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China on Wednesday said its "victory" over the Falungong sect would not prevent the organisation continuing to defy the authorities, one year after the group was banned by the government.
"China has achieved a decisive victory in the fight after unremitting and determined efforts," an article to be published Thursday in the People's Daily and quoted by Xinhua news agency said.
"The cult will not voluntarily step down from the historical stage," it added.
Falungong leader Li Hongzhi, exiled to the United States, and his followers, "like any evil force, have never stopped doing illegal things," the report said.
"They have proven that they still have some value for the Western anti-China forces," it says.
The article will be published Thursday, ahead of the first anniversary of the banning of the movment by Beijing on July 22, 1999, following demonstrations by tens of thousands of followers which alarmed the government.
The sect, which combines Chinese breathing exercises with Buddhist and Taoist philosophies, alarmed the authorities three months earlier when 10,000 protestors gathered in Beijing.
The silent gathering was the largest in the capital since the Tiananmen pro-democracy demonstrations in 1989.
Although some members have been handed jail terms of up to 18 years, followers continue to defy the government, daily appearing in small groups in Tiananmen Square.
These protests have been suppressed by security forces fearful of a demonstration to mark the first anniversary of the ban on Saturday.
According to a human rights organisation, around 24 members have died in detention from police maltreatment or hunger strikes.
The Hong Kong-based Information Centre for Human Rights and Democracy said in a statement that two Falungong members died in Chinese police detention centres this month.
One of them, a 44-year-old man, was covered with bruises and bandages, the centre said, quoting his relatives.
Officials in charge of the "reform through labour" prison camp where the man died confirmed his death to AFP, but said he died of natural causes.
The movement is seen by the communist party as the biggest threat to its grip on power since the Tiananmen pro-democracy protests, which were violently crushed by the army on June 4, 1989.
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