China boosts holiday vigilance

China boosts holiday vigilance

BEIJING (Reuters): Chinese state media attacked the Falungong spiritual movement on Monday as police were put on alert for protests by adherents ahead of the Chinese New Year.

With tens of millions of people traveling to join their families for the Lunar New Year on Wednesday, State Councillor Luo Gan, China's top official in charge of security, urged police to be on the lookout for threats to order, Xinhua news agency said.

Hong Kong's Economic Times newspaper reported Premier Zhu Rongji had decreed that preventing holiday protests by Falungong was the country's top task. A cabinet spokesman, however, denied knowledge of any such order.

In Tiananmen Square, Beijing's political heart and the stage for almost daily protests by Falungong adherents since the Communist Party banned the group in July 1999, several police vans were on stand-by as workers cleared packed snow and ice.