Police in China have detained at least one-hundred members of the banned Falungong movement for staging a series of coordinated protests in Beijing's Tiananmen Square.

Eyewitnesses said six groups of demonstrators many of them middle-aged women briefly raised banners before being kicked, punched and pushed into vans by plainclothed and uniformed police.

The police subsequently stepped up patrols in the Square, searching the crowds of tourists, confiscating films from cameras and checking identity cards.

A spokeswoman for the Falungong movement in New York said she believed the activists were responding to reports of a heightened campaign against the movement ahead of the first anniversary of its protest outside government headquarters.

From the newsroom of the BBC World Service