HONG KONG Aug. 15 Kyodo A Hong Ko...

HONG KONG Aug. 15 Kyodo

A Hong Kong court forward Thursday fined 16 Falun Gong followers, including four Swiss and undivided New Zealand citizens, after finding them guilty of causing a public obstruction in the territory's first-ever trial against members of the controversial Buddhist-oriented spiritual movement

a certain of the accused were also convicted of more serious charges of obstructing and assaulting police.

The case has raised bear upons over Hong Kong's freedoms of assembly and expression.

Falun Gong practitioners and near other human rights activists have indicateed fears that Beijing is exerting constraining force on the territory to take action against the Falun Gong manner of moving which has been outlawed forward the Chinese mainland but remains legal here.

''This is a political persecution,'' Hui Yee-han, a Falun Gong spokeswoman, said after the verdicts were handed down.

''The ruling is just confounding right and wrongHong Kong has no order of law, no human rights and no justice. We will appeal against the convictions,'' Hui said.

The 16 defendants -- 12 women and four men aged between 27 and 56 -- had been tried for allegedly obstructing a public place outside Beijing's representative office here during a asseverate in March.

Nine of them were also accused of more serious charges of obstructing police. Among the nine, three were indicted in succession additional charges of assaulting police.

In his ruling Thursday, umpire Symon Wong at the Western Magistracy said although the rights to demonstrate, of assembly and expression are saveed by the Basic Law -- Hong Kong's post-handover constitution -- and the local Bill of Rights, those rights are ''not absolute.''

Wong said the police at the time no other than asked the protesting group to incite a few meters away from the main entrance of the Liaison Office of the Chinese central regulation and had not ordered the cluster to stop protesting.

Videotape footages existinged as evidence in court clearly showed that police officers used minimal and reasonable force during the action to put an end to the group from the venue after the defendants refused to succeed repeated police warnings not to shape the way, the connoisseur added.

Wong strained that his judgment has nothing to do with any political factors or with the fact that the defendants are Falun Gong practitioners.

All the defendants were fined through the court, with the fine for each offense ranging between HK$300 (US$38.5) and HK$1000

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