BEIJING, Nov. 29 – Chinese police have detained more than 35,000 practitioners of the Falun Gong spiritual movement in Beijing alone between July 22 – the date the group was banned – and Oct. 30, a human rights organization reported today.

The Hong Kong-based Information Center of Human Rights & Democratic Movement in China reported that the figure was announced on Friday during a speech to Communist Party stalwarts in Beijing by vice premier Li Lanqing. According to the account, Li described the campaign against Falun Gong as "long term, difficult and complex" and said Falun practitioners were being "stubborn."

If accurate, the account would mark the clearest indication to date of the size of efforts to crush Falun Gong's enduring opposition to the government ban issued July 22. The human rights organization reported having three sources for the contents of Li's speech, but did not identify them.

The number of detained people reported in the operation against Falun Gong dwarfs every political campaign in recent years in China except for the 1989 crackdown on a student-led democracy movement centered around Beijing's Tiananmen Square. At that time, an estimated 15,000 people were sent to jail or labor camps within about 50 days following the attack on student demonstrators by China's army on June 4, 1989.

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So far, human rights officials estimate that 2,000 Falun Gong practitioners have been sent to labor camps in the latest crackdown. Four Falun Gong leaders, from China's southernmost province of Hainan Island, have been sentenced to jail terms. About 300 more are awaiting sentencing.

Falun Gong has been an improbable threat to the government since it surfaced as a national phenomenon earlier this year. The group advocates no real ideology. It promotes a mix of New Age beliefs, conservative social values and the cultivation of a "wheel" of energy in the belly of each follower. Its leader, Li Hongzhi, a former musician and night watchman, lives in Queens, N.Y. Most of Falun's followers are retired or unemployed workers. It also appeals to elderly Communist Party officials and scientists, unlikely sources of political dissent.

Nevertheless, the anti-Falun Gong campaign has lasted longer than the crackdown following the Tiananmen Square attack. Slowly some officials and scholars, even among early critics of the movement, have spoken out against the crackdown. For example, a well-respected teacher from the central Chinese city of Chongqing was recently tried for his participation in the movement, sparking a widespread expression of sympathy among his students at the Chongqing Tax Academy, sources said.

According to the Hong Kong-based center, more than 26,000 of those detained in the last four months were grabbed in Beijing from July 20 to 22 when the government was preparing the order to ban the group. Another peak occurred at the end of October around the visit of U.N. Secretary General Kofi Annan to Beijing when 4,230 people were detained.

The Hong Kong-based center quoted Li as saying that not a day has gone by in Beijing since the ban when a Falun Gong practitioner has not been detained. Currently, he was cited as saying, about 60 protesters are arrested daily as they attempt to go to a government complaints bureau to protest the ban. The great majority of those detained have been released.

Li reportedly added that even during China's National Day celebrations on Oct. 1 an arrest was made of a student marching from the prestigious Qinghua University who had prepared a banner reading: "Falun Dafa," another way of saying Falun Gong. Chinese source independently confirmed that incident and added that all students marching were searched three times before they entered the square.

Parts of Li's speech in the Great Hall of the People were published by state-run media, but details on the detentions were not. The government has not given a full accounting of the crackdown in part because the numbers would show the popularity of the meditation group and the fervor of its members. Li's speech was given to 3,000 party officials, including members of the political department of the People's Liberation Army and other Communist Party security organs.

Chinese sources said the crackdown on Falun Gong has been supported from the beginning by President Jiang Zemin. They add, however, that Jiang's motivation for ordering the crackdown is not completely clear. Some have said Jiang was disturbed when 10,000 Falun Gong practitioners surrounded the headquarters of the Communist Party in Beijing on April 25. Others have said Jiang ordered the suppression when he discovered that close family members practiced Falun Gong.

The practitioners who have protested the ban mark the first time a concerted campaign of civil disobedience has been carried out since China became Communist in 1949. In Beijing, the protests take two forms. One involves going to Tiananmen Square and sitting down and meditating. Police drag those people away. The other involves heading to the government complaints office. Police ask plaintiffs if they are Falun Gong members and lead away those who acknowledge membership.

The Chinese government estimates that 2 million Chinese follow Falun Gong but other estimates place the number closer to 10 million. At its height of popularity in China, the sect was actively promoted by the central government and sold 55 million books – all printed by state-run printing presses.

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