Saturday September 2 4:53 a.m. EDT

Forum Gives China 24 Hours to End Surveillance

HUAIROU, China (Reuter) - An international grassroots women's forum Saturday gave China a 24-hour ultimatum to end surveillance and harassment of participants or it would consider shutting down the meeting.

The Chinese authorities have been given until midday on Sunday to comply with an agreement under which they must stop surveillance and harassment, said Irene Santiago, executive director of the Non-Governmental Organizations Forum on Women.

``We will go back to our constituencies to discuss appropriate action,'' she told a news conference. ``We are going to make this work despite difficulties.''

The 22-member facilitating committee of the forum met for two hours with an eight-member Chinese team Saturday to demand a halt to harassment and surveillance.

The committee said they had received assurances from the Chinese that inside the 103 acres of the forum, people would be totally free to carry on their activities without security, censorship or surveillance.

``We've given them a deadline of 24 hours,'' said committee member Salamo Fulivai, Pacific director of the YWCA.

She said they would then go back to their delegations and ask: ``Say, what do you want, do you want to cancel, do you want to boycott, do you want to riot... I cannot decide that from here.''

The organizers said the Chinese had refused to admit there was excessive security on the site in the suburban town of Huairou, an hour north of Beijing.

Harassment of radical feminist groups and surveillance of human-rights activists, limits on movement and lack of facilities are just some problems marring a grassroots forum whose aim is to focus on the battle for equality for women and their rights.

Organizers said privately that security officials had demanded to search the rooms of participants in the middle of the night and had thrown some out of their hotels.