From among the usual crowds milling around Tiananmen Square at 9 a.m. yesterday, about 20 people suddenly came together and produced a 10-ft long red banner with the inscription in yellow, "Falun Dafa".
This is another name for Falun Gong, China's banned spiritual movement, whose members had said they would protest yesterday to draw attention to their grievances during a visit to Beijing by the UN Secretary General, Mr Kofi Annan.
Some held up their arms with the hands pointing inwards, the classic pose of Falun Gong practitioners. But they had only a few seconds to register their presence. Plain clothes police emerged from the crowd and pulled down their arms. A white police minibus, parked on the square for this very eventuality, drove towards them and according to an eye witness who described the scene to The Irish Times, police kicked and slapped the protesters as they were pushed into the bus. As the bus sped away, it accidentally knocked down a Chinese woman and narrowly missing a Canadian tourist. The woman, who did not appear to be badly injured, was driven off in a police car.
An hour after this display of defiance in the political heart of China, the UN Secretary General arrived at the Great Hall of the People for a meeting with the Chinese Foreign Minister, Mr Tang Jiaxuan. Mr Annan said afterwards: "The Minister has given me a full explanation as to how the Government sees this group and I think I leave here with a better understanding of some of the issues involved." He added that Mr Tang had told him that "in dealing with this issue, the fundamental rights of citizens will be respected, and some of the actions they are taking are for the protection of individuals."
Scores of individual members of Falun Gong, which combines breathing exercises with elements of Taoism and Buddhism have protested silently in the square in recent weeks. Falun Gong had said it would try to get a letter to Mr Annan, protesting against its banning as an "evil cult" and the arrest of hundreds of members. So determined were the Chinese authorities to prevent this happening that they sealed off roads around the UN Development Programme compound and ringed it with razor wire before Mr Annan arrived on Sunday.
A Hong Kong-based human rights group said 30 adherents were rounded up in the morning in Beijing and two more in the afternoon. It published an open letter to Mr Annan, said to be signed by about 3,000 adherents from three cities, detailing 200 cases of alleged police abuse against Falun Gong followers.
Before he arrived in Beijing Mr Annan said he was puzzled by China's harsh crackdown on the movement and would raise the issue with Chinese leaders. Falun Gong members said they wanted the UN Secretary General to urge China to cancel an arrest warrant for the movement's New York-based leader, Mr Li Hongzhi, to release all practitioners in custody, and to allow them to practice Falun Gong freely.
A Chinese Foreign Ministry spokesman, Mr Sun Yuxi, denied the allegations of persecution and told reporters that Mr Annan "fully understood" the action China was taking.
The UN Secretary General was in Beijing as a guest of the Foreign Ministry for talks expected to focus on human rights and UN intervention in internal conflicts. He did not hold a press conference to give details.