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Edgewood
FooSlinger
Joined: Jan 28, 2004
Posts: 3906
Location: Colonial Shanghai
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  Posted:
May 27, 2004 - 08:26 PM |
 
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| Post subject: Damn Those Christian Cults |
SHANGHAI, China - Police arrested a leader in China's unofficial Christian movement after raiding a church festival attended by thousands of people, an overseas monitoring group reported Tuesday.
The reported arrest of Zhao Wenquan — who likely faces years in a labor camp — comes in the throes of a campaign by the nation's communist authorities against religious groups operating outside their control.
Over the past year, scores of church leaders have been detained and church meeting places demolished. Activists working to expose the crackdown have been put on trial for revealing state secrets.
Zhao was detained in the village of Hegou in the eastern province of Anhui on May 9 after more than 4,000 people attended the festival, a crowd ten times larger than at most church gatherings, the U.S.-based China Aid Association reported.
Zhao, who is over 60, has been charged with disturbing social order and organizing an illegal religious gathering, said the group, based in Glenside, Pa. Another dozen leaders in Zhao's church are in hiding, it said.
The group said Zhao is being held in the jail at Mengcheng County, which includes Hegou, and will likely be given a term of three years in a labor camp. Such punishments, which don't require trials, are often used against church activists and other perceived government foes, along with petty criminals.
An officer with the Mengcheng police department's publicity department, who gave only his surname, Shang, said he had no information about Zhao or a festival crackdown.
However, he said a raid may have been carried out by the department's national security section, whose telephone number was secret.
Zhao's church is one of hundreds of evangelical Christian groups that face harassment for rejecting the authority of the Communist Party-controlled Protestant church. China claims to have more than 14 million Christians worshipping in its official churches, but monitoring groups say as many as twice that number belong to independent churches.
While some unregistered churches operate in near-complete secrecy, others are tolerated by authorities unless they draw attention to themselves through public activities.
The China Aid Association and other monitoring groups also have reported a major crackdown on a controversial evangelical group in northern China and the arrest of its leader, Xu Shuangfu.
The groups claim Xu was kidnapped last month while visiting the northeastern province of Heilongjiang. Dozens of members of Xu's "Three Grade Servants" church have been arrested in a police crackdown, and one was beaten to death, they say.
Police in Heilongjiang have not commented on the reports.
Separately, Beijing's top religious official, Ye Xiaowen, and senior Communist Party official Liu Yandong will take the unusual step of meeting the head of Hong Kong's Roman Catholic Church at a dinner Wednesday with the territory's religious leaders.
Hong Kong Bishop Joseph Zen said Tuesday he has been invited to the dinner with Liu and Ye, director-general of the State Administration for Religious Affairs.
Beijing appears to be trying to smooth out relations with Zen, who often attacks the central government for suppressing underground Catholic churches loyal to the Vatican (news - web sites), which China has long viewed with suspicion.
http://story.news.yahoo.com/news?tmpl=story&cid=516&ncid=731&e=10&u=/a p/20040525/ap_on_re_as/china_banned_church |
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Conlige suspectos semper habitos |
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One_Brick_Shy
Rocker
Joined: May 20, 2004
Posts: 765
Location: Out looking for a brick, of course.
Status: Offline
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| Posted:
June 11, 2004 - 07:25 AM |
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Whom do we have to fear the most?
Jun. 9, 2004. 08:32 AM
Italian rock band accused of Satanic murders
Two teens slain during evil ritual six years ago, prosecutors believe
AIDAN LEWIS
ASSOCIATED PRESS
ROME (AP) — A 19-year-old girl is stabbed to death, allegedly by a group of young Satanists who thought she personified the Virgin Mary. Her 16-year-old companion, no longer considered a reliable sect member, is killed and buried alongside her.
The discovery last week of the two victims' burial place has sparked an investigation into a metal band scene in Milan and its possible links to Satan worshippers, according to details that emerged Tuesday.
The disappearance of Chiara Marino and Fabio Tollis in 1998 had remained a mystery until earlier this year, when one of the people later accused of the murders began to co-operate with authorities.
Prosecutors now suspect an occult sect carried out the killings in a drug-fuelled ritual, said Francesca Cramis, lawyer for one of the four people arrested in the case.
Its members belonged to a heavy metal band, Beasts of Satan, and frequented a heavy metal bar in Milan called Midnight, said Cramis, speaking by telephone with The Associated Press.
Marino was close to the group, and investigators found her room decorated with black drapes, candles and a fake skull.
In January 1998, members of the sect took Marino and Tollis to woods near Somma Lombardo, northwest of Milan and killed them in an apparent Satanic ritual, investigators say.
According to police, they had already tried, and failed, to kill the two by burning them alive in a car on New Year's Eve, said Cramis.
One of those arrested was Andrea Volpe, the former boyfriend of a third victim, Mariangela Pezzotta, buried alive after being shot in January.
It was the probe of her murder that led authorities to the buried remains of Tollis and Marino.
Prosecutors declined to talk with reporters today.
"Leave us to work — this probe is delicate and we need to proceed with a lot of caution," Prosecutor Antonio Pizzi said.
Authorities are investigating whether the killers are part of a wider network of Satanists and were taking orders when they killed and offered up their victims.
Oreste Benzi, a priest who works to rehabilitate Satanists, estimates that these worshippers of the occult number around 600,000 in Italy.
"Satanists and those belonging to the occult are often unsuspected people and their goal is to morally and psychologically destroy whoever works against them," Benzi told the Vatican's missionary news service Fides. "Often it is the most defenceless people who fall into the net of the sect," he said.
[url] http://www.thestar.com/NASApp/cs/ContentServer?pagename=thestar/Layout /Article_Type1&call_pageid=971358637177&c=Article&cid=1086777325085[/u rl] |
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The only difference between you and me is that you're you and I'm me. |
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