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China arrests a dozen Roman Catholic priests and seminarians
AFP (27.10.2003)/ HRWF Int. (28.10.2003) C Website: http://www.hrwf.net/ - Email: info@hrwf.net - Police in northeast China raided a religious retreat and arrested about a dozen Roman Catholic clergymen while a church in the vicinity was demolished, a US-based religious rights group and local officials said.
The 12 priests and seminarians were attending a retreat on October 20 in Gaocheng county, in Hebei province's Shijiazhuang city, when police swooped and took everyone into custody, the Connecticut-based Cardinal Kung Foundation said in a statement.
The gathering was not sponsored by the government-sanctioned "Patriotic Association," which oversees all state-approved churches in China, the foundation said, adding that the clergymen were being held in a detention house in Gaocheng county.
A staff member at the detention center told AFP Monday seven of them were being held there and that they had been detained for seven days.
"They are charged with illegal assembly. I don't know if they will be released soon," said the worker.
He did not provide information on the other people detained.
Among the arrested were Father Li Wenfeng, 31; Father Liu Heng, 29; Father Dou Shengxia, 37; seminarian Chen Rongfu, 21; seminarian Han Jianlu, 24 and seminarian Zhang Chongyou, 23.
Names of the others seized were unknown, the foundation said.
Prior to the arrests, a Roman Catholic church in Liugou village, also in Hebei province, was torn down, the foundation said.
An official from the Shahe city religious affairs office said the church was razed in June two weeks after being built because it did not have proper building licenses.
"We've demolished it. It didn't have a license to conduct religious activities, nor construction and land use licenses," the official told AFP.
Some 150 parishioners belonged to the new church, the foundation said, most of them new converts to Catholicism.
The religious affairs official, however, said only 20 to 30 people frequented the church.
Another official at the office, surnamed Zhang, refused to say how many local churches had been destroyed for similar reasons, but argued such demolitions were justified.
"In China, one has to abide by Chinese laws," he said.
Foundation president Joseph Kung urged democratic countries to protest the latest arrests in China's ongoing suppression of religious freedom.
"During the entire 25 years of the pontificate of Pope John Paul II, the Pope has repeatedly expressed his deep respect and love for the Chinese people," Kung said in the statement.
"It does not appear that the Chinese government respects the Pope with these consistent and harsh treatments of the Roman Catholic Church in China. All leaders of the free countries should speak out against these atrocious arrests of these innocent religious believers."
In July, five Catholic priests were arrested at Siliying village, also located in Hebei province, about 115 kilometres (70 miles) from Beijing.
The clergymen in their 20s and 30s were on their way to visit a fellow priest who had just been released from a labor camp after serving three years, the foundation said at the time.
China allows places of worship to operate if they are affiliated with state registered "patriotic" organisations.
Nonetheless, millions worship at unofficial churches, some of which are tolerated more than others.
Promoting atheism in China
By Elizabeth Kendal
World Evangelical Alliance - Religious Liberty News & Analysis (27.10.2003)/ HRWF Int. (27.10.2003) C Website: http://www.hrwf.net/ - Email: info@hrwf.net - An article appeared in the South China Morning Post (SCMP) on Wednesday 22 October 2003 entitled "Growth in religious activity prompts promotion of communism, atheism".
In this article, reporter Verna Yu says that the central Chinese government has ordered the state media to step up efforts to promote "orthodox" communism in an effort to curtail the rapid and worrying growth in religious activity.
Yu reports that the State Administration of Radio, Film and Television recently issued a directive urging all state television and radio broadcasters to produce programmes that promote atheism. They are to promote the principles and practice of Marxism, Leninism
and Maoism, as well as Deng Xiaoping's theories and the Theory of the Three Represents, and to denounce "deviant beliefs".
According to Yu, the official government notice said, "A social environment should be fostered to respect science and civilisation. Atheism should be promoted by using Falun Gong as a negative example."
Yu believes the move indicates how much anxiety and pressure the government is feeling over the dramatic rise in religious activity.
The South China Morning Post continues: "During the Cultural Revolution, ancient Chinese philosophies such as Confucianism and Taoism, along with other religions, were condemned as feudalist superstitions. But over the past 20 years, as free-market reforms
have eclipsed Marxist ideology and social controls have loosened, people have turned to religion again for spiritual fulfilment.
"According to official statistics quoted by the Christian Amity News Service, the number of Christians in Jiangsu province alone grew sixfold to 900,000 in 1995, from 125,000 a decade earlier.
"Christian academics estimate that there are at least 20 million Protestant Christians and 12 million Catholics on the mainland."
As noted by the SCMP, the figures quoted are the official statistics. Operation World 21st Century Edition (published in 2001) says of Jiangsu Province that "church growth has been spectacular since the 1980s, with over one million associated with Three Self Patriotic Movement (TSPM) churches and many more in with burgeoning house churches".
Operation World states that an estimated 7.6% of the population of Jiangsu province are Christian, with 1.5% of the population being in the TSPM churches and 5.1% (3.4 times the official number) in the house church networks.
Likewise, Operation World estimates concerning China as a whole, that some 7.6% of the total population - amounting to more than 91 million out of more than 1.2 billion people - are Christian. The overwhelming majority of those are in non-official house churches.
