Table of Contents ·
Fears grow that China will class
house churches as cults - (18.12.2000) ·
Places of worship razed in Chinese
crackdown - (15.12.2000) ·
Two more Falungong members reported dead in
Chinese police detention - (07.12.2000) ·
Two sect members 'die in custody' - (22.11.2000) ·
Chinese,
foreign scholars discuss "evil cult" problem at Beijing symposium
- (13.11.2000) ·
TSPM openly attacks Eangelicals
- (06.11.2000) ·
China releases bishop Zeng from custody
- (31.10.2000) ·
Chinese Christian reportedly beat - (19.10.2000) ·
2 Falun Gong members reportedly die (27.09.2000) ·
Catholic bishop held, worshippers beaten in
China, foundation says - (17.09.2000) ·
Falun
Followers Die in China Detention - (06.09.2000) ·
US Report Chide China for Crackdown on Religion - (05.09.2000) ·
Bishop Detained in China - (04.09.2000) ·
China to prosecute 85 Christians - (04.09.2000) ·
U.S.
postpones hearing on Chinese asylum seeker - (01.09.2000) ·
Another Catholic Priest Arrested in China - (29.08.2000) ·
China arrests qigong faith healer - (28.08.2000) ·
China Deports U.S. Evangelicals - (28.08.2000) ·
China detains 50 underground Protestants in
three provinces -
(27.08.2000) ·
China Expels Tibetan Monks - (26.08.2000) ·
China arrests Christians - (23.08.2000) ·
3 U.S. Christians held in central China: H.K.
group -
(24.08.2000) ·
China convicts 151 Falun Gong-related criminals - (24.08.2000) ·
U.S. delays asylum hearing for leader of a
Chinese sect -
(19.08.2000) ·
Another meditation
group under Chinese fire - (16.08.2000) ·
Xu Yongze released from labor camp in China - (07.08.2000) ·
China's Falun Gong obsession - (01.08.2000) ·
Chinese sect member chokes - (26.07.2000) ·
Hong Kong detains four Falun Gong members - (21.07.2000) ·
China braces for Falun Gong struggle - (19.07.2000) ·
Two more Falun Gong members die in China
custody -
(19.07.2000) ·
China says Vatican will never replace state
church -
(07.07.2000) ·
Elderly Falun Gong members arrested - (29.06.2000) ·
1,200 more sect members held - (27.06.2000) ·
China detains 1,200 from Falun Gong - (26.06.2000) ·
News
of Detentions and Beatings of Christians ·
Catholic
Priest in China Sentenced - (27.05.2000) ·
China arrests 20 members of religious sect - (19.05.2000) ·
Authorities crack down on Guangdong Christians - (17.05.2000) ·
Religious Leaders Urge China Trade Pact - (17.05.2000) ·
Over 10 Christian Leaders Arrested in Guangdong
Province -
(16.05.2000) ·
Religion : a New Challenge for China - (14.05.2000) ·
Mainland cracking down on Taiwan-based buddhist
group -
(04.05.2000) ·
Chinese authorities release evangelist
Li-Dexian -
(26.04.2000) ·
At least 78 arrested on Falun Gong anniversary - (25.04.2000) ·
Sports chief sacked 'for Falun Gong ties' - (20.04.2000) ·
3 Falun Gong Die in Jail - (20.04.2000) ·
Falungong continues to demonstrate on
Tiananmen, official says - (19.04.2000) ·
Falun Gong leader accused of being 'anti-China'
pawn - (18.04.2000) ·
China spiritual group urges UN to censure China - (16.04.2000) ·
Chinese Sect Appeals to UN - (16.04.2000) ·
Chinese Sentence Preacher to 15 Days
Imprisonment -
(14.04.2000) ·
200 Falun Gong Protesters Arrested -
(13.04.2000) ·
Amnesty : 21,000 Arrested in China - (23.03.2000) ·
New Directives to Control Religion - (17.03.2000) ·
Bar urged on illegal crackdown - ( 14.03.2000) ·
Falun Gong Member Dies in Custody - (28.02.2000) ·
Banned Sect
Member Dies in China - (23.02.2000) ·
China
Arrests Roman Catholic Archbishop - (14.02.2000) ·
Chinese judge reportedly committed, drugged for following
Falun Gong - (11.02.2000) ·
US and Australian Falun Gong members held in China
- (07.02.2000) ·
China
Detains Scores of Falun Gong Demonstrators - (04.02.2000) ·
100 Zhong Gong
offices shut down - (01.02.2000) ·
'Increased arrests' of priests loyal to Rome -
(01.02.2000) ·
Falun Gong Members sentenced - (01.02.2000) ·
Foreign Minister bashes EU over rights -
(26.01.2000) ·
Hebei bishop
arrested in church crackdown - (25.01.2000) ·
Court tries Falun Gong leader - (25.01.2000) ·
Sect member, dissident face `spring cleaning' -
(24.01.2000) ·
"China is said to hold devotees of sect in a
psychiatric hospital" - (21.01.2000) ·
China to scrutinize spiritual groups similar to
Falungong - (20.01.2000) ·
China imprisons leader of a Healing-by-Meditation
Society - (20.01.2000) ·
Sects worst - (15.01.2000) ·
China jails ex-general for backing Falun Gong -
(14.01.2000) ·
China Catholic Church Defies Vatican - (06.01.2000) ·
China Sentences Falun Gong members - (06.01.2000) ·
China jails dissident, two Falun Gong followers
- (06.01.2000) ·
Overseas Falun Gong faithful 'blacklisted' -
(06.01.2000) ·
China Jails Dissidents, Sect Member -
(03.01.2000) ·
China flexes authoritarian muscle - (03.02.2000) Fears grow that China will
class house churches as cults Authorities Urged to Determine Whether Cults are 'Harmful to Society by Alex Buchan Compass News (18.12.2000)/ HRWF
International Secretariat (19.12.2000) - Website: http://www.hrwf.net - Email: info@hrwf.net - The Chinese government sponsored
an International Symposium on Evil Cults in Beijing November 8-10 that urged
local authorities not to inquire too closely into the beliefs of accused cults.
Instead, authorities were encouraged to assess whether they are "harmful
to society" a catch-all criterion that some house church leaders fear
could lead to their own movements being classed as cults. Nearly 60 academics from all over
the world attended the Beijing Symposium, and it was full of predictable
denunciation of the Chinese folk religious movement, Falun Gong. But it was a
recommendation buried beneath academic verbiage that caught the eyes of some
house church leaders: "We should not excessively debate whether it is a
genuine religion or not. We should mainly view it from the angle of whether it
is harmful to the society."
Places of worship razed in
Chinese crackdown Campaign focuses on heavily Christian
city of Wenzhou by Frank Langfitt Baltimore Sun (15.12.2000)/ HRWF International Secretariat (18.12.2000)
- Website: http://www.hrwf.net - Email: info@hrwf.net - Beijing, members of at least 40 Protestant congregations on China's
southeastern coast are looking to celebrate Christmas elsewhere this year after
local officials destroyed their churches and places of worship. The demolition campaign is part of a crackdown that has claimed not only
churches but also hundreds of privately built local temples for folk worship in
Zhejiang Province, Chinese officials and state-run newspapers say. Most of the destruction appears to have occurred in the past month.
However, the Information Center for Human Rights and Democracy, a Hong Kong
group, says about 1,200 temples and churches have been demolished or shuttered
in the province since late 1999.
For instance, at Zhejiang's Yangshan Temple, which was blown up earlier
this week, mediums and fortune tellers reportedly offered to heal visitors'
diseases and exercise evil spirits.
