National Population and Family Planning Commission spokesman Yu Xuejun said the commission and Shandong family planning agency had sent two joint teams to investigate reports of forced abortions and sterilisations in Linyi city since early this year, Xinhua news agency reported.

"Initial investigation indicates illegal family planning practices that violate people's legal rights and interests do exist," he said.

"Those who are responsible have been dismissed from duty. Some are under investigation, some in detention. Further measures will be taken by government departments concerned according to legal competence and procedure."

Yu said the commission would train staff on the "rule of law" and require them to "correct any infringements on citizens' rights".

Time magazine last week reported that at least 7,000 people in Shandong were forcibly sterilised earlier this year by officials under pressure to limit the growth of the country's massive population.

Quoting lawyers who spoke to local family-planning officials, the magazine said that between March and July, 7,000 people underwent forced abortions and sterilisations in Shandong's Yinan county north of Linyi.

It further reported that the lawyers alleged that several villagers were beaten to death while under detention for trying to help family members avoid sterilisation.

In March, the report said, distraught peasants had complained to a local legal activist, Chen Guangcheng, of the forced sterilisations and the detention of family members.

Many people in his village, he told Time, had been imprisoned for defying the sterilisation order.

Chen, the report said, was placed under house arrest by mid-August after he filed a class action against Linyi officials accusing them of contravening national family-planning law.

China's population reached 1.3 billion earlier this year and the demographic explosion is putting pressure on already insufficient natural resources and jobs.

It is expected to increase by about 10 million people annually to reach a peak of 1.46 billion in the mid-2030s, state media quoted population experts as saying last year.

Beijing introduced its controversial one-child policy more than 25 years ago and state officials have credited the programme with delaying by four years the point at which the country's population hit the 1.3 billion mark.

The policy makes it illegal for urban couples to have more than one child but allows rural couples to have a second child if their first is a daughter.

China on Saturday said it would maintain its one-child policy.

All rights reserved. � 2005 Agence France-Presse. Sections of the information displayed on this page (dispatches, photographs, logos) are protected by intellectual property rights owned by Agence France-Presse. As a consequence, you may not copy, reproduce, modify, transmit, publish, display or in any way commercially exploit any of the content of this section without the prior written consent of Agence France-Presse.

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