King Tuanku Syed Sirajuddin was today urged to raise the plight of Falun Gong practitioners during a visit to China next week.

About a dozen Falun Gong supporters tried to hand in a memorandum to the king at the palace here earlier today but were turned away, Chan Yoke Yin, a spokeswoman for the Malaysia-based Falun Dafa Research Centre, told AFP .

The Falun Gong movement, which combines meditation with Buddhist-inspired teachings, was banned as an "evil cult" in China in 1999.

"More than 1,400 practitioners have been tortured to death, over 35,000 were severely abused and tortured with numbers rising," the Malaysian centre said in a statement.

Falun Gong practitioners in Malaysia hoped the king would "raise this issue during his visit to China and help stop the persecution of Falun Gong in China," it said.

The king is to leave Monday for a week-long visit to China.