overseas media on Falun Gong

The 15 Falungong activists accused of illegal assembly and obstruction to police duty appeared before the Singapore Magistrate Court Thursday and pleaded guilty to their offenses.

Seven of them admitted to obstructing policemen from carrying out their duties and the other eight admitted to participating in an assembly which they knew was held without a permit.

Their defense counsels read their guilty pleas in which they also suing to the magistrate for leniency in making judgment on their cases.

In their guilty pleas, they are appealing to the judge for full consideration of their family burdens, their careers, and their resident status in Singapore in sentencing.

At Thursday's court proceedings involved the 15 Falungong activists, the prosecutor pointed out the 15 defendants stubbornly refused to disperse after the other 45 Falungong members left on police persuasions and the police awaited for three hour and a half before taking action on them.

After hearing the guilty pleas of the 15 defendants and the prosecutor's statement, Magistrate Carol Ling announced to put off the case till March 29.

The 15 were part of the 60 Falungong followers who illegally gathered near a carpark at Singapore's MacRitchie Reservoir. These nine men and six women were arrested after they had defied police orders to disperse and blocked police officers from carrying their duties.

The group have appeared before court for six times and they refused to plead guilty to their offenses until March 8 when they agreed to the prosecution charges.

However, after the prosecutor read out the four-page-long statement of facts at court proceedings on that day, at least five of them disagreed with certain parts of the prosecutor's version.

After they raised the issues with the statement of facts, the prosecutor refused to change its version.

As a result, the guilty pleas of the 15 Falungong activists did not go through on that day and the case was postponed.

(Xinhua)