Foreign Ministry spokesman Qin Gang said the Falun Gong group had made an "absurd lie" by claiming its followers were being killed at a prison in Northeast China.

"This lie is not worth refuting and no one will buy it," the spokesman said on Tuesday.

Some Falun Gong groups in the United States reportedly alleged there was a Sujiatun "concentration camp" near Shenyang, capital of Liaoning Province, where they said some 6,000 Falun Gong practitioners were being imprisoned.

They claimed two-thirds had been killed and cremated.

"The lie began to circulate on March 8, but we disregarded it because it was far too absurd," he said.

The spokesman touched on the topic when asked about it by the media on Tuesday.

The Falun Gong group later changed its earlier statement and claimed the camp was set up in a small hospital.

"How can 6,000 people be accommodated at a small hospital?!" Qin said.

Qin invited reporters to visit the area to see for themselves that there was no such camp operating.

The spokesman said the Falun Gong cult enjoyed spreading false accusations in the public arena.

For example, Falun Gong started a rumour that about 9 million members of the Communist Party of China had quit their membership, and membership numbers were steadily falling.

"Were that the case, the Party would have already fallen," Qin said.

(China Daily  2006-03-30 )