Church leaders back China policy
By Kevin Eckstrom
Contra Costa Times (24.10.2003)/ HRWF Int. (27.10.2003) C Website: http://www.hrwf.net/ - Email: info@hrwf.net - Leaders of government-sanctioned Protestant churches in China said Oct. 22 that "there are no underground churches in China" and dismissed reports of harassed Christians in the communist nation.
Officials from the China Christian Council and the Three-Self Patriotic Movement also agreed with Beijing labeling the Falun Gong movement an "evil cult" that must be stopped.
"The Chinese government is doing a better and better job of ensuring freedom of religious belief," the Rev. Cao Shengjie, president of the China Christian Council, said at a news conference at the Chinese Embassy.
"If the government had not implemented this policy, the Christian church in China could not have had this development."
Cao dismissed reports of a thriving but persecuted underground church that human rights groups say has been harassed by Chinese officials. Instead, she said there are "only a limited number" of churches that have not registered with the government.
"In the final analysis, a church is a church and there can be no underground or above ground between them," Presbyter Ji Jianhong, chairman of the Three-Self Patriotic Movement, said through a translator provided by the embassy.
U.S. officials disagree. Last May, Secretary of State Colin Powell named China a "country of particular concern" for its religious freedom policies, and the U.S. Commission on International Religious Freedom reported "widespread and serious abuses of the right to freedom of religion and belief in China."
Paul Marshall, a senior fellow at the Center for Religious Freedom at Freedom House, a human rights watchdog group, estimated at least 25 million people belong to the underground churches, and "it could be double or triple that."
"They are wrong on both counts," Marshall said. "There is an underground church and it is persecuted."
Much of the concern by human rights groups has focused on the government's crackdown on the Falun Gong movement, which it labeled an "evil cult" that aims to subvert the government.
Cao said, "Falun Gong has nothing to do with the question of religious belief. It is an evil cult that has committed many crimes against the Chinese people."
Cao's Shanghai-headquartered conference was established in 1980 as one of five religious groups that operate with the approval of the communist government.
Together with the Three-Self Patriotic Movement, the two groups represent 16 million Protestant Christians who shun denominational structures and labels.
Neither group counts an estimated 4 million underground Catholics as members. The Vatican has not had diplomatic relations with China since 1951 and has not recognized an illicit patriotic Catholic Church established in 1957.
Both Cao and Ji said Western churches must not try to establish missionary outposts in China. Both groups operate under the principle that the Chinese church must be self-governing, self-supporting and self-propagating.
Christian church activist detained
By Christopher Bodeen
AP (20.10.2003)/ HRWF Int. (23.10.2003) - Website: http://www.hrwf.net/ - Email: info@hrwf.net - An activist for China's unofficial Christian church has been detained after investigating the destruction of churches by authorities in eastern China, human rights groups say.
Liu Fenggang, 43, was detained on Oct. 13 in the city of Hangzhou while visiting with leaders of the destroyed churches who had just been released from almost two months in detention.
Police who searched Liu's home in Beijing later that week confiscated two computers, an address book, cameras, documents and other items, said Bob Fu, of the China Aid Association, based in Pennsylvania.
Police told Liu's wife, Bi Yuxia, that Liu would be charged with revealing state secrets, but did not present her with the official notification of arrest needed to hire a lawyer, Fu said.
"This is outrageous and absurd," Fu said. Liu was simply trying to help hire attorneys for the Christian activists and pass on assistance from other unofficial churches, he said.
Similar reports were also issued by New York-based Human Rights in China and other overseas rights monitoring groups.
Authorities haven't confirmed Liu's arrest and calls on Monday to local government offices rang unanswered. A man who picked up the phone at the Xiaoshan District Jail where Liu is reportedly being held said he "doesn't provide such information services." The man declined to give his name.
Since July, at least 10 Christian churches have been torn down by authorities in the Hangzhou area who labeled them "illegal religious venues," the Hong Kong-based Information Center for Human Rights and Democracy said.
Since China's officially atheistic Communist authorities allow worship only in state-monitored churches, such venues and their worshippers are subject to frequent harassment.
While the official Protestant church, the awkwardly named "Three-Self Patriotic Movement," claims 10 million followers, up to 50 million are believed to worship in unofficial Protestant congregations.
Among the buildings destroyed in Hangzhou's Xiaoshan District was the "Tedusan" church, a converted warehouse that could hold 500 people, the Information Center reported. Although the congregation paid rent and had permission to remodel the interior, the building was flattened by police with bulldozers on Sept. 20, the center said.
In separate report, Fu said unofficial church activist Zhang Yinan is being held on suspicion of "conspiracy to subvert the national government and socialist system."
Zhang was arrested on Sept. 26 with another activist, Xiao Biguang, while the men were attending a friend's wedding in the central province of Henan.
Formal notice of Liu's arrest was handed on Saturday to his wife, Ding Guizhen, who was also detained for several days, Fu said.
Church in China overcoming forced division
Interview with journalist and missionary Father Cervellera
Zenit.org (26.09.2003)/ HRWF Int. (29.09.2003) - Website http://www.hrwf.net - Email info@hrwf.net - The Catholic Church in China is overcoming the division caused by the Communist regime with the so-called patriotic church, says a missionary-journalist.