Since last year, Beijing has waged a war to destroy Falun Gong, which
claims millions of adherents. Although it failed to break the group, the
nationwide crackdown has led to the deaths of more than 70 members in
government custody, according to the Hong Kong center. The Communist Party, increasingly unpopular here, fears that religion
could be used as a platform to challenge its already shaky legitimacy. The recent demolition campaign focused on several areas in Zhejiang
Province, particularly Wenzhou, a city of more than 6 million people known for
its energetic merchant class and deep religious roots. Protestant and Catholic
missionaries began converting people in Wenzhou beginning in the latter part of
the 19th century when the city became a treaty port. With more than 700,000
Protestants and several hundred thousand Catholics, it has a higher percentage
of Christians than any other municipality in China. China's state-run media rarely - if ever - publicize demolition
campaigns because it only invites international condemnation. This time,
though, the government gave some media a green light to report on the
demolitions. Late last month, the Wenzhou Daily reported that thousands of government
employees and Communist Party cadres in Zhejiang's Ruian City demolished 28
unapproved "religious sites" and 356 small temples, occasionally
using dynamite when needed. An article in the Wenzhou Qiaoxiang newspaper ran a photo of a piece of
heavy machinery tearing the roof off a yellow building that had served as a
temple. The reasons behind religious crackdowns in China are often complex. It
is not entirely clear exactly what prompted this one or whether it is part of a
coordinated national effort. Joseph Kung, who chronicles the plight of China's underground Catholic
Church for the Connecticut-based Cardinal Kung Foundation, attributes the
recent campaign to the coming holiday season. "Every important date on the
calendar - Christmas, Easter - there is always some sort of arrest, detention,
blowing up of churches," Kung says. "They never fail." Chan Kim-kwong a religious scholar and researcher in Hong Kong, thinks the
demolition springs from various factors, including local officials' desire to
curry favor with their provincial bosses before end-of-the-year evaluations. Local salaries and budgets are based in part on how officials carry out
certain policies, such as cracking down on unregistered places of worship. Many
local governments ignore these edicts for long stretches while the offending
communities operate with great autonomy. All of the churches that were destroyed in Wenzhou, for example, had
been standing for months, if not years. "They have been turning a blind eye," says Chan. Local
officials want "to show the government that they are doing
something." Demolition campaigns are not uncommon in China. Last year, government
officials in coastal Fujian Province - just south of Zhejiang - dynamited and
bulldozed more than 20 unregistered churches. Some were huge, expensive
structures paid for with the wages of overseas Chinese who worked in garment
factories and restaurants in the United States and Europe. One church, situated near the airport outside the provincial capital,
Fuzhou, stood about 80 feet high and resembled a redbrick version of the
Cathedral of Notre Dame. Two more Falungong members reported dead in Chinese police detention AFP (07.12.2000) / HRWF
International Secretariat (08.12.2000) - Website: http://www.hrwf.net - Email: info@hrwf.net - Two more followers of the
Falungong spiritual movement have died after maltreatment in Chinese police
detention, a human rights group said Thursday. The deaths bring to at least 74 the
number of group members who are reported to have died in suspicious
circumstances while in police custody since the Falungong was banned in July
last year, according to the Hong Kong-based Information Center for Human Rights
and Democracy. Wang Huachen, 32, a worker at the Jinhua
Group in the city of Huludao in the northeastern province of Liaoning, jumped
from a fourth storey window at a public security office on November 18 and
later died in hospital, the center said. Wang had been repeatedly beaten
since being arrested on November 7 for his beliefs in the spiritual group in an
effort to make him sign a written recantation of his belief in the spiritual
group, the center said. An official at the Jinhua Group
confirmed to AFP that Wang had died, but was unaware of the circumstances of
his death. In another incident, Zhao Jing, 19,
from Jilin in the northeastern province of Jilin, died after jumping from a
police car in Hebei province, the center said. She had been arrested along with
several other Falungong members while travelling to Beijing. Travelling companions told the
center that Zhao only appeared to be slightly injured after she jumped from the
car, but after the group was taken to a local police station in Hebei, the
group heard Zhao's screams and police beating her in an adjoining room. Zhao's arrest and attempted escape
occurred on November 23, while police told her family on November 26 that she
died from serious injuries while jumping from the police car, the center said. Relatives who saw her body said Zhao
appeared to have been beaten, while police cremated the corpse before Zhao's
father could view his daughter for the last time, the center said. A spokesman with the Public Security
Bureau of Jilin city denied to AFP that the case of Zhao Jing existed. China's communist government sees
the Falungong as the biggest threat to its one-party rule since the 1989
Tiananmen democracy protests and banned the movement in July 1999. Members of the spiritual group
follow the Buddhist-inspired teachings of their exiled guru Li Hongzhi, who
advocates clean living and group morning exercises that involve traditional
Chinese breathing routines. Some 450 members have received
prison sentences of up to 18 years, more than 600 have been sent to mental
hospitals, 10,000 have been placed in labor camps and another 20,000 locked up
in temporary detention centers, according to the rights center. Two sect members 'die in
custody' AFP (22.11.2000)/
HRWF International Secretariat (23.11.2000) - Website: http://www.hrwf.net -
Email: info@hrwf.net - Two
more members of the banned Falun Gong spiritual group have been beaten to death
in police custody, a human rights group and family members said yesterday. The
Hong Kong-based Information Centre for Human Rights and Democracy said 70 Falun
Gong practitioners had died in police custody since the movement was outlawed as
an "evil cult" in July last year. Li
Wenrui, 37, an official at the Foreign Trade Bureau in Harbin, died on November
9 at a detention centre in Beijing, the centre said. Li was arrested three days
earlier when he protested against the Government's crackdown on the group at
Tiananmen Square. Police
told his family on November 11 that he committed suicide by jumping from the
window of the detention centre. Li's family members said they were sure he was
tortured to death. Li's
mother-in-law, Gao Sixian, was distraught yesterday. "My
daughter came to Beijing to see the body and his skull had a big hole in it and
there were many bruises on his body. He was definitely killed. He was tightly
watched. How could he jump out the window?" Ms Gao said. Police
declined to comment. Another
Falun Gong practitioner, Yang Guijin, 40, also died from torture, according to
the centre. A
resident of Shandong province, Yang was arrested in October for distributing
Falun Gong leaflets. She was beaten severely in the police station and chained
to a chair, the group said. Yang
went on a hunger strike for a week to protest against the treatment and was
found dead on October 15 in the bathroom of the station, it said. A policeman
at the station, identifying himself as Zhang Zhushun, denied Yang was beaten to
death. He said she had a serious heart disease and had refused treatment. The
centre yesterday urged UN Human Rights Commissioner Mary Robinson, who is
visiting Beijing, to step up pressure on China to improve human rights and stop
the torture of detainees. Mrs
Robinson has also been asked to press Beijing over the prosecution of sect
member Teng Chunyan, 37, who holds a US green card. The woman will tomorrow
face court in Beijing accused of spying. The
Government has labelled the Falun Gong the biggest threat to its rule since the
1989 Tiananmen democracy protests. About
450 Falun Gong members have received prison sentences of up to 18 years and
more than 600 have been sent to mental hospitals, the centre says. Chinese, foreign
scholars discuss "evil cult" problem at Beijing symposium BBC Monitoring Asia Pacific (13.11.2000)/ HRWF International Secretariat (20.11.2000)
- Website: http://www.hrwf.net - Email: info@hrwf.net - "Resolute measures must be adopted to
solve the problem of evil cults" was the conclusion of an International
Symposium on Evil Cults in Beijing, China's official news agency has said. It
added that religious freedom and human rights should not get in the way of
combating these organizations. It said that although differences in historical
and cultural backgrounds lead to differences in understanding of the cults, the
common characteristics of evil cults are that they are "anti-humane,
anti-society, in violation of human rights, and hazardous to individuals'
legitimate rights and interests". The news agency added that dealing
"with evil cults according to law is an important measure to respect the
international norm of human rights, protect human rights, and protect people
from the harms of evil cults" and that those who are under the influence
of these cults should be educated and cared for and not discriminated against. Text of report by Ni Siyi and Wu
Liming, carried by official Chinese news agency Xinhua (New China News Agency):
Beijing, 10th November: In view of internationalization
of the evil cults and their exploitation of legal loopholes in some countries
to carry out trans-national propaganda and commit trans-national crimes,
Chinese and foreign experts on evil cults appeal here: The strength of one country alone is not enough
to stop the rampancy of evil cults. In combating them, it is imperative to
strengthen international cooperation. A two-day International Symposium on Evil Cults
ended here today [10th November]. More than 60 experts and scholars from France,
the United States, Canada, Russia, Uganda, Japan, the Republic of Korea, and
China's Hong Kong and Macao Special Administrative Regions and mainland
proposed that relevant countries should increase exchange of information and
cult control experience and cooperate in action to prevent and combat the evil
cult activities. The experts and scholars discussed such topics
as "evil cults and the society", "an introduction to evil
cults", "the evil cults in various countries", "the
history, tradition and current situation of evil cults", "the harms
of evil cults", and "control measures", and expressed their
views without any inhibitions. They comprehensively and thoroughly discussed
all angles and aspects of the evil cult problems and put forward some creative
and enlightening views. They generally believe: Although the evil cults
in various countries are disguised in various forms, their essence is
invariably anti-humane, anti-society, in violation of human rights, and
hazardous to individuals' legitimate rights and interests and to the overall
interests of the general public. The most notorious ones of them are China's
"Falun Gong", the "Davidians" of the West, and Japan's Aum
Supreme Truth sect. To deal with such evil organizations, we must adopt
resolute measures to solve the problem once for all; and we must not sit by
idly letting them become rampant in hurting people in the name of
"religious freedom" and "human rights." On how to prevent and deal with the evil cult
problem, an American scholar pointed out that if the people know what a genuine
religion is, it will be easy for them to distinguish any evil cults under the
cloak of religion. A scholar from Japan held that if we do not solve the
problem of perplexedness caused by secularization and modernization, we will be
unable to stop the spread of the evil cults. A scholar from France made some
suggestions on how to stop the infiltration of evil cults into enterprises and
eliminate their influence on children. A scholar from Canada made some comments
on the activities of opposing evil cults in the United States. Some Chinese scholars pointed out that it is
necessary to establish and improve community organizations that are beneficial
to the public, and give full play to their role of providing the necessary
service to meet the need of the people's cultural life and to weaken and
prevent the influence of evil cults. Both Chinese and foreign scholars
generally believe that individual, family, community, mass organization, and
government should all do what they can do and cooperate closely with one
another to deal with the evil cult problem in an all-round way, and the
government should step up organization and coordination of the efforts. Some scholars said it is necessary to increase
academic studies and international academic exchange, bring into full play the
strength of the academic circles, and carry out a multi-discipline systematic
research on the evil cult problem, so as to produce more useful enlightenment
for the human society and some constructive opinions and suggestions for all
circles of the society to jointly deal with the evil cult problem.
1. Because of different historical and cultural
background, different countries have different understanding of the cults. For
this reason, in defining whether a cult is evil or not, we should not
excessively debate whether it is a genuine religion or not. We should mainly
view it from the angle of whether it is harmful to the society. 2. The harms of evil cults are many-sided and
evil cults are harmful to various groups, various regions and various trades
and professions. 3. In view of the serious threat and great
danger caused by evil cults to the human society, we must not ignore the evil
cult problem and let it spread. We should take an attitude of being responsible
to mankind and actively adopt measures to prevent and deal with the evil cult
problem, and we must not let evil cults harm the society. 4. Evil cults should be dealt with according to
law. To deal with evil cults according to law is an important measure to
respect the international norm of human rights, protect human rights, and
protect people from the harms of evil cults. For this reason, we should act
according to our law and our actual situation and also learn from the good
practices of other countries in doing a good job of solving the evil cult
problem, so as to protect the citizen's legitimate rights and interests and the
overall interests of the general public. Whoever commits crime in violation of
the law must be punished according to law. 5. To deal with the large number of victims who
have joined the evil cults by mistake, we should educate and guide them, care
for them, and help them restore their normal mentality, learn necessary job
skills, completely free themselves from the influence and fetters of evil
cults, and return to the society. We must not discriminate against, reject, or
attack them. Otherwise, they will sink deeper and deeper into the quagmire of
error, TSPM openly attacks Evangelicals
President Jiang Zemin himself in
1993 called for religion to be 'made compatible with socialism'. In late 1998
TSPM leaders held a significant conference in Jinan, Shandong province at which
TSPM head Bishop Ting and other leaders outlined plans to modernise Chinese
Protestant theology in line with CCP constraints. In May 1999 Ting expelled
three evangelical theological students from Nanjing Seminary because of their
evangelistic Since then, Bishop Ting and what is
known in Christian circles in China as the 'lao sanzi' (the old Three Self -
meaning elderly politicised church leaders usually with a YMCA/YWCA background
who espoused liberal theology and even Marxism in the forties and fifties and
now occupy controlling positions in the TSPM bureaucracy), have initiated a
political campaign to purge seminaries and churches of evangelical influence. This year staff at Nanjing Seminary
were changed. Ji Tai, a young teacher reportedly friendly to the house-churches
has been effectively dismissed along with several others. In Shanghai a leading
evangelical pastor has been dismissed from his large city church. In many
provinces across China pastors and seminary teachers have been forced to attend
study sessions based on Bishop Ting's 'Select Works'. This has caused enormous
resentment. Ting's theology is a mixture of
Marxism, process theology and liberation theology with a stress on the 'cosmic
Christ' which tends to universalism. He states that there is no fundamental
difference between faith and unbelief and that atheists are also acceptable to
God. He is even on record as stating that God does not mind very much whether
people believe in Him or not. There is great stress on the love of God but His
other Biblical attributes such as His holiness, omnipotence and omniscience are
subtly undermined. The centrality of the atonement, dear to most Chinese
Christians, is almost completely ignored. Most recently articles have appeared
in the TSPM monthly magazine 'Tianfeng' casting doubt on evangelical views of
the full inspiration of Scripture. A significant seminar on Biblical authority
was held this September in Qingdao, Shandong province. The book of the papers
at this seminar was speedily published by the TSPM by October. In the preface
Bishop Ting openly attacks the doctrine of justification by faith saying that
in the Chinese situation it should be 'watered down'. He also states that the
Bible has mistakes. The overwhelming majority of Chinese Christians, whether in
the TSPM churches or the house-churches, hold a very high view of Biblical
inspiration and the Bishop's views are totally unacceptable to the majority and
are deeply resented. One TSPM pastor stated that he
believed 90% of the TSPM pastors in the country are against Ting's campaign to
impose liberal theology on the church and the seminaries. However, many younger
pastors are afraid to speak out because they and their families may lose their
financial support. The heads of two major seminaries who are evangelical have
stated unofficially that they also oppose Ting's campaign. However, they
recognise If the vast Chinese church in the
future is to escape the melancholy fate of so many Western churches which have
been devastated by liberal theology over the last century then they need every
encouragement to develop a vigorous, contextualised evangelical theology which
is both fully Biblical and fully Chinese. It may well be that events taking
place now will prove to be a watershed. If Ting's campaign is unchecked, a
large section of younger church leaders may be led into the sterile wasteland
of a rationalist, Marxist theology. On the other hand, as young Chinese
evangelicals become aware of the crisis and the danger of losing the rich
evangelical heritage of the Chinese church, won at great cost over the last
half-century, this may prove a catalyst which will awaken them to engage
Biblically with their own society and to provide mature leadership for the
church faithful to the Word of God. China releases bishop Zeng from custody
Bishop Zeng, 80, was arrested Sept. 14 in his
town, Hangpu, in the southeastern
province of Jiangxi. He was taken by force to the local prison of Linchuan.
