About 50 people belonging to the Falun Gong religious movement began a protest Wednesday against the persecution of their members in China.

Nearly all have paid their way from Taiwan, South Korea, Japan and the U.S. continent to raise awareness of the issue in Honolulu this week when 21 political leaders, including Chinese President Hu Jintao and President Barack Obama, are here for the Asia-Pacific Economic Cooperation gathering.

While much media attention has been placed on protest groups objecting to the globalization policies of APEC and its members, the Falun Gong group represents one of several other organizations here hoping to raise awareness of human rights violations and other sociopolitical issues involving individual APEC nations.

Ben Maloney, a Falun Gong practitioner in Hawaii, said the group’s numbers are expected to swell to about 170 during the weekend. Only 20 to 30 are from Honolulu, he said.

"We have people coming from all over the world."

The practice of Falun Gong continues to be "brutally persecuted in China" while the Chinese government attempts to censor news about the persecution from people outside China, Maloney said. Maloney described Falun Gong as a Buddhist school that teaches people to practice truthfulness, compassion and tolerance.

The group, clad in yellow T-shirts, held signs at Ala Moana Park, passed out brochures and bookmarks to passersby, and sat under several shady trees and prayed.

Nico Chen of Hsinchu, Taiwan, said members want to raise awareness about the abuses among the world leaders as well as the public about the persecution.

Chen, 27, said she and others arrived in Honolulu at 7 a.m., dropped off their luggage at their hotel, then went directly to the park.

A product manager for an information technology company, Chen said she felt it important to take time off from her job to come to Hawaii.

"People are getting killed in China," Chen said. "These are good people. However, the Chinese government just doesn’t want people to practice Falun Gong."

An estimated 100 million people are Falun Gong followers in China, she said.

Also this weekend, members of the Vietnamese-American community in Hawaii and the mainland intend to raise public awareness of human rights violations in their homeland.

Trinity Pham, a member of the pro-democracy network Viet Tan, said organizers are hoping to mobilize 500 Vietnamese-Americans to take part in the larger "APEC Sucks!" march Saturday morning from Old Stadium Park in Moiliili to Waikiki.

About 60 percent of the group is expected to be people belonging to local Vietnamese-American community organizations, Pham said, with 100 to 200 others coming from the mainland.

Pham said that as host of the 2006 APEC conference, Vietnam promised to promote good government and combat corruption. Since then, she said, Vietnam has increased its controls over Internet access, freedom of the press and freedom of speech.

"We’re hoping to raise awareness of the issues to the media who are there and, of course, get the attention of the member nations who are attending APEC this year," she said.

Vietnamese-Americans are also hoping to get their message across to Vietnamese President Truong Tan Sang, who is attending this week’s APEC proceedings.

Meanwhile, nine people gathered for an Occupy APEC protest at Princess Kaiulani Triangle Wednesday afternoon in Waikiki.

"Forces of globalization are gradually turning First World nations into Third World nations," said Mike Daly, who described himself as an artist-activist.

Star-Advertiser reporter Kevin Dayton contributed to this report.