Father Bernardo Cervellera, missionary of the Pontifical Institute for Foreign Missions, director of Asianews and former director of the Fides agency, outlined his ideas in a new book, "Missione Cina: Viaggio nell'Impero tra mercato e repressione" (Chinese Mission: Journey in the Empire Between Market and Repression). The priest talked about China with ZENIT.
Q: What is the present situation in China?
Father Cervellera: China is going through one of the greatest political and social transitions of its history: from being an ultra-Communist country, it is becoming a country of unbridled capitalism.
This is causing changes in mentality and customs, especially among young people. At the same time, for the first time since the Communists took power, between November 2002 and March 2003, there has been a change without violence of the leaders of the party and of the nation.
Q: What are the challenges these new leaders are facing?
Father Cervellera: The difference between the rich and poor, unemployment in the cities, and the abandonment of the countryside, the modernization of production and trade to be able to keep up with international competition.
The enormous technical and commercial development is contrasted with miserable development in the field of human rights and religious freedom. And yet, religions are experiencing a great moment of development, thanks to the crisis of Communist materialism and the incipient crisis of consumerist materialism.
Religion could become the motor of a harmonious development of the most populous country of the planet.
Q: However, don't you think that economic development might make people forget the spiritual void?
Father Cervellera: China has an economy that seems to be brimming with health. Last year, the GNP grew by 8.5%. But this wealth is in the hands of a few, while the people are enslaved with very low salaries.
At present, there are 170 million unemployed without social security. The health service no longer exists. Schools are abandoned to their fate, and freedom of association is denied, despite [China] having signed the U.N. conventions, and the commitments assumed by the government.
Q: And Chinese culture?
Father Cervellera: The Heavenly Empire, full of benevolence, art and culture, which so fascinated the West, no longer exists.
Today China is governed by a corrupt, unscrupulous ruling class which has abandoned Communism at the economic level, but which continues to maintain the same control of the population. We are before a new merciless empire.
Q: What is the situation of believers?
Father Cervellera: Although those in power try to suffocate and deny it, an exceptional phenomenon is taking place: growth of the religious experience, especially the Christian.
It is estimated that there are 2 million baptisms a year, despite the fact the Church continues to be persecuted.
Another little known fact is the re-composition of the division of the Catholic Church in China. At least 85% of the bishops of the patriotic church -- controlled by the regime, which tried to impose on it independence from Rome -- works at present with the underground Church and considers itself in communion with the Pope.
Q: Given certain abuses, some countries are asking for an economic embargo or taxes on Chinese products.
Father Cervellera: I would not tax Chinese products. I would exert pressure in the area of civil rights, asking for the guarantee of freedom of association, freedom of worship, and human rights, social services, proper working conditions, health services and freedom of education.
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Xinjiang's Ismailis cut off from international Ismaili community
By Igor Rotar
Forum 18 News Service (18.09.2003)/ HRWF Int. (22.09.2003) - Website http://www.hrwf.net - Email info@hrwf.net - The tens of thousands of Ismaili Muslims of the Tajik Autonomous District in China's north western Xinjiang-Uighur Autonomous Region are isolated from their fellow-Ismailis across the border in Tajikistan and elsewhere in the world, Forum 18 News Service found on a visit to Xinjiang between 8 and 10 September. There is only one Ismaili mosque functioning in the Tajik Autonomous District, in the district capital Tashkurgan, whose imam was appointed by the Chinese secular authorities.
The imam-hatyb of Tashkurgan's Ismaili mosque, Shakar Mamader, admitted to Forum 18 on 9 September that under Chinese law children are forbidden from attending the mosque up to the age of 18. He also admitted that the Chinese authorities do not allow the Fourth Aga Khan (the Ismaili spiritual leader) to offer any aid to the Tajik Autonomous District. However, Mamader believes "there is absolutely no need for such help as the central government provides very substantial funding to the region". He stressed that the Fourth Aga Khan had visited the region in 1980.
Mamader also declared that Ismaili preachers and clerics from neighbouring Pakistan (Tashkurgan is situated 100 kilometres or 60 miles from the checkpoint at the Chinese-Pakistan border) do not work in China. He believes there is no need for them to do so. "We have enough of our own experts on Ismailism," he insisted. However, other local Ismailis who preferred not to be named told Forum 18 that Pakistani Ismaili clerics are not allowed to preach on Chinese territory. Xinjiang's Ismaili community has no contact with Tajik Ismailis as there is not one checkpoint on the Chinese-Tajik border.
The Tajik Autonomous District is situated in the eastern Pamir mountains and borders Pakistan and Tajikistan's Gorno-Badakhshan Autonomous Region. There are about 50,000 people living in the Tajik Autonomous District identified as Tajiks in the Chinese census. However, these people can be called Tajiks only in the broadest sense. The Sarikoli and Wakhi Chinese Pamir nationalities, as well as the Tajik, Pakistani and Afghan Pamir nationalities who live in Chinese Pamir, speak languages belonging to the Eastern Iranian language group, whereas Tajik is linked to Western Iranian.
Unlike the Tajik Sunni Muslims, the Pamir nationalities practise Ismailism - a branch of Shia Islam which bears the clear influence of Buddhism and neo-Platonism. The current Aga Khan is the 49th hereditary imam of the worldwide Ismaili community. In contrast to other Muslims who pray five times a day, the Ismailis recite prayers only twice a day. They do not observe the Ramadan fast, nor do they ban the consumption of alcohol.
