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.