Every three days, members of the Catholic Patriotic Association, the Communist
Party-controlled official church, read him the ruling on freedom of worship in
China. When he was allowed home, the police told the
bishop he must not speak with foreigners, MISNA said. The agency also reported that there is still no
news on Auxiliary Bishop Deng Hui and Father Liao Haiqing, who were arrested at
the same time as Bishop Zeng. None of them have agreed to register in the
Patriotic Association. Bishop Zeng has suffered 30 years in prison:
from 1958-1976, and from 1981-1989. Since then, he has been jailed
intermittently, having been deprived of his liberty from 1994 to 1998. To date,
he has lived under constant police control. Chinese Christian reportedly beat Associated Press (19.10.2000) / HRWF
International Secretariat (23.10.2000) - Website: http://www/hrwf.net - Email: info@hrwf.net - A Chinese Protestant arrested
while worshipping at an illegal service
has died in a central China jail after being beaten and then denied medical
care, a rights group reported Thursday. Police detained Liu Haitong in a
raid on a private home serving as an underground church in Henan province's
Xiayi county on Sept. 4, the Hong Kong-based Information Center for Human
Rights and Democracy said. Beaten by police and left weakened
by the prison's inadequate food and poor hygiene, Liu began vomiting and
developed a high fever, the center said. It reported that the 19-year-old died in
the county jail on Oct. 16 after police refused to provide medical care. The report could not be
independently verified. A man who answered the phone at the jail refused to
comment on the case, saying such information could be given out only in person.
But Chinese authorities have in
recent months renewed a 2-year-old campaign against people worshipping outside
the state-backed Catholic and non-denominational Protestant churches. Henan has been at the center of the
crackdown. The province is home to thriving Protestant house churches - so
called because they are often private homes - and the movement is serviced by
evangelical preachers, foreigners among them. Henan Protestants who informed the
Hong Kong group about Liu's death blamed police and demanded a stop to such
repression, the report said without identifying its sources. The crackdown, however, is likely to
intensify following decisions made last week at an annual meeting of the ruling
Communist Party's elite, the center said. Immediately after the meeting,
Public Security Minister Jia Chunwang ordered police to target members of
cults, separatists and "religious extremists.'' The latter phrase, the
center said, is code for people worshipping outside official churches. 2 Falun Gong members
reportedly die by Martin Fackler The Associated Press (27.09.2000)/ HRWF International Secretariat
(28.09.2000) Website: http://www.hrwf.net - Email: info@hrwf.net - Two members of the banned
Falun Gong sect have died in custody, the latest deaths in China's crackdown on
the spiritual movement, a rights group reported Wednesday. The deaths bring to at least 52 the number of Falun Gong followers who
have died in detention, the Hong Kong-based Information Center for Human Rights
and Democracy reported. While it has not commented on every case, the
government has denied the deaths were the result of mistreatment. In a letter to President Jiang Zemin, Falun Gong practitioners have
threatened to mount more protests if authorities detain sect members ahead of
National Day on Sunday. "All the Falun Gong followers throughout China will go to Tiananmen
Square to peacefully petition" for an end to the crackdown on the group,
said the letter dated Sept. 20. The letter was faxed to foreign news agencies
and posted on the group's U.S.-based Website. Before it was outlawed in July 1999, Falun Gong attracted millions with
its mix of exercise, meditation, Buddhist and Taoist philosophy and the
teachings of Li Hongzhi, who fled to the
United States two years ago. The communist government has mounted a media campaign to discredit the
banned sect. An editorial Wednesday by the state-run Xinhua News Agency was
typical fare, calling Falun Gong "an evil, treasonous teaching'' and
accusing it of causing more than 1,500 deaths. In the latest case, state media reported Liu Hongfeng, a 36-year-old elementary
school vice principal, hanged himself at home in the northern city of Lingwu on
Sept. 16. Liu was put into a mental hospital in June after efforts to persuade
him to quit the sect failed, and was released in July when his attitude
"took a turn for the better," Xinhua said. The writings of the Falun
Gong founder were found in the room with Liu's body, said a police officer who
confirmed the Xinhua account. The Hong Kong-based information center said Tao Hongsheng, a 46-year-old
former policeman in Hebei province, died Sept. 20 after suffering from diarrhea
and other ailments. Sentenced to three years for protesting in Tiananmen Square
in December, Tao was held in a detention center in Shijiazhuang, Hebei's
capital, the group said. Officials at the detention center were unavailable for comment. Another
sect follower, Shi Bei, died Sept. 10 after being put into a mental hospital in
eastern Hangzhou city. During three months there, she was regularly denied food
and given unspecified injections, the center said. An official at the mental hospital refused to comment on the report. Catholic bishop held,
worshippers beaten in China, foundation says
China's government is communist and
officially atheist. When Zeng was freed, in May 1998,
six months before his three-year sentence expired, Clinton and other officials
called it a hopeful sign that Clinton's policy of constructive engagement with
China was "bearing fruit," in the words of James R. Sasser, the U.S.
ambassador to China at that time. Falun Followers Die in
Detention Reuters 06.09.2000 / HRWF International Secretariat (07.09.2000) -
Website: http://www.hrwf.net - Email:
info@hrwf.net -
Three members of the Falun Gong spiritual movement have died after ill
treatment during detention in China where the movement is banned, a Hong Kong-based human rights group said Wednesday. At least 30 Falun Gong followers had died of ill treatment in custody
since July last year, the Information Center for Human Rights & Democracy
said in a statement. One of the latest victims was Liu Yufeng, a 64-year-old retiree in the
eastern Shandong province, the group said. He was detained when taking part in a mass Falun Gong exercise. The
detention center notified his family to take him back four days later, when Liu
was already unconscious with three broken ribs and other injuries. Liu died on
July 23. In northwestern Gansu province, police detained 52-year-old worker Li
Faming on Aug. 10 when Li was suspected of distributing Falun Gong propaganda
leaflets. Police then took Li back to his home for a search, during which they
beat up Li who was then seen falling from a window of his apartment, the group
said. Li died shortly after being taken to a hospital. Police declared that Li committed suicide to escape punishment for his
crimes, the human rights group said. In northeastern Heilongjiang province, 29-year-old Zhang Tieyan was
detained on April 21. She was kept in a cramped, poorly ventilated and hot detention center,
where she fainted many times. She died after fainting on Aug. 11, the Hong Kong
group said. US Report Chide China for
Crackdown on Religion AP (05.09.2000) / HRWF International Secretariat (07.09.2000) - Website:
http://www.hrwf.net -
Email: info@hrwf.net
- The U.S. State Department chided
China and North Korea for repressing religious freedom -- using tactics
including torture -- in an annual report card on worldwide religious
persecution. China's "respect for religious freedom deteriorated markedly"
in the last six months of 1999, including a crackdown on Catholics and on the
Falun Gong spiritual group, the State Department said. "Genuine religious freedom does not exist," in North Korea,
the report says, citing unconfirmed reports of executions of Christian church
members. The State Department report does not impose any trade or arms sanctions.
The U.S. Congress is moving toward approving a permanent trade accord with
China and the Clinton administration recently eased trade sanctions on North
Korea. The U.S. has also moved to increase trade with Vietnam, and is
considering allowing more trade with Cuba. Iraq, Afghanistan, Iran, Vietnam, Cuba, Burma, and Laos were also cited
in the report for repressing religious activity. These governments supported
"totalitarian attempts to control religious belief or freedom," the
report said. In Iraq, a decade-long campaign of murder against Shi'a Muslims and more
recently, Christians, continues, the report said. The ruling Taliban in Afghanistan was cited for serious abuses of
religious freedom, including persecution and murder of religious dissidents. A
spokesman for the Afghanistan mission to the UN -- which represents the exiled
Taliban opposition, agreed with the U.S. assessment of Taliban abuses. U.S. President Bill Clinton will join Secretary of State Madeleine
Albright in New York for a United Nations summit on poverty, AIDS and the
environment this week, to be attended by many leaders of the governments
criticized in the report. Spillover Effect The Chinese government's "unremitting campaign against the Falun
Gong and other 'heretical cults' plus exhortations by senior leaders to
'strengthen religious work' had an inevitable spillover effect," on
treatment of Muslims and Catholics, the report said. "There were credible reports of religious detainees being beaten
and tortured," in China, the report said. Officials at the Chinese Embassy in Washington were not available for
comment. Human rights advocates pointed to similar abuses during the stormy
debate in the U.S on whether to grant China permanent normal trade relations.