Externally, the villages of Chinese Pamir are virtually indistinguishable from the villages of Tajik Pamir. For example, the homes have an almost identical structure - the interior of the building has to have five columns, a number of sacred significance for Ismailis. However, there are substantial differences in the religious life of the Ismailis of the Chinese and Tajik Pamir.
In contrast to the ban on aid to the Ismailis of Xinjiang, the Aga Khan gives so much aid to the population of Tajikistan's Gorno-Badakhshan Autonomous Region that this area depends on his financial support. The headquarters of the Mountain Societies Development Support Programme, which the Aga Khan funds, has opened in the city of Khorog, the capital of the Gorno-Badakhshan Autonomous Region. A similar office operates in the city of Osh in southern Kyrgyzstan, from where shipments of aid are dispatched by road to Tajikistan.
On 30 August the Tajik president Emomali Rahmonov laid the foundation stone for a new Ismaili Centre in the Tajik capital Dushanbe. In his remarks at the ceremony, the Aga Khan said the new centre would be "a place for contemplation, upliftment and the search for spiritual enlightenment".
Source: F18News http://www.forum18.org/
Mass arrest in China signals ongoing restrictions against Christians
No softening of religious policy under new president, Hu Jintao
By Sarah Page
Compass (09.2003)/ HRWF Int. (16.09.2003) - Website http://www.hrwf.net - Email info@hrwf.net - Officers of Chinas Public Security Bureau (PSB) arrested 170 Christians at a rural house church meeting in Nanyang, Henan province, on September 2. The arrest seems to confirm ongoing restrictions against Christians under the leadership of President Hu Jintao.
Following the arrest, police questioned church members to identify the main leaders. A source in China reported that most of the 170 detainees were fined, fingerprinted, warned and released. This is common procedure for lay members of house church movements. However, PSB officers identified 14 key church leaders and continue to hold them.
The mass arrest could mark the renewal of a crackdown against the house church movement, interrupted for several months by the outbreak of SARS. Christians living outside China had hoped for a softer approach when the new president, Hu Jintao, stepped into office. However, according to Paul Hattaway of Asia Harvest, Chinese church leaders themselves anticipated ongoing persecution under Hu Jintao due to his past record in Tibet and other parts of China.
Just two weeks before the arrests in Nanyang, the United States Commission on International Religious Freedom (USCIRF) postponed a research trip to China after officials imposed unacceptable last-minute conditions.
In a press release on August 8, the USCIRF said the Chinese government had insisted at the eleventh hour that the commission must not visit Hong Kong.
This action on the part of the Chinese government suggests a degree of Chinese control over foreign access to Hong Kong that is unprecedented and in contradiction to the concept of one country, two systems, said Michael K. Young, chairman of the commission.
The commission was also concerned that just one week before their scheduled arrival in China, the Chinese government had not given them a clear itinerary, or any assurance that they could meet with leaders of unregistered religious groups without government interference.
On July 24, as the commission prepared for the trip, Felice Gaer, vice chair of the USCIRF, had addressed the Congressional-Executive Commission on China with a testimony entitled, Will Religion Flourish under Chinas New Leadership?
We know that severe restrictions on religious and political liberties are authorized at the highest levels of the Communist Party, said Gaer. Many of Chinas new leaders, including Hu Jintao himself, have been intimately involved in forming and implementing the governments repressive policies on religion and ethnic minorities.
This fact, along with the fact that many of Jiang Zemins allies continue to occupy key positions overseeing religious affairs and legal reform, signals that the prospect is poor for immediate improvement in Chinas record on religious freedom.
The recent arrests in Nanyang would seem to confirm Gaers conclusion.
Converting a religious prisoner of conscience into a criminal
By Elizabeth Kendal
WEA (12.08.2003)/HRWF Int. (28.08.2003) - Website http://www.hrwf.net - Email: info@hrwf.net - Pastor Gong Shengliang (51) is the founder-leader of the South China Church (SCC), an evangelical house church movement with some 50,000 members across 10 provinces. He was arrested and sentenced to death in December 2001 under China's anti-cult legislation for "using an evil cult to undermine the law".
There are presently 63 SCC members in prison for worshipping in unregistered house churches. Members say approximately 500 others are "on the run".
The religious nature of the charge against Gong, combined with the death sentence, aroused international condemnation. Female SCC prisoners were tortured into signing testimonies that Gong had raped them. They later withdrew their testimonies saying they were given under duress, and were subsequently sent to labour camps. Pastor Gong was re-tried in the Jingmen Intermediate People's Court on 10 October 2002. The "testimonies" were admissible in court, enabling the religious charge and death sentence to be overturned and replaced with a criminal charge of rape and a sentence of life imprisonment.
Intense suffering
Pastor Gong has been severely tortured during interrogations, regularly brutally beaten, deprived of his Bible and forced to undergo intensive brainwashing. He was recently reported as being close to death after being so severely beaten by prison police that he had spent several days in a coma, and was subsequently bedridden and showing signs of internal bleeding and hearing loss. According to sources, Gong is extremely thin and frail, his eyebrow, beard and hair have turned all hoary and grey and his complexion is blue.
