China on Thursday said authorities had broken no laws while cracking down on the Falungong spiritual group, while insisting it was a cult that violated human rights through mind control.
"Ten years ago the Chinese government outlawed the Falungong cult in accordance with the law," foreign ministry spokeswoman Jiang Yu said ahead of Saturday's sensitive anniversary of a huge protest by the group in 1999.
"The Falungong violated human rights by controlling people's minds, causing illness, disablement or even death of many innocent people and practitioners."
The group first emerged in 1992 behind charismatic leader Li Hongzhi, who preached "truth, compassion and forbearance," while promising better health through group meditation and traditional breathing exercises.
His ideas were loosely based on Buddhist, Taoist and Confucian philosophies.
But China outlawed the group that once boasted up to 70 million followers after more than 10,000 practitioners gathered around the Communist Party's Beijing headquarters on April 25, 1999 in protest of the pending crackdown.
At the time, the government called the gathering the biggest threat to the party's rule since the 1989 Tiananmen democracy protests.
According to the exiled Falun Dafa Information Centre, "several hundred thousand" followers have been jailed without trial in Chinese labour camps.
During the last 10 years up to 3,000 followers have died through torture and beatings while incarcerated, it said.
Nicholas Bequelin, a Hong Kong-based researcher for Human Rights Watch, told AFP that Chinese authorities had used heavy-handed measures to break Falungong's organisation in China.
"The crushing of the Falungong movement from 1999 that runs up to now was particularly secretive and entailed large-scale violations of human rights, including the systematic use of torture and extra-judicial detention," he said.
Jiang insisted the government has punished Falungong members "in accordance with the law," while also mobilising the "entire society to help those practitioners taken in" by the group.
"This shows that the Chinese government cares for its people, especially those vulnerable groups," Jiang said.
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