The Clinton administration points to those same abuses as proof that the trade
restrictions are failing. "It is clearly our hope that granting China permanent trading
status will create better conditions for human rights," said Thomas Farr,
director of the State Department's Office of Religious Freedom. Human Rights Abuses The watchdog group Human Rights Watch wants Clinton to bring up human
rights abuses when he meets with Chinese President Jiang Zemin in New York this
week at the UN meetings. The group issued a report this week citing a rise in
persecution of political dissidents in China. In June, Clinton eased sanctions on North Korea on trade in food,
petroleum, consumers goods and financial services, as well as air travel and
mining investment. The U.S. is eager to ease tensions with the communist North, which in
turn is seeking relief from a decade-long economic collapse that has seen its
economy shrink about 30 percent. Officials at both the North Korean and Iraqi missions at the UN were not
aware of the report and could not comment on it. The State Department, under mandates from Congress, issues similar
reports on countries' arms exports, drug policies and human rights abuses. "It's a problem when you start legislating all these things; if
everything is important, then nothing is important," said Robert Manning,
an Asia scholar at the Council on Foreign Relations. "We are passing judgments
on the entire world." The Associated Press (04.09.2000)/ HRWF International Secretariat
(05.09.2000) - Website:http://www.hrwf.net - Email : info@hrwf.net - A newly appointed auxiliary
bishop in central China has been detained in the government's ongoing crackdown
on the underground Roman Catholic Church, the Vatican news agency Fides said
Monday. Fides said there has been no word of Monsignor Jiang Ming Yuan of Hebei
province since public security officials took him away Aug. 26. Witnesses
confirmed his detention, Fides said. The news coincides with word of another crackdown by Chinese
authorities, who charged 85 members of a banned Christian church with belonging
to a cult, a Hong Kong-based human rights group said Monday. The 85 were among 130 members of the Fangcheng church detained Aug. 23
in central China's Henan province, including three Americans later released
following appeals from the U.S. Embassy in Beijing. China's communist leaders forbid worship in all but a state church set
up in 1951 to break the Vatican's influence over the country's Catholics. Two other clerics in Hebei, a bishop and an auxiliary bishop, have been
missing since police took them away in 1996, Fides said. The U.S.-based Cardinal Kung Foundation reported last week that police
detained a priest, two nuns and 21 other Roman Catholics in the southeastern
province of Fujian. Beatings in police custody had the priest bleeding and
spitting blood, the foundation said. The Hong Kong-based Information Center for Human Rights and Democracy
said the 85 Fangcheng church members were charged with "using a cult to
sabotage the law of the nation and the enforcement of rules." The Henan government's religious affairs bureau has denied that any
Christians were arrested. The anti-cult law, tightened in October during the government's
crackdown on the Falun Gong spiritual movement, has been used against a variety
of Christian and meditation groups that officials view as threats. The Fangcheng church is one of scores of so-called house churches that
operate out of private homes to avoid restrictions on worship. China's
communist government forbids organized religious activities outside
state-sanctioned churches. The Fangcheng church said China's official church politicizes religion
and places allegiance to the national government above allegiance to God in
violation of Christian tenets. China to prosecute 85
Christians Reuters (05.09.2000)/ HRWF International Secretariat (05.09.2000) -
Website:http://www.hrwf.net -
Email : info@hrwf.net -
China has laid criminal charges against 85 members of a banned Christian church
who were detained last week, a Hong Kong-based human rights group said on
Monday. The 85 were among 130 members of the China Fang-cheng Church detained on
August 23 in the central province of Henan, the Information Centre for Human
Rights & Democracy said. The centre faxed to journalists a copy of a formal arrest notice dated
August 25 accusing a Fang-cheng member named Chen Zhouniu of "using an evil cult to obstruct
justice'' -- a charge laid against many adherents of the Falun Gong spiritual movement.
The indictments -- all but certain to lead to jail terms -- were a sign
the authorities could increasingly use draconian anti-cult legislation created
last year to crush Falun Gong against China's many unofficial "house
churches", it said. Local police officials in Henan's Xihua county, where the church members
were detained, refused to comment on the case. Although China's constitution enshrines freedom of religion, worship is
banned outside official state-sponsored religious organisations. Millions worship at home But millions of Christians meet secretly in prayer groups, for Bible
study sessions and services in the house churches rather than join state-run,
so-called "patriotic'' churches which require believers to pledge their
highest loyalty to the state. The Christian house churches, illegal in China because they refuse to
register with the government, have been bracketed with other groups and banned
as "evil cults'' in the wake of last year's crackdown on Falun Gong,
diplomats said. Falun Gong adherents have staged almost daily demonstrations in Beijing
since the spiritual group was banned in July 1999. At least 14 Chinese Christian sects were branded "evil cults'' last
year by Communist authorities, the human rights centre said. Also on Monday, the Cardinal King Foundation, a U.S.-based advocate of
the underground Chinese Catholic Church, said 24 Catholics -- a priest, a
seminarian, 20 nuns and two laypersons -- were arrested last month in the
southeastern province of Fujian. The priest, Father Liu Shaozhang, was severely beaten, it said. Two of
the nuns were released after paying a "large amount'' of cash to the
police, the foundation said in a statement. Believers chafe at state curbs Henry Chu, an American missionary detained among the 130 Fang-cheng
followers last month, told Reuters that the Christian underground were not
cults but "Bible-based Christians.'' Chu, detained at a secret worship meeting with his wife, Sandee Lin and
her friend Patricia Lan -- all Taiwan-born U.S. citizens -- left China on
August 26 after two days in custody. In an interview from Taipei last week, Chu -- who said he was punched
and kicked by police and fined $1,1000 -- called on China to free the detained
Fang-cheng Church members. The Hong Kong-based Information Centre for Human Rights and Democracy
estimated Fang-cheng had about 500,000 followers. Chu said the number was much
larger, but declined to give a figure. A Fang-cheng Church statement said its members refused to join the state
church because China's rules went against principles in the Bible in many
areas. The document cited government prohibitions against religious activity
outside state churches, strict curbs on who can proselytise and a ban on
inculcating faith in those under 18 years of age. Official churches "have the government as their head and are
organised and run according to religious policy,'' it said. "House churches have Christ as their master and and are organised
and run according to instructions of the bible.'' U.S. postpones hearing on
Chinese asylum seeker Reuters (01.09.2000)/ HRWF International Secretariat (05.09.2000) -
Website: http://www.hrwf.net - Email: info@hrwf.net - The United States has postponed the hearing on the political asylum
application made by the Chinese leader of the Zhong Gong meditation group which
is banned in China, a Hong Kong human rights group said on Friday. The hearing on Zhang Hongbao's pursuit for political asylum, scheduled
to start at a court in the U.S.-administered island of Guam on Friday morning,
was put off for two weeks at the request of the U.S. immigration authority, the
Information Center for Human Rights and Democracy said in a statement. It was the seventh time the authority had requested postponing the
hearing under pressure from China, the Hong Kong group said. The authority said it was asking for a postponement of the Friday
hearing as it had not completed the translation of the relevant documents,
according to the human rights group. Zhang fled China to Guam in February. Zhong Gong bears similarities to the Falun Gong spiritual movement which
China publicly banned and declared an ``evil cult'' after its members staged a
bold protest in April 1999 in Beijing. Both
movements incorporate traditional meditation exercises known as
"Qigong," but also have philosophical or quasi-religious doctrines
that the Communist Party views as a threat to its authority. Another Catholic Priest Arrested in China Cardinal Kung Foundation Releases Details ZENIT (29.08.2000)/HRWF International Secretariat (31.08.2000) - The Cardinal Kung Foundation, founded by the
late Cardinal Ignatius Kung Pin-Mei, reports that Fr. Gao Yi Hua of Fujian
province was arrested on the evening of August 19. Fr. Gao belongs to the underground Catholic Church, which is faithful to
the Pope. A group of police officers arrived on the scene of a friend's house,
where he was celebrating Mass for the family. His current whereabouts are
unknown, and no official charges have been released by the police. The
presumable reason for the arrest is his refusal to register with the Patriotic
Association, which is controlled by the government. The 44-year-old priest already spent two years of his 16-year ministry
in a forced labor camp. He was released that time in 1991. Joseph Kung, president of the Cardinal Kung Foundation and nephew of the
late Cardinal, said: "The Patriotic Association was founded by the Chinese
communist government in 1957. Why
should an atheist government like China establish a church, as it was never the
agenda of an atheist government to propagate religious faith? The objective of the Communists in creating
the Patriotic Association was therefore to replace the Roman Catholic Church
and to control the church entirely by the government. The Patriotic Association does not recognize the supremacy of the
Pope in the Catholic Church, and is autonomous from and not obedient to the
Pope. The Patriotic Association also
appoints its own bishops without a mandate from the Pope. There are approximately four million
followers in the Patriotic Association.
In contrast, the population of the underground Church, in spite of its
suffering severe ongoing persecution by the Chinese government for the past 50
years, increased from approximately 3 million in early 1950 to approximately 12
million today. In his speech on
December 3, 1996, the Holy Father proudly proclaimed the underground Church as
'a precious jewel of the Catholic Church.' The Chinese goverment is currently involved in an effort to make
underground Church members register with the Patriotic Association. The
resistance of its members has led to an escalation of the persecution of the
underground Church. According to Kung, "Hundreds of underground bishops,
priests, and Catholic faithful are still in prison or labor camp. Fr. Gao is apparently one the latest
victims." China arrests qigong faith
healer Reuters (28.08.2000) / HRWF International Secretariat (04.09.2000) -
Website: http://www.hrwf.net -
Email: info@hrwf.net --
Chinese police have arrested the founder of a meditation group who claimed to
possess supernatural powers which could cure cancer and other diseases, a Hong
Kong-based rights group said on Monday. Police in the eastern city of Suzhou detained Shen Chang, head of the
Shen Chang Body Science group, in July and formally charged him last week with
disrupting social order and tax evasion, the Information Centre for Human Rights
and Democracy said. Followers of Shen, 44, protested outside offices of the
Worker"s Daily newspaper in 1996 after it ran an article criticising the
group, which claims about five million disciples, the Centre said in a
statement. The group bears some similarity to the banned Falun Gong and Zhong
Gong spiritual movements, targets of an intensive crackdown by Chinese
authorities. All three incorporate traditional meditation known as
"qigong," but also include quasi-religious philosophical doctrines
that the Communist Party views as subversive. China has convicted 151 members
of Falun Gong for various crimes since last year"s ban of spiritual
movement, state media said last week. China Deports U.S.