Mr. Bob Fu, President of China Aid Foundation, reports that pastor Gong's daughters, Gong Xiaoyan and Gong Huali, remain dedicated full time evangelists. Pastor Gong's wife however, sister Hu Guifang, is reportedly seriously mentally ill due to the trauma of fear, intimidation, suffering and grief.
By mid July Mr. Fu was able to report that Pastor Gong was still alive and had been permitted a visit from two relatives. Pastor Gong was separated from his visitors by glass and was supervised the whole time. Pastor Gong did not speak one single word, but it is not known if this was out of protest, or in response to an order not to speak, or because of injuries that had left him physically unable to speak.
In an effort to stop leaks to the outside world, the Chinese authorities recently moved Pastor Gong from Jingzhou prison to Hong Shan Prison, Wu Chang District, Wuhan City, Hubei Province where he is being kept in isolation.
Register or suffer
A national campaign to get house churches to register (and thereby come under government CCP control and supervision) is in operation. The following details are from China Aid Foundation.
On 28 June, eighty believers were arrested when police raided a funeral in Hunan province. On 7 July, the Re-education Commission of Shaoyang People's Government sentenced six of the house church leaders to between one and a half and two years re-education through labour. Among them are sister Yin Lirong (40) who served two years in labour camp in 1998-99, and brother Ning Shuncheng (50) who served 18 months in labour camp in 1998-99. Both of them were accused of "organizing evil cultic activities with All-Sphere Church (Peter Xu's group)". The other four are brother Zhou Yudan, Zhou Guicheng and sister Fan Xiaohong, as well as sister Tang Ren'er whose sentence is not detailed yet.
Six church leaders from Xiaoshan district, Hangzhou city, Zhejiang province were arrested in a PSB raid on a house church prayer meeting at 4 am, Sunday 13 July and taken to the Lan Tian Hotel where they have been detained ever since. Their names are Elder Shen Shaocheng (80), Gao Chongdao, Xu Weimin, Sheng Chuanrong, Qi Xiangfa and another unidentified believer.
Three house church leaders from Bazhong County, Sichuan province, brother Lu Dajun, brother Yang Longgang and brother Yang Ming, were also recently sentenced to re-education through labour.
On 14 and 22 July the Public Security Bureau of Jingmen City, Hubei province detained five believers. They are brother Li Jianxong (50), Guo Qizheng (50), brother Kang Xiaofan (20), sister Yi (who is in charge of church finance) and sister Chen Lin who is a Sunday school teacher. They are all held at Shayang Detention Center, Hubei province.
USCIRF testimony
On 24 July, Felice D. Gaer, the Vice Chair of the U.S. Commission on International Religious Freedom (USCIRF) gave testimony before the Congressional-Executive Commission on China. Her testimony, entitled "Will Religion Flourish Under China's New Leadership?" can be found at the link below.
Ms. Gaer makes reference to the China paradox. "If the past is any guide, we can expect the party (of Hu Jintao) to pursue a policy of gradual economic liberalization coupled with severe restrictions on political dissent and religious freedom."
Ms. Gaer testifies, "Today, Chinese government officials continue to claim the right to control, monitor, and restrain religious practice, purportedly to protect public safety, order, health, and so forth. However, the government's actions to restrict religious belief and practice go far beyond what is necessary to legitimately protect those interests; in other words, far beyond what is permissible under international law. While China's Constitution provides its citizens with the "freedom of religious belief", it does not protect the right to manifest religious beliefs.
"The crackdowns against religious believers are believed to be sanctioned at the highest levels of government. Indeed, Chinese laws, policies, and practices severely restrict religious activities, including contact with foreign religious organizations, the training and appointment of spiritual leaders, and religious education for children in accordance with the convictions of their parents. As a result of government policies and practices, persons continue to be confined, tortured, imprisoned, and subject to other forms of ill treatment on account of their religion or belief."
Representatives of the USCIRF were to visit China in early August (as mentioned in Ms Gaer's testimony). However, the visit has been postponed due to "unacceptable last-minute conditions imposed upon the Commission's visit by the Chinese government". These include the Chinese government's non-provision of an itinerary of confirmed meetings, and its "insistence" that Hong Kong be dropped completely from the agenda.
China's ex-premier faces Belgian Falun Gong lawsuit
Reuters (19.08.2003)/ HRWF Int. (21.08.2003) - Website http://www.hrwf.net - Email: info@hrwf.net - A top Belgian lawyer will bring a court case against China's former premier Jiang Zemin on Wednesday, saying his crackdown on the Falun Gong spiritual movement broke Belgium's human rights law.
One of the plaintiffs in the case, Matthias Slaats, told Reuters on Tuesday a number of Falun Gong members in countries including Belgium, the United States and Australia were filing the suit for torture, crimes against humanity and genocide.
''We think we have a very strong file otherwise we would not proceed with the case,'' he said.
Their lawyer, Georges-Henri Beauthier, has represented the plaintiffs in Belgium's most notorious case, that against Marc Dutroux, who is to stand trial for abduction, rape and murder.
He also brought the first successful case under the human rights law, in which two Rwandan nuns were sentenced to between 12 and 20 years for their part in the country's 1994 genocide.
