Five members of the Falun Gong movement set themselves on fire in a mass suicide attempt in Beijing's Tiananmen Square today which left one woman dead.
The five, four women and a man, soaked themselves in gasoline and set themselves ablaze at two spots in the square in central Beijing, said the official Xinhua news agency.
There was no independent confirmation of the Xinhua story.
It said one woman died and the other four people were taken to hospital by police. The report said all five were from Haifeng city in the central province of Henan.
The report blamed the Falun Gong's New York-based leader for the death, saying the five followers had been "misled by the heresy of Li Hongzhi, a ringleader of the evil cult Falun Gong".
The apparent suicide came as the Chinese government was bracing for mass protests by the spiritual movement in the square to mark tomorrow’s Lunar New Year festival.
China's state-controlled media, which has launched a major new propaganda offensive against the movement, has accused Falun Gong practitioners in the past of trying to commit suicide.
But the group insists suicide is against its principles and has denied the claims.
Ms Sophie Xiao, a Hong Kong-based Falun Gong spokeswoman, said the incident could not be linked with the movement and that it may be a plot by the government to smear the group.
Several hours after the incident allegedly took place it was not possible to find any witnesses to the incident. Fire exstinguishers had been placed at points around the square for the first time.
The reported suicide came just several week after Falun Gong founder and guru Li Hongzhi, who lives in New York, issued an ambiguous Internet message to followers which indicated the group was no longer prepared to passively accept the brutal crackdown from the government.
Beijing banned the Falun Gong movement in July 1999, accusing it of being an "evil cult" which had caused the death of hundreds of people by advising them to forsake medical treatment in line with the group's teachings.
Since then China has sentenced 450 followers to prison, sent more than 600 to mental hospitals, placed 10,000 in labour camps and detains 50,000 in detention centers at any given time, says the Hong Kong-based Information Center for Human Rights and Democracy.
AFP