Evangelicals Associated Press (28.08.2000) / HRWF International Secretariat
(04.09.2000) - Website: http://www.hrwf.net - Email: info@hrwf.net -- China has deported three U.S. evangelists after
detaining them in a roundup of underground Protestant worshippers in central
China, a rights group reported Monday. The report of their release, however, was accompanied by news that
dozens of the Chinese worshippers detained along with them have been sent to
jail. An additional 50 followers of secret Protestant fellowships were
arrested in three Chinese provinces, according to the Hong Kong-based
Information Center for Human Rights and Democracy. The evangelists, Henry Chu, Sandee Lin and Patricia Lan, were put on
planes Saturday in the coastal city of Shanghai, about 465 miles from where
they were detained Aug. 23 in Henan province, the center reported. Police confiscated about $650 from Chu, claiming it as transportation
costs from Henan, the center said. Chu and Lin, who are married, flew to Taiwan via Hong Kong, while Lan
flew to San Francisco, the center said. All three are reportedly residents of
California. They apparently arrived in China on Aug. 14, and were identified by the
center as missionaries. During their detention, they were beaten, kicked and
restrained by handcuffs so tight their hands were numb for days, the center
said. The U.S. Embassy in Beijing said a consular officer who attempted to see
them in Henan was told they were released on Friday after being held for
"activities incompatible with the tourist status under which they entered
China." Police and officials in Xihua county refused to confirm the arrests. Of the 127 Chinese held along with them, 70 have been transferred to a
jail and will likely be charged for belonging to a cult, the center said. All were followers of the Fangcheng church, one of scores of so-called
house churches that operate out of private homes in defiance of restrictions on
worship. China's communist government forbids organized religious activities
outside state-sanctioned churches. Chinese religious leaders are currently touring the United States in an
attempt to resolve what they describe as "misunderstandings" about
religious freedom in China. China has experienced a religious resurgence in recent years as
free-market reforms discredit communist ideology and loosen once-tight social
controls. The government last year began cracking down on underground churches
and health groups, the Falun Gong foremost among them. In a separate report, the Information Center, said the leader of another
health group, Shen Chang, was arrested last month and formally charged with
disturbing social order and tax evasion. The former charge stems from a protest
outside the Workers Daily newspaper in 1996, after it ran a report criticizing
Shen Chang's Science of the Human Body, the group said. The Information Center also reported that police in another part of Henan
arrested 12 members of a house church during a worship service on August 10. An official of the public security bureau in Henan's Yucheng county
confirmed the arrests, and said the group, the Gospel Fellowship, has been
banned as a cult. Another 31 Christians were arrested near Guangshui city in Hubei
province Aug. 2, the center said. It did not identify the name of the group,
but said four members had been jailed and would likely serve sentences in a
labor camp. Police in the city denied the report. Seven
other Christians were arrested during a service in Shanxi province's Hejin
county Aug. 24, the center said. Police refused to comment. China detains 50 underground Protestants in three provinces AFP (27.08.2000)/HRWF International Secretariat (29.08.2000) - Website: http://www.hrwf.net -
Email: info@hrwf.net -
China has detained 50 members of underground Protestant churches in three separate actions over the past month, a Hong
Kong-based rights group said on Sunday. Several of those detained, belonging to organizations in northern and
central China, run the risk of lengthy
detention or reeducation through labor, according to the Information Center for Human Rights and
Democracy. Combined with the news last week of the mass arrest of Protestants in
Henan province, this suggests a
crackdown is underway, even as Chinese delegates to a religious summit in the US claim there is no religious
repression in China. The center said police detained 31 members of a Protestant church in
central Hubei province's Guangshui city
on Aug 2, while they were holding a meeting. Four of those arrested have been transferred to higher-security
detention centers, and are likely to be
given administrative sentences of reeducation
through labor, the center said. On Aug 10, 12 members of another underground Protestant organization
were detained while they were meeting
in central Henan province's Yucheng country,
the center said. The organization they belong to, the 500,000-member-strong China
Evangelistic Fellowship, has been
condemned as an "evil cult" by Ye Xiaowen, director of the Bureau of Religious Affairs. Finally, seven members of a Protestant church were arrested on Aug 24
in Hejin city of Shanxi province. The Hong Kong-based center also said on Sunday that police were
intensifying efforts to investigate 130
adherents of the China Fangcheng Church, a
Protestant organization, detained last week by Henan police. The 130, including three US citizens who were later released, were taken
into custody when 50 police officers
descended on a church gathering Wednesday in
the village of Dawangzhuang. Seventy of those arrested have been transferred to the Xihua county
jail, and police is still collecting
evidence at the scene of the arrest, suggesting they could be sentenced to reeducation through labor, the center
said. Because of the attention triggered by the mass arrest, officials from
the Henan provincial police bureau have
gone to Xihua to monitor how the case is
handled, according to the center. The reports of fresh detentions come even as leaders of China's
officially recognised religions insist
there is no faith-based repression in the country and reject claims that Beijing systematically curtails freedom of
worship. "We often hear the same people, the same forces who like to point
their finger at the current state of
religion in China," Michael Fu Tieshan, bishop of Beijing, said Friday at a press conference in Washingtong D.C. "But facts speak louder than anything else, there is no religious
persecution in China." China has sent representatives of officially recognized Christian,
Buddhist, Taoist and Muslim
organizations to the Millennium World Peace Summit of Religious and Spiritual Leaders scheduled to take place in New
York next week. But Beijing has prevailed on the United Nations to keep out the
Tibetan spiritual leader, the Dalai Lama,
from the summit, sparking outrage around
the world. China officially estimates it has six million Catholics and 12
million Protestants, but the real
figures are believed to be much higher. According to the Hong Kong-based human rights center, the total number
of Chinese Catholics is 10 million and
Protestants, 30 million. Associated Press (26.08.2000)/HRWF International Secretariat
(29.08.2000) - Website: http://www.hrwf.net - Email: info@hrwf.net - Officials in Chinese-ruled
Tibet have expelled monks from Tibetan
Buddhism's holiest shrine and ransacked homes looking for pictures of the Dalai Lama, a monitoring group reported
Saturday. Government teams began house-to-house searches in Tibet's capital,
Lhasa, last month and have thrown
religious objects and pictures of the Dalai Lama into the Tsangpo River, the London-based Tibetan Information
Network reported. Primarily targeting Communist Party members and government employees,
including teachers, the general population has also been ordered to teach children atheism, the group said. The actions are part of a 4-year-old campaign intended to break the
fervently Buddhist Tibetan people's allegiance to the Dalai Lama, Tibet's
temporal and spiritual leader who fled
to India 41 years ago amid a failed uprising
against Chinese rule. Party and government leaders decided to renew the campaign at a meeting
in April in Chengdu, the Sichuan
provincial capital, Tibet Information Network
said. It added that they were likely motivated by the escape to India in
January of the Karmapa, a high-ranking cleric
China hoped to use to win over Tibetans. In stepping up the campaign, leaders at the meeting pinpointed religion
as the main ``element of destruction''
in Tibetan society, the group said,
citing sources it did not identify. The Buddhist clergy, a target of the campaign from the start, appears to
have come under renewed pressure. Last
month officials expelled 30 monks from the
Jokhang Temple in central Lhasa, the group said. The 1,300-year-old Jokhang is one of Tibetan Buddhism's oldest shrines
and its most sacred. The group said the
government has set a limit of 120 monks
for the temple but is not allowing any who leave to be replaced. Officials with the Tibetan government and its religious affairs bureau
could not be reached by telephone for
comment as offices were closed for the
weekend. The renewed campaign has also placed officials under increased scrutiny.