The Belgian parliament watered down the law earlier this month after suits against U.S. President George W. Bush and key U.S. officials soured relations with the United States.
Under the reformed law, only Belgians or long-term residents of the country could bring a legal action, and only within strict conditions and international immunity rules
Three house church leaders arrested in China
Followers of watchman Nee held at unknown location
by Xu Mei
Compass (15.08.2003)/ HRWF Int. (18.08.2003) - Website http://www.hrwf.net - Email: info@hrwf.net - Chinese police raided a house church in Xiaoshan City, Zhejiang province on July 13 and arrested at least three church leaders.
According to a China Aid Association press release dated July 24, the raid came at 4 a.m. on a Sunday morning while the Christians were meeting for prayer and worship.
Eighty-year-old Shen Shaocheng, who helped found the church more than 25 years ago, was among those arrested. Xu Weimin and Gao Chongdao, two other house church leaders, were also taken into custody. The three men are being held at an unknown location. Authorities have not revealed their whereabouts to their families or allowed them visitors.
The church, which has about 1,500 members, belongs to the Little Flock, one of the largest house church streams active in China. The Little Flock is best known in the West for their famous founder, Watchman Nee, whose writings are widely read by Christians all over the world.
Nee was martyred in a labor camp in 1973, and his followers in China still suffer persecution. The Xiaoshan church has been destroyed three times by the authorities over the last 25 years, but it was rebuilt each time -- even without government permission. During the recent SARS scare, authorities ordered the church to stop meeting. However, members continued to gather.
The local Religious Affairs Bureau has repeatedly tried to convince the church to register and join the government-controlled Three Self Patriotic Movement. Little Flock theology, while urging Christians to be model citizens, stresses the lordship of Christ over the church and strongly resists government attempts to control the spiritual affairs of each local assembly.
More than 300 Public Security Bureau officers raided an affiliated congregation in Hengpeng village during a Sunday service on July 6 and demolished the church building. This church has also refused to register with government religious authorities. The believers continue to meet in their homes and other locations.
Christians jailed for aiding North Korean refugees in China
Four South Koreans sentenced for clandestine humanitarian activities
by Willy Fautr
Compass (15.08.2003)/ HRWF Int. (18.08.2003) - Website http://www.hrwf.net - Email: info@hrwf.net - Two South Korean pastors and two laymen, imprisoned in China because of their pastoral and humanitarian work among North Korean refugees, await court decisions on their fate.
For the past seven years, Rev. Choi Bong Il, a veteran pastor of the Church of Holiness in South Korea, a denomination close to the Presbyterian Church, has been involved in clandestine humanitarian and missionary activities in China. Choi has organized partnerships between Protestant churches in South Korea and ethnic Korean churches in China to train church leaders and missionaries.
On April 12, 2002, about 100 armed police surrounded his apartment in Yangji, northern China. Choi refused to open the door because he was in possession of train tickets belonging to North Korean defectors who were about to leave for Mongolia. Using long ladders, the police managed to enter through the window and arrest Choi, whom they charged with organizing an illegal border crossing.
His trial, first scheduled for October 29, 2002, was postponed until December 5, 2003, in violation of Chinese law, which stipulates that the maximum custody period without trial may not exceed six months. It took place in the Autonomous State of Yangbien, where Korean is an official language along with Chinese.
At the trial, Mrs. Oh Kap Soon talked with her husband for about 20 minutes in the visiting room of the prison. The atmosphere was very tense, she told Compass. A guard who could understand Korean was present all the time. We were not allowed to speak about prison conditions or the trial.
No verdict has been issued on Chois case in the eight months since the trial, even though the waiting period for a judgment must not exceed 45 days, by law.
Kim Hee-tae, 32, is an active Presbyterian and a graduate from the churchs Theological Faculty in Seoul. For several years, he defended the rights of Chinese migrant workers who were unfairly treated by South Korean employers.
Last year, Kim enrolled in New Yorks Columbia University to pursue studies in social welfare. In July 2002, he decided to go to China for a summer vacation.
While escorting six North Korean defectors from Yanji to Beijing, Kim was arrested and charged with organizing an illegal border crossing. Detained for over eight months without trial, he was eventually tried on May 15 in the city of Yanji. He is still awaiting sentence.
Other pending cases involve two South Korean lay Christians, Choi Yong Hun and Seok Jae-huyn, sentenced last spring to five and two years respectively for aiding North Korean refugees who sought to leave China.
During frequent trips to China, Presbyterian Choi Yong Hun, 41, a real estate consultant, became aware of the desperate plight of North Korean refugees. Choi decided to help a group of six refugees leave the country on January 18, 2003. He was arrested while awaiting their arrival at a railway station in the city of Yantai.
He did not tell us anything about the operation, and I thought it was for his work, his wife told Compass recently. I waited anxiously for three days but he did not show up. It was through the newspapers that I heard about what had happened to him.
On April 22, a Chinese judge sentenced Choi Yong Hun to five years in prison and fined him 30,000 yuan ($4,000) for organizing an illegal border crossing. Jailed in Yantai prison with no visitors or exchange of correspondence allowed, Choi has appealed the judgment.
