that the immigration court's decision, which would apparently grant Zhang asylum in the United States, was based on the UN Convention Against Torture of which the United States is a signatory nation, the center said.
Zhang Hongbao fled to Guam after the Chinese government began a crackdown on the "Zhong Gong" group, much in the way it has been trying to stamp out the more high profile Falungong spiritual group over the last 17 months.
Both groups teach Buddhist and Taoist inspired teachings, advocate clean living and high moral values, while engaging in group meditation and traditional Chinese breathing exercises.
Some 450 Falungong members have received prison sentences of up to 18 years, more than 600 have been sent to mental hospitals, 10,000 have been placed in labor camps and another 20,000 locked up in temporary detention centers, according to the rights center.
Reports of prison beatings to force followers to give up their beliefs, have been widespread.
The petition said prison conditions on Guam "in many ways were worse than in Chinese prisons," with crowded conditions, little medical treatment and a two-hour wait to make a ten minute telephone call, it said.
The petition also accused the United States government of caving in to pressures from China, by refusing to follow through with Zhang's asylum case.
China has called the Falungong, and its millions of followers, the biggest threat to one party communist rule since the 1989 Tiananmen democracy protests were crushed by the Chinese military.
Followers of the Zhong Gong group are also believed to number in the tens of millions, while the group was officially registered with the Civil Affairs Ministry while the Falungong was not.
Before being banned, both groups enjoyed lucrative incomes from sales of book, video tapes and other teaching materials – BEIJING (AFP)
© 2000 Al Bawaba (www.albawaba.com)