A front-page editorial in the
government-run Tibet Daily on July 4 threatened officials with fines if they take part in religious activities
and listed a telephone number to
attract informants, the group said. Already, families in Lhasa have withdrawn 17 children from schools in
India, the group said. With
monasteries, the traditional seats of learning, gutted by Chinese rule and under severe limits,
many Tibetans go to India to receive a religious education unavailable in
Tibet. China arrests Christians AP (23.08.2000)/ HRWF International
Secretariat (25.08.2000) - Website: http://www.hrwf.net - Email: info@hrwf.net - Police in central China arrested
130 members of an underground Christian evangelical group on Wednesday,
including three American citizens, a human rights group reported. The church members were seized in an
afternoon raid in Henan province's Xihua county and have been detained at the
county jail, the Information Center for Human Rights and Democracy reported. Among those arrested were Henry Chu,
Patricia Lan and Sandee Lin, American missionaries who are residents of
California, the Hong Kong-based center reported. The report did not give their
hometowns. The report could not be confirmed
late Wednesday night. Those arrested were members of the
Fangcheng church, whose founder, Zhang Rongliang, was sentenced to two years in
a labor camp in December on charges of leading a cult. Fangcheng church leaders
also were reported arrested last year, prompting members to appeal to President
Clinton to pressure China for their release. The group is one of scores of
clandestine Christian communities, known as house churches because they are
unable to worship in public. The officially atheistic communist government
forbids worship outside state-sanctioned churches. However, foreign missionaries
estimate the number of Protestants to be as high as ten times the official
figure of 11 million. The unofficial churches tend to be more evangelistic and
charismatic than the government-approved non-denominational Protestant church. 3 U.S. Christians held in central China Kyodo News Service (24.08.2000)/ HRWF International Secretariat
(25.08.2000) - Website: http://www.hrwf.net - Email: info@hrwf.net - Three Taiwan-born U.S. citizens who were among 130 Christians
arrested Wednesday in central China are being held at a police station in Henan
Province, a human rights group based in Hong Kong said Thursday. Henry Chu, 38, Sandy Lin, 28, and Patricia Lan, 25, are being detained
in Henan's Xihua County, said Frank Lu, head of the Information Center for
Human Rights and Democracy in China. Police arrested 130 members of the Fangcheng Church, a banned Christian
evangelical association, the group said late Wednesday. The U.S. Embassy in Beijing has dispatched a consular official to Henan,
said spokesman Joe Bookbinder. "If Americans were indeed detained, we will insist on our right to
consular access to the Americans," he said. A bilateral agreement stipulates China must notify the U.S. of any
detentions of its citizens within 96 hours. The arrests came hours after Bishop Michael Fu Tieshan, head of the
China Patriotic Catholic Association, announced to a group of religious
scholars in Los Angeles that China was entering a ''golden age'' of religious
expression. ''Religious believers and non-believers respect each other, are united
and have a harmonious relationship," the official China Daily quoted Fu as
saying. The Hong Kong group said the Fangcheng Church, which claims 50,000
believers, has been labeled a sect by Beijing. Its founder, Zhang Rongliang,
was sentenced to two years of ''re-education through labor'' in December 1999,
though he has since been released for medical reasons. The group noted that Fangcheng was one of 14 Christian groups the
central government has branded as sects. Fu and other Chinese clerics will attend a gathering of world religious
leaders at next month's Millennium World Peace Summit at the United Nations
headquarters in New York. China convicts 151 Falun
Gong-related criminals China Daily (24.08.2000)/HRWF International Secretariat (25.08.2000) -
Website: http://www.hrwf.net - Email: info@hrwf.net - Chinese courts nationwide, by August 15, convicted and meted out
criminal penalties to 151 hard-core
Falun Gong practitioners who committed crimes,
said Ye Xiaowen, director-general of China's State Administration of Religious Affairs, at a press conference in
Los Angeles Wednesday. Of the convicted, 22 were given sentences up to five years in prison,
according to Ye, who also serves as an advisor to the visiting Chinese
delegation of religious leaders. He stressed that "the convicted are those who either leaked state secrets,
or making use of Falun Gong to create social chaos, or committed other
crimes." Of the 2.1 million people practicing the Falun Gong cult in China, those
prosecuted are only a tiny fraction, and the majority, or more than 98 percent,
have been converted to normal life after persuasion and education for over a
year, according to the most senior official in charge of religious affairs in
China. In response to local reporters' question on the stance of China 's
religious circles on the government crackdown
upon the Falun Gong cult, Buddhist master
Sheng Hui said today that the Falun Gong cult is just as harmful as narcotics, who "has no difference from
drug traffickers." "Due to its strong capability to control the mind of practitioners,
more than 1,600 have committed suicide
or been killed as a result of indulging in practicing the Falun Gong cult, and
650 people have serious mental problems, of whom 14 perpetrated the felony of
homicide," he said. The Buddhist master, who is vice-president of the China Buddhist
Association, said that Buddhists were
the first who identified Falun Gong as an evil cult as early as 1996, three years ahead of government crackdown,
because the cult "stole" many concepts of Buddhism and distorted them
for evil purposes. Both Ye and the Buddhist master warned the public that Falun Gong is
so cunning that it usually takes on
different cloaks to cheat people, which is
why it fooled so many people both in China and the world at large. "When the Chinese Qigong was popular, the master of Falun Gong Li
Hongzhi said he was practicing Qigong
for the good of health, and seeing that
religions were respected in China, he said he was a religious leader,"
said master Sheng Hui. "He is a wildcatter," he said. Commenting on the big advertisements run by the Falun Gong group in
major US newspapers, including the New
York Times, saying that Falun Gong is Qigong
again, Ye said that Li Hongzhi is just playing another trick to fool
the public, Ye said. U.S. delays asylum hearing for leader of a Chinese sect By Joseph Kahn New York Times (19.08.2000) / HRWF
International Secretariat (21.08.2000) - Website: http://www.hrwf.net - Email: info@hrwf.net - Immigration officials have
delayed until next month a decision on whether to grant asylum to the leader of
a Chinese spiritual movement after Chinese officials appealed for his return
and submitted detailed charges that he raped followers, people involved in the
case say. The movement's leader, Zhang Hongbao, has been held in detention in
Guam since January after arriving in the American territory carrying a false
passport, the people said. Last year, Beijing outlawed Zhong
Gong, the quasi-religious group Mr. Zhang founded in 1987, along with several
other groups that practice the Chinese meditation and exercise regimen known as
qigong. While human rights groups say that
Mr. Zhang has a strong asylum claim, American officials now have the delicate
task of assessing the credibility of the Chinese charges. The Chinese authorities recently
provided American officials with a list of alleged crimes, specifying dates and
places and including testimony from followers who say that Mr. Zhang sexually
assaulted them, people told of the charges said. The United States recently has tried
to elevate cooperation with the Chinese police to fight international drug
trafficking, making it difficult to dismiss Beijing's allegations without
investigating them. Moreover, Mr. Zhang's group has attracted little
international attention and does not fit common definitions of a political or
religious movement. China in the past has brought
charges of rape against people whom it considers seditious, and American
officials and human rights groups say the charges have in some cases proved
unfounded. Immigration officials requested that
an asylum hearing that had been scheduled for today be postponed until American
officials weigh the validity of the rape charges. A new hearing is set for
early September. The delay came shortly after Yan
Qingxin, who says she is the No. 2 leader of Zhong Gong, was granted asylum.
Ms. Yan, who is now in Washington seeking to generate support for Mr. Zhang,
said she and Mr. Zhang arrived in Guam early this year to escape a Chinese
dragnet and were thrown into detention with suspected smugglers. They waited
six months to have their case heard. "We came to America because we
thought that this country protects human rights," Ms. Yan said in an
interview. "But we are deeply disappointed to find that American courts do
not treat such cases with urgency. I also fear that American officials are
subject to pressure from the Chinese government." Immigration and State Department
officials said they do not comment on individual asylum cases. People involved
in the case said the State Department was preparing an advisory opinion
criticizing Beijing's suppression of Zhong Gong as politically motivated and
noting the risk to Mr. Zhang if he returns to China. China began a crackdown on spiritual
groups a year ago after followers of Falun Gong, another qigong group,
organized a demonstration outside the Chinese leadership compound in Beijing.
The authorities then banned Falun Gong and Zhong Gong, which are rivals. Unlike Falun Gong, which operates
through autonomous cells with no clear hierarchy, Zhong Gong established an
extensive organization with schools, healing centers, factories and printing
houses. People who have studied the movement
say it raised millions of dollars from school fees and the sale of medical
goods, books and clothing. Mr. Zhang tailored his teachings to the
needs of China's poorest people. He said those who practiced Zhong Gong could
fight cancer and heart disease more effectively than by taking drugs or
undergoing surgery. Zhong Gong also says its leading
practitioners have paranormal powers, including a "thousand-mile eye"
that works like an X-ray and a telescope. Mr. Zhang first went into hiding in
1994 after criticism of his group grew. Ms. Yan said Mr. Zhang decided to seek
asylum in the United States late last year after the Chinese authorities shut
down Zhong Gong's schools and healing centers and detained staff members. She
called the charges against Mr. Zhang "sheer fabrication." Another meditation group
under Chinese fire Associated Press/Gannett News Service (16.08.2000) / HRWF International
Secretariat (21.08.2000) - Website: http://www.hrwf.net - Email: info@hrwf.net - A local leader of banned Chinese meditation group Zhong Gong has been
sentenced to two years in prison, and police are questioning more than 20 other
members, a human-rights group said yesterday. Wang Xuemei, a Zhong Gong organizer in the southern city of Guangzhou,
was charged with disturbing social order, said the Hong Kong-based Information
Center for Human Rights and Democracy. It said Wang appeared in the Tianhe
District Court in Guangzhou in late July without a lawyer or relatives. Chinese leaders launched a crackdown on Zhong Gong shortly after banning
the better-known Falun Gong in July 1999. Both groups have attracted millions
of followers, including some senior government and military officials, with a
mix of exercise and meditation. Chinese authorities have banned the groups as a threat to communist
rule. According to the rights center, about 600 Zhong Gong organizers have been
detained, and 3,000 businesses linked to the group have been shut down. State
media criticize Falun Gong and Zhong Gong as fraudulent and dangerous. Last month, Zhong Gong founder Zhang Hongbao escaped to Guam, a U.S.
territory, where he is seeking asylum. China has asked for his extradition,
accusing him of leaving the country illegally and other crimes. The Clinton administration is facing a potentially explosive decision on
granting political asylum for Zhang. On June 16, the U.S. Immigration and Naturalization Service indicated it
would grant him asylum. But a final decision has been delayed since the Chinese
Embassy in Washington requested July 16 that Zhang be denied asylum and
returned to China. Founded in 1987, Zhong Gong is similar to Falun Gong, the Buddhist-style
meditation and exercise group that was banned by Chinese officials in July 1999
after a protest in Beijing by 10,000 members. Chinese officials refer to Falun
Gong as a cult and have indicated to U.S. officials that the sect may threaten
Beijing's ability to govern China. Zhong Gong, which means "Chinese gymnastics for the cultivation of
the body and the spirit," claims 38 million members, while Falun Gong
claims 70 million members. Tens of thousands of Falun Gong supporters have been arrested, according
to human-rights groups, and more than 100 sentenced to severe prison terms. At
least 27 Falun Gong followers have died in detention in the past year,
according to the Hong Kong human-rights group. U.S. officials want to support religious freedom and freedom of
expression in China, particularly since Beijing's crackdown on Falun Gong. The Clinton administration rejected Chinese requests, for example, to
arrest Falun Gong leader Li Hongzhi, who lives in New York. But Li was never
accused or suspected of criminal charges unrelated to freedom of speech or
religion. The vehemence of China's insistence that Zhang Hongbao be returned to
China also has prompted fears of an overreaction by Beijing if he is allowed to
stay in the United States - an overreaction that could complicate passage of
the historic U.S.-China trade deal that is still pending before the Senate. The trade legislation, passed by the House in May, would open China's
markets to U.S. goods in exchange for granting Beijing permanent normal trade
status with the United States. Xu Yongze released from labor camp in China By Alex Buchan Global News from the Frontlines (07.08.2000) / HRWF International
Secretariat (08.08.2000) - Website: http://www.hrwf.net - Email: info@hrwf.net - China's most famous house church
prisoner, Mr. Xu Yongze, is free. The 58-year-old founder of the Born Again
movement was released on May 16, after serving a three-year "re-education
through labor" sentence for establishing an illegal organization in China.