Last January, South Korean free-lance journalist Seok Jae-huyn called his wife in Japan to tell her he would go to China to cover a boat-people operation. He was aboard the Dalien-Yantai ferryboat on January 18 with a number of North Korean defectors when police arrested him.
Tried after four months of detention, Seok Jae-huyn was sentenced to two years in prison and fined 5,000 yuan, despite the fact he was not involved in the boat-people operation but was covering the event as a reporter. He is now awaiting an appeal hearing.
Seok Jae-huyn and his wife, both active in the Presbyterian Church in South Korea, have been married for two and a half years.
Up to 300,000 North Korean defectors are believed to live clandestinely in China. South Korean, Japanese and Chinese Christians risk their own freedom to provide the refugees with humanitarian aid and teach them about the Christian faith.
North Korean refugees who are forcibly repatriated to their country automatically go to prison. Once there, they are interrogated about contacts they might have had with missionaries in China, aware that they will be executed without appeal if such links are discovered.
Criticized by humanitarian organizations for failing to aid North Koreans who flee famine and oppression to China, the office of the United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees has promised to take steps to stop their forced repatriation to North Korea.
Priest of "underground" church arrested
MISNA (25.06.2003)/ HRWF Int. (27.06.2003) - Website: http://www.hrwf.net - Email: info@hrwf.net - Catholic priest of the so-called underground church, was reportedly arrested in the past few days in eastern China. It was reported by the Catholic News Agency UCA News, which specified that on June 16, public security officials arrested Father Lu Xiaozhou of the "underground" Church as he went that afternoon to Wenzhou City Hospital (1,416 kilometers southeast of Beijing) to anoint the sick. Sources said the security officials went to the priest's house later that afternoon and removed all his belongings including documents. Father Xiaozhou was transferred to the custody of the Religious Affairs Bureau the next day, with the probable intention of forcing him to sign an agreement letter to join the government-recognized Catholic Patriotic Association. According to the UCA News agency, he will not be released soon if he does not sign such a letter. The association is a body of the government-approved "open" Church. Meanwhile, Human Rights in China (HRIC), an NGO based in the United States, reported 12 Protestants belonging to a "house church" were arrested June 6. House churches are not affiliated to the China Christian Council, the government-approved administrative body for the Protestant Church in China. Members worship in houses or other venues not registered as churches. Eight of the 12 arrested, including Huang Changshou, Huang Guojie, Huang Shaoxian, Huang Tingyi, Huang Yuting and Wang Qiyou, are members of a house church in Nanong village, Funing county, in Yunnan province. Funing is 2,084 kilometers southwest of Beijing. Family members of Wang and seven others received notices from the Funing County Public Security Bureau informing them that the eight were being detained indefinitely for engaging in feudalistic superstition. The other four were said to be placed under detention for 15 days. Communist China officially endorses religious freedom but only recognises the authority of state religious organisations. It broke off relations with the Vatican half a century ago. The Vatican estimates Communist China has about eight million Catholics loyal to the Holy See, compared with just 5 million in the State-backed Catholic Church.
House church leader dying in prison in China
Gong Shengliang suffers internal injuries from severe beatings
by Xu Mei
Compass (16.06.2003) / HRWF Int. (18.06.2003) - Website: http://www.hrwf.net - Email: info@hrwf.net - Amnesty International issued an emergency appeal on June 11 for Pastor Gong Shengliang, leader of the banned South China Church, who is reportedly dying in prison.
Members of Gongs family last saw him on April 14, when they noticed a marked deterioration in his health. Visits since then have been banned, supposedly due to the SARS virus, although family members believe this is only a pretext to prevent them from seeing Gong.
A source inside the prison told the family that Gong had been beaten and seriously injured by the police. Members of the South China Church then sent an urgent appeal to friends in the West, claiming Gong was passing blood and has lost his hearing. Gong reportedly had been unable to leave his bed for two weeks and was in a coma for several days after a severe beating.
Gong was beaten for professing his faith, refusing to admit his guilt and requesting an appeal against his verdict. Three prison guards are assigned to keep constant watch over his cell.
Gong and four other house church leaders were originally sentenced to death in December 2001 for their membership in the South China Church, which was labeled an evil cult. The labeling preceded a Strike Hard campaign from May to August of that year, during which hundreds of members of the South China Church were arrested and tortured.
Gong and several other leaders were arrested on August 8, 2001. Officers of the Public Security Bureau had bugged the telephone line in the house where they were meeting. A phone call to the house by another church member revealed the whereabouts of Gong and led to his arrest.
According to a letter from fellow church members, Gong and 16 others were originally charged as key leaders of the banned South China Church and sentenced to death. In China, those convicted of crimes during a Strike Hard campaign often receive the death sentence instead of a prison term.
An outcry from the international community led to a reprieve from the death sentence on January 5, 2002, and a re-trial for Gong and several of his companions in October 2002.
During the re-trial, all church-related charges against Gong were dropped. However, police brought charges of rape against him, using statements from several female members of his church who had been arrested and tortured during the Strike Hard campaign in 2001. Judges sentenced Gong to life imprisonment for multiple rape charges.
The young women who gave these statements later testified that they were beaten, tortured and humiliated with electric rods to obtain their confessions. Although they withdrew their statements, the charges against Gong were not dropped.
