China Tightens Security to Thwart Protests by Banned Spiritual Group

China scored a victory Wednesday in its 18-month-old standoff with the Falun Gong spiritual movement, thwarting planned protests by the banned sect but at the cost of the heaviest security clamped on central Beijing in years.

Checkpoints ringed Tiananmen Square, marring the beginning of the lunar New Year, the most auspicious date in the Chinese calendar. Police inspected identification papers, bags, pockets and coat sleeves to ferret out suspected Falun Gong followers.

The intrusive security came after five people, doused with gasoline, set fire to themselves on lunar New Year’s Eve. The attempted group suicide killed one and marked an ominous shift in Falun Gong’s sustained campaign of civil disobedience.

Alarmed by the group’s popularity, Chinese leaders outlawed Falun Gong in July 1999.