Xu revealed that he was tortured
during interrogation sessions. Three weeks after his release, he told a friend
in Beijing that once he had each arm handcuffed to an iron gate, and when the
gates were opened, he was stretched up off the ground in a gruesome crucifix
position. "I came to feel how Jesus must
have felt on the cross," Xu said. He expressed his appreciation for the
international pressure that was put on the Chinese government to treat him
fairly. Xu was originally arrested on March
15, 1997, when police raided a meeting of house church leaders in central
China. Initially, no word was heard of him, and Christians worldwide began to
fear the worst, especially when official church leaders like Dr. Han Wenzao
denounced him as a "cult leader" and refused to admit he was a
Christian at all. There were fears he might be
executed. Then Chinese authorities intended to give him a 10-year sentence, but
international pressure built up to such an extent that he instead received a
four-year sentence, which was decreased to three years in December 1997. Xu's
wife -- arrested with him -- served a sentence of a year and a half. Xu said that during the first months
of his detention, he was slapped hundreds of times. He was also handcuffed with
both arms behind his back and pulled up in mid-air for beating. He served his sentence in a labor
camp where each prisoner had to string 2,500 Christmas tree bulbs every day
with a thin wire. Sources say these decorative lights are exported to the
United States. Xu said he was not forced to work and was treated fairly well
towards the end of his sentence, so he helped a weaker prisoner meet his quota.
Xu is now recovering in Nanyang
city, in Henan province. No stranger to controversy, Xu
Yongze shot to international prominence in April 1988 when he was arrested in a
Beijing public park en route to see visiting American evangelist Dr. Billy
Graham. Ironically, Xu had been dubbed, "The Billy Graham of China," and
his arrest shrouded the American evangelist's first visit to China in more
controversy than expected. But Xu's main claim to fame rests on
his record as the founder of the hugely successful Born Again movement, a
Henan-based house church network whose membership may run into the millions. Early in the movement's history
there was an insistence on copious weeping as an essential evidence of
repentance, though in recent years this distinctive has been toned down. Still,
this emphasis on emotion is what led to charges of him being called a cult
leader, and not only by those in China's official church, but also by some
house church leaders. It was partly to offset this
reputation that Xu convened talks in 1997 between rival house church movements
to promote greater mutual understanding. Some believe it was these talks --
billed misleadingly in some quarters as "unity" discussions -- that
spooked the Chinese government into wholesale arrests, because they fear any
large movement that operates outside official control. Washington Post (01.08.2000) / HRWF
International Secretariat (01.08.2000) - Website: http://www.hrwf.net - Email: info@hrwf.net - It has now been just over a year
since the government of China began its effort to stamp out the nonviolent
spiritual movement known as Falun Gong. Thousands of Chinese followers of the
group have been subjected to surveillance, harassment, arrest, torture and, in
some two dozen cases, death. The two most recent Falun Gong members to perish
in police custody were 44-year-old Li Zaiji and 68-year-old Wang Peisheng,
according to the Hong Kong-based Information Center for Human Rights and
Democracy. They both died in the first two weeks of July. Falun Gong adherents nevertheless
marked the anniversary of the government crackdown by raising banners and
otherwise protesting peacefully in Beijing's Tiananmen Square. Few visitors to
the vast square even noticed, because police immediately seized the protesters
and hauled them to jail. Hundreds are said to have been detained. The Communist government portrays
its battle against Falun Gong as an effort to protect China from an evil cult
bent on destabilizing society. In fact, the authorities are reacting out of
instinctive hostility to the growth of an independent organization that appears
capable of offering Chinese a spiritual alternative--however obscure--to
official ideology. Yet for all its determination to
deny Falun Gong practitioners their right to the free exercise of their
beliefs, Beijing has been unable in a year to restore the monochromatic
ideological climate its rulers require. The effort to destroy Falun Gong will
be a "long-lasting, complicated and acute struggle," a July 20
editorial in the official People's Daily conceded. This backhanded compliment
to the undeniable courage and tenacity of Falun Gong's adherents was also, alas, probably a
threat of even greater official violence to come. Associated Press (26.07.2000)/ HRWF
International Secretariat (27.07.2000) - Website: http://www.hrwf.net - Email: info@hrwf.net - A follower of the banned Falun
Gong spiritual group choked to death while in detention after police forcibly
fed her to end her hunger strike, a human rights group said Wednesday. Elementary school teacher An Xiukun,
50, was arrested June 6 while protesting a ban on the group in Beijing's
Tiananmen Square, the Hong Kong-based Information Center for Human Rights and
Democracy said. An, who was being held at a
detention center hear her home in Hengshui in central China's Hebei province,
launched a hunger strike to protest being shackled, the group said. Six days into the protest, guards
forced food down her throat, causing her to choke, the center said. The account could not be immediately
confirmed. No telephone number for the detention center was available, but a
man who answered the telephone at Hengshui's jail said no Falun Gong followers
had been detained in the area. An is the 25th Falun Gong follower
to die in detention since the government banned the sect a year ago, the center
said. While the government has not
responded to each accusation of abuse, it denies mistreating detained Falun
Gong followers. Falun Gong attracted millions of
followers during the 1990s with its combination of slow-motion exercises and
philosophy drawn from Taoism, Buddhism and the often unorthodox ideas of its
founder, ex-government grain clerk Li Hongzhi. Alarmed over the group's popularity
and organization, the Communist Party banned Falun Gong and called it a public
menace. It has accused Falun Gong of causing the deaths of 1,500 followers. Hong
Kong detains four Falun Gong members Reuters (21.07.2000)/HRWF International
Secretariat (25.07.2000) - Website: http://www.hrwf.net - Email: info@hrwf.net - Hong Kong detained on Friday four
members of the Falun Gong movement whose visitors' permits had expired, ahead
of the first anniversary of Beijing's ban on the spiritual group. The immigration department said the
detentions of the four Chinese nationals who reside in Japan were not targeted
at the Falun Gong movement but part of a routine crackdown on overstayers. It was not immediately clear when
the immigration department would deport the four who had overstayed by at least
a week. On Thursday more than 120 Falun Gong
practitioners took to the streets of Hong Kong urging China to end its
year-long crackdown. Under a "one country, two
systems" formula, Hong Kong has a large degree of autonomy from Beijing
and has not followed mainland China in outlawing the quasi-religious movement. China officially banned the movement,
which combines elements of Buddhism, Daoist teachings and meditation, on July
22 last year, branding it an "evil cult," after Falun Gong members
demanded official recognition for their faith in a series of protests. Although the movement is legal in
Hong Kong some members said they were being discriminated against and harassed,
citing difficulties in booking venues for gatherings. China
braces for Falun Gong struggle By Christopher Bodeen Associated Press (19.07.2000)/HRWF
International Secretariat (19.07.2000) - Website: http://www.hrwf.net - Email: info@hrwf.net - China's leaders are settling in for a
prolonged struggle against the banned Falun Gong sect, acknowledging in an
official editorial that a year of arrests, harassment and political campaigns
have failed to wipe out the group. The statement followed a burst of
protests Wednesday by scores of sect followers on the eve of the anniversary of
a government crackdown on the Falun Gong - proving the group remains a force in
China despite being targeted by one of the biggest political campaigns in
years. The group's resilience was
grudgingly acknowledged in an editorial to be published Thursday in the
Communist Party's flagship People's Daily. Excerpts were carried Wednesday on
the official Xinhua News Agency. "The cult will not voluntarily
step down from the historical stage," Xinhua quoted the article as saying. The fight against Falun Gong will be
a "long-lasting, complicated and acute struggle," it said, and
pledged to crack down on members with a "firm hand." In a reference to the group's founder,
a former government clerk whose whereabouts are now unknown, Xinhua quoted the
editorial as saying: "Li Hongzhi and his followers, like any evil force,
have never stopped doing illegal things." A media smear campaign, the jailings
of thousands of members and pressure on followers to renounce ties to the group
have thinned Falun Gong's ranks. But the group has continued to launch defiant
protests, mounting the most sustained public challenge to the Communist Party
in 51 years. In Beijing on Wednesday, scores of
Falun Gong followers raised banners in Tiananmen Square, prompting a frenzied
response by police who swarmed on groups of protesters, wresting away banners
and knocking them to the ground. Police dragged protesters by the
arms or clothes - middle-aged women and children among them. A uniformed
officer locked his arms around a woman's neck, pulling her away. More than 100 Falun Gong members
were detained during the protest, a 10-minute explosion of seemingly
coordinated action across the vast plaza. That the protests happened - and in
such numbers - was particularly impressive in the face of police alertness in
the days before Thursday's anniversary on the crackdown on Falun Gong. One year ago Thursday, security
agents detained dozens of key Falun Gong organizers. Sect followers, tipped off
by fellow members in the upper ranks of the communist government, responded
with mass protests. Two days later, Chinese leaders outlawed Falun Gong,
declaring it a public menace. Police have picked up at least 200
practitioners from Tiananmen Square every day for the past week, according to a
Communist Party official involved in security work. Police in Beijing and other cities
have watched airports and railroad and bus stations to prevent followers from
reaching the capital, said the official, who spoke on condition of anonymity.
Followers have been put under surveillance or detained, he said. "Still some have slipped
through our net," the official said. The government has branded Falun
Gong an unprecedented threat to communist rule and accused the group of
cheating followers and causing 1,500 deaths, mostly of followers it maintains
refused medical treatment in accordance with what it claims are the group's
teachings. Founded eight years ago, Falun Gong
attracted millions of followers with its blend of slow-motion exercises,
meditation and ideas drawn from Buddhism, Taoism and its founder. Followers arrested in recent days
have refused to tell officers their names or hometowns, making it difficult for
city police to file the proper arrest forms, the party official said. Instead, police have commandeered a
stadium in western Beijing to hold those detained until their hometowns can be
determined and they can be shipped off to local detention centers, the official
said. A human rights group based in Hong
Kong, meanwhile, said it has confirmed the deaths of 24 Falun Gong followers
over the past year due to mistreatment while in detention. Although the government has not responded
to each alleged death, it has denied Falun Gong followers are mistreated in
custody.