Criminal charges against house church leaders are a common tactic in recent years. International pressure has made the Chinese government wary of purely religious charges. As a result, leaders are accused of rape and other criminal activities to justify their arrest.
Sixty-three members of the South China Church remain in prison, while approximately 500 others are on the run, according to a letter written by members of the church. Gongs daughters, both of them full-time evangelists, continue their work in hiding and have no permanent home.
Gongs wife is suffering from mental instability, a result of the great fear and intimidation she has experienced over the past two years.
News of Gongs imminent death has moved the U.S. State Department to begin its own inquiries through the U. S. Embassy in China. Along with Amnesty International, several human rights organizations have joined the outcry against the treatment of Gong.
Family and church members have expressed deep gratitude for the prayers and practical support they have received from Christians worldwide and ask for continued prayers for his safety. Gong hopes to appeal his sentence to Chinas supreme court.
Chinese Christian beaten in jail
AP (11.06.2003)/ HRWF Int. (12.06.2003) - Website: http://www.hrwf.net - Email: info@hrwf.net - The imprisoned founder of an unofficial Chinese Christian church is bedridden and in failing health after being beaten and mistreated, a human rights group said Wednesday.
Friends and relatives of Gong Shengliang, who was convicted on charges of rape and assault and is serving a life sentence, say he is passing blood and has lost his hearing, said the New York-based Human Rights in China.
Supporters say Gong is "near death as a result of abusive treatment," the group said in a statement, citing what it said was a letter signed by 34 of his friends and relatives. It said Gong was beaten for professing his faith, refusing to admit guilt and requesting an appeal of his conviction.
China's Justice Ministry did not immediately respond to requests by telephone and fax for comment.
Gong was arrested in 2001, 10 years after he founded the South China Church. At one time the church claimed to have 50,000 followers in central China, mostly in Hubei province.
Communist authorities allow worship only in state-monitored churches. Millions of believers attend unauthorized services, often in private homes, but are subject to arrest and harassment.
Gong and four other church leaders were sentenced to death last year under anti-cult laws. But after protests by the U.S. government and religious activists, the sentences were later changed to long prison terms.
Gong was accused of raping several female church members and ordering the beatings of followers who feuded with church leaders, according to documents submitted at his first trial. Supporters said Gong has denied the charges.
Other activists said last year that Gong had gone on a hunger strike to protest the confiscation of a written appeal and documents needed for his case.
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Update of the list of Catholic clergy in prison
CSW (12.02.2003)/ HRWF Int. (13.02.2003) - Website: http://www.hrwf.net - Email: info@hrwf.net - Christian Solidarity Worldwide has received fresh news about an underground priest who was arrested by the Chinese authorities last Christmas when he was on his way to celebrate Midnight Mass.
Father Dong Yingmu, 37, a priest serving the Diocese of Baoding, Hebei, was first kept in Qingyuan county detention house for about a month, and was subsequently sent to a prison in Quyang county, the Kung Foundation said. Quingyang police deny the priest's detention, the group added.
The Kung Foundation also reported that two bishops and eight other priests, belonging to the underground Diocese of Baoding, are either missing or in various prisons and labor camps.
Rev. Dong Yingmu, 37, is an underground Roman Catholic priest serving the diocese of Baoding, in Hebei Province in North East China near Beijing. He was kidnapped by the Chinese authorities during Christmas 2002 when he was walking on his way to offer a Holy Mass. He was first detained in Qingyuan county detention house for about a month and was subsequently sent to a prison in Quyang county.
Two bishops and eight other priests belonging to the underground Catholic diocese of Baoding are now in various prisons and labour camps.
1) Bishop SU Zhimin, 70, Bishop of Baoding, was arrested on October 8,
1997. He has disappeared. His whereabouts are unknown. It is not even clear
whether he is alive or dead.
2) Bishop AN Shuxin, 53, the auxiliary Bishop of Baoding, was arrested in March 1996. He has also disappeared. His whereabouts are also unknown.It is not even clear whether he is alive or dead.
3) Interned in Ba Li Zhuang labour camp in Baoding are Father MA Shunbao, 50, Father Wang Limao, 32, Father YIN Zhengjun 32, and Father Pang Yongxing, 30. All of them have been sentenced to three years in the labour camp.
4) Interned in Gao Yang County labour camp are Father LU Genjun, 40, and Father LI Jianbo, 27. They have all been sentenced to three years in the labour camp. Father LI Jianbo is extremely sick.
5) Detained in Xu Shui County detention house are Father Wang Zhenhe, 30, and Father Zhang Chunguang, 32. Father Wang Zhenhe has been detained for three years. Father Zhang Chunguang has been detained for two years. Neither has been sentenced.
Chinese church leader jailed
BBC News (15.01 2003) / HRWF Int. (16.01.2003) - Website: http://www.hrwf.net - Email: info@hrwf.net -A human rights group says police in the Chinese city of Shanghai have arrested the leader of an underground Christian church and sentenced him, without trial, to 18 months in a labour camp.
The American-based organisation Human Rights in China says the leader, Xu Guoxing, was detained along with more than 20 church members when police raided his home last month where a service being held.
The others were later released.
The group says that while the Chinese Government claims that citizens enjoy religious freedom, the authorities continue to persecute religious organisations operating outside of official control.
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