Two more Falun Gong members
die in China custody REUTERS (19.07.2000)/HRWF
International Secretariat (19.07.2000) - Website: http://www.hrwf.net - Email: info@hrwf.net -
Two members of the Falun Gong spiritual group died in police custody this month, bringing to 24 the number of
deaths from abuse since China outlawed
the group last year, a Hong Kong human rights
group said on Wednesday. The reports came as Chinese police
braced for Falun Gong agitation to mark
the first anniversary on Saturday of the draconian ban Communist
authorities slapped on the group. The Information Center for Human
Rights and Democracy said it had confirmed
with relatives or fellow adherents the July 7 beating death of
44-year-old Li Zaiji and the July 12
death by apparent suffocation of 68-year-old Wang Peisheng. Both men ran afoul of the law when
they cme to Beijing to petition against
the ban on the group - a fate they shared with hundreds if not thousands
of other Falun Gong members. Police told relatives of Li, who
came from the northeastern province of
Jilin, he had perished because of dysentry in a labour camp, but his
body was covered with bruises, the
centre said Shandong resident Wang's death
certificate said only ``sudden death,'' but
fellow Falun Gong members in the eastern province surmised he suffocated
in a densely packed cell in stifling
heat, it said. Falun Gong, which combines
meditation with a doctrine rooted loosely in
Buddhist and Daoist teachings, was banned in China in July and later
declared an ``evil cult.'' Beijing says Falun Gong cheats its
followers and blames it for 1,500 deaths by suicide or refusal to accept
medical care. But China moved to suppress the
movement only after it shocked the atheist Communist party with a 10,000-member protest in Beijing on April
25, 1999. China has claimed ``decisive
victory'' over the group, but its continued
nervousness is evident in a new vilification campaign launched in state
media against Li Hongzhi, a Chinese former granary clerk who founded the
movement and now lives in exile in New York. The government, which claims the
group had two million members at its peak,
says membership has dwindled to roughly 40,000. Falun Gong says it has
tens of millions of followers in China
and 40 other countries. China
says Vatican will never replace state church Reuters (07.07.2000) - HRWF
International Secretriat
(10.07.2000) Website: http://www.hrwf.net - E-mail: info@hrwf.net - China said on Friday the Vatican
would never replace its official state church and that Beijing could have no
diplomatic relations with the Holy See until it renounced
its recognition of Taiwan. Foreign Ministry spokeswoman Zhang
Qiyue told a briefing during a visit by Prime Minister Zhu Rongji that there
had been no contact with the Vatican during the trip. "Our policy is that China wants
to improve relations with the Vatican but two principles must be followed. The
Holy See must break diplomatic relations with Taiwan and recognise the People's
Republic of China," she said. She also said the Vatican must avoid
"interfering in internal Chinese affairs and exploiting religion to
interfere in Chinese affairs." Asked whether the Vatican could ever
replace the state-backed Patriotic Catholic Association, which appoints its own
bishops and does not recognise the authority of Pope John Paul, Zhang said: "I am not an expert on
ecclesiastical affairs but I know the Patriotic Association will continue to
exist,'' she said. "The Chinese ecclesiastical
situation is based on a compatibility with historical and national conditions.
This won't ever change,'' she added, speaking through an interpreter. She added that the current
arrangement reflected "the desire of the mass of Chinese believers"
for religious autonomy. The Vatican has criticised recent
Chinese ordinations of bishops, saying they risk torpedoing hopes for better
relations. Despite recent behind-the-scenes
negotiations, the Vatican and China have been unable to bridge the gulf created
by the Holy See's recognition of Taiwan, which China views as a renegade
province. The Vatican has had no diplomatic
ties with China since 1951, but Secretary of State Cardinal Angelo Sodano said
last year it was willing to transfer its embassy to Beijing from Taipei in
order to improve bilateral relations. China's state-run church says it has
more than 70 bishops and four million members. The Vatican says eight million
Chinese are loyal to the Pope and worship in secret. Elderly
Falun Gong members arrested South China Morning Post
(29.06.2000) / HRWF International Secretriat (30.06.2000) - Wbesite: http://www.hrwf.net - Email: info@hrwf.net - Police detained 15 members of the
Falun Gong spiritual movement at Tiananmen Square yesterday, according to a
witness. The practitioners, mostly elderly
women who appeared to be from the countryside, were ordered into police vans
between 10.30am and 11.15am, the amateur photographer said. Two younger practitioners tried to resist
police and were pushed into the vans, the witness said. The protesters had tried to unfurl
the Falun Gong's trademark yellow banners to express their support for the
movement, which many sect members claim has helped to turn around their lives. A Falun Gong practitioner in Beijing
said the number of arrests in such a short period of time was not unusual.
"It's not a special day. Every day there are people out there getting
arrested," he said. A Hong Kong-based human rights group
said 100 practitioners, most in Tiananmen Square and at the National People's
Congress' complaints bureau, were arrested every day. "There's no special reason.
They just go on their own," said Frank Lu, director of the Information
Centre for Human Rights and Democracy. Falun Gong is a traditional mystic
belief based on the teachings of exiled master Li Hongzhi, who advocates
Confucian and Buddhist moral values and group breathing and meditation
exercises. The Chinese Government banned the
movement in July last year after labelling it an "evil cult". Tens of thousands of practitioners
have since been detained and core leaders given jail terms of up to 18 years
for protesting and refusing to give up their beliefs. Meanwhile, the human rights group
also reported that a PLA officer had been committed to a psychiatric hospital
for refusing to renounce his belief in the Falun Gong. Lieutenant Colonel Zhao Xinli was
sent on May 29 to the army's psychiatric hospital in Beijing, which also is
holding at least five other Falun Gong adherents from the military, the centre
said. The group said Zhao was being given
daily injections of drugs that are making him extremely weak. Zhao, dressed in civilian clothes, took part in a New Year's
protest by Falun Gong followers in Tiananmen Square. by Vivien Pik-Kwan Chan South China Post (27.06.2000)/HRWF
International Secretariat (04.07.2000) - Website: http://www.hrwf.net - Email: info@hrwf.net - More than 1,200 members of the
banned Falun Gong group are said to have been detained last week after security
officials were mobilised to arrest defiant cult followers across eight
provinces. A human rights group alleges many of those detained were tortured,
with a university lecturer hospitalised. The crackdown was ordered after a
variety of provincial governments reported to central authorities that the
group was organising rallies and demonstrations despite an earlier purge. "A week-long massive arrest of
Falun Gong practitioners took place from June 18 to 25 in provinces including
Hebei, Heilongjiang, Liaoning, Jilin, Guangdong, Shandong, Sichuan and Hunan.
Over 1,200 followers were detained," the Hong Kong-based Information
Centre for Human Rights and Democracy said. Zhao Xin, 30, a lecturer at
Beijing's Business Management University, was detained on June 19 while taking
part in a group practice in a Beijing park, the information centre quoted Falun
Gong sources as saying. She was locked up at a detention centre near the
Haidian district in the capital. Several vertebrae in her back had been
smashed. The centre said more than 100 people
were detained in Beijing's Tiananmen Square on Sunday, while Falun Gong sources
said another 100 were detained in Harbin on Saturday after practising Falun
Gong in a park. More than 300 had been picked up in a park in Guangzhou on June
18. Chinese authorities outlawed the
spiritual movement last July after labelling it an "evil cult".
Beijing accuses Falun Gong - a meditative belief combining Buddhist and Taoist
ideas with those of its founder, a former government grain clerk - of
anti-scientific thinking and causing thousands of followers' deaths by suicide
or refusal of medicine. Tens of thousands of practitioners
have been detained since last July and leaders jailed for up to 18 years. Human
rights groups say at least 22 practitioners have been tortured to death. China detains 1,200 from Falun Gong The
Associate Press (26.06.2000)
/ HRWF
International Secretariat
(27.06.2000) - Website: http://www.hrwf.net -
Email: info@hrwf.net -
Falun Gong followers have stepped up public demonstrations of their
banned sect's practices, drawing more than 1,200 arrests in one week, a rights
group reported Monday. On June 18, 300 followers practiced
their slow-motion exercises in a park in the southeastern city of Guangzhou,
and in the seven days following, Beijing and the northeastern provincial
capital of Harbin each reported gatherings of 100 people, the Hong Kong-based
Information Center for Human Rights and Democracy reported. Arrests were reported in nine
Chinese provinces and cities, the center said. The center's report could not be
independently verified. Belief in Falun Gong, much less
openly practicing it, has been outlawed since the communist government banned
the group 11 months ago. The Chinese government considers the group a threat to
public well-being and to the authority of the ruling Communist Party. Tens of thousands of Falun Gong
followers have been ordered to recant and thousands have been sent to labor
camps. But group followers still stage periodic demonstrations. One of those arrested during a
Beijing demonstration Thursday, Beijing University of Industrial and Commercial
Management professor Zhao Xin, has been hospitalized after an apparent beating
by police, the Information Center said. The government has denied that any
Falun Gong practitioners have been mistreated, although the group estimates
that more than 20 followers have died in custody. News of Detentions and
Beatings of Christians Wang and Yang were arrested on 23rd
November last year. Nineteen Christians from Inner Mongolia had gathered in Wang's
home in Han Ku, Tianjing that morning for fellowship. At 9.00 am the police
surrounded the meeting and arrested the nineteen, together with Yang, a local
associate pastor, who was also in the meeting. Pastor Wang was away from the
house at the time and so was not arrested. However, when he discovered what had
happened he went to the police station to enquire about his guests and was then
arrested himself. According to a source close to the
situation, 2 of the Inner Mongolians were held for 15 days, 3 for 10 days and
the rest were released within 5 days of their arrest. Wang and Yang however
were not released. All but one of the detainees were beaten by the police. One
woman was beaten very severely by a police officer who was reportedly drunk.
The baton with which he beat her snapped and flew off due to the force used to
attack her. The police abused, humiliated and threatened the detainees. For
example, one of the women was told that if she did not confess she would be
given over to the criminals in the detention centre to be raped. A source
reporting the incident said: "Only one sister was not beaten. The rest
were all beaten cruelly, with various degrees of savagery. All but one of them
had obvious black marks and swellings on their faces and bodies." The
Inner Mongolian believers were also fined and were accused of disturbing social
order. Wang and Yang on the other hand were
accused of being cult leaders. When their families enquired after them they
were told that they had conducted illegal meetings, brought in believers from
other provinces and been in contact with foreigners, so their crimes were
greater than those of the others. Yang and Wang were given administrative
sentences of one and one and a half years labour education camp respectively. They
have been assigned to different labour camps in Tianjing, where they are forced
to labour under difficult circumstances. During and following the arrests the
police conducted extensive searches of the homes of Wang and Yang. They
confiscated over 2,000 yuan in cash, cash machine cards, national stock
certificates worth 2,000 yuan, bank deposit books, Bibles, books, tracts and
audio and video cassettes, as well as personal belongings. They also
confiscated valuable electrical equipment and in many cases gave no receipt for
the confiscated goods. CSW's International Advocate stated:
" Reports of violations of religious freedom have been pouring out of
China thick and fast recently. It is critical that such abuses are sternly
addressed and that profits are not prioritised over people. Even with the vote
in favour of PNTR, ways must be found to convey to China that if she wants to
prosper and be a full international player, she needs to attend to the
well-being of her people and adhere to international human rights
standards." For further information, including a
detailed case description and photographs, please contact CSW in Geneva on + 41
76 383 6611 or in London on + 44 20 8942 8810. |