Author: Erik Eckhlom
Publication: The New York Times
Date: February 13, 2002
An international campaign has begun
on behalf of five leaders of a defiant evangelical Christian group who
were given death sentences in December under China's 1999 anti-cult law.
Rights groups abroad cite the death
sentences, the first under that law, as evidence of a harsh, continuing
crackdown on unauthorized worship. They hope Mr. Bush will press the issue
of religious freedom in his meetings here Feb. 21 and 22.
The five are leaders of the South
China Church, an underground group that claims 50,000 followers in several
provinces of central China. They were convicted in secret trials on what
appeared to be dubious charges of rape, assault and sabotaging national
security.
The government is also continuing
its crackdown on the banned Falun Gong spiritual movement. The police detained
two Western followers of the group on Monday after they staged a protest
in Tiananmen Square in Beijing and expelled them today, saying their protest
was aimed at "stirring up trouble."
The two, Jason Loftus, a Canadian,
and Levi Browde, an American, were seized after they unfurled a yellow
banner accusing Chinese authorities of staging self-immolations by those
said to be followers of the group on the square a year earlier.
The government apparently made a
move last weekend to try to avoid a confrontation with Mr. Bush on the
subject when it released a man who had been convicted of smuggling annotated
Bibles to a banned Christian sect. American officials had made it known
that Mr. Bush was incensed by the case, in which Li Guangqiang, a Hong
Kong businessman, had been sentenced to two years in prison.
In the case of the South China Church
leaders, the founder, Gong Shengliang, was charged with rape, based on
allegations of sexual contact with female followers.
But several of the women said to
be victims have issued denials and say they were tortured into making the
al the police, who burned their bodies with electric prods. Charges
of rape have frequently been used in China to prosecute religious leaders.
Mr. Gong's case and those of his condemned colleagues are now on appeal.
"The South China Church is well
organized and very evangelistic, very aggressive about sharing the `Good
News,' " said Xiqiu Fu, executive director of the Committee for Investigation
of Persecution of Religion in China, a rights monitoring group in the United
States. "I think this is why the government feels so threatened by it."
In New York on Monday, Mr. Fu's
group and others provided new evidence of the current crackdown, releasing
a report with copies of what are described as secret Chinese government
documents, provided by discontented security officials.
The documents, which scholars said
appeared to be genuine, outline campaigns to crush 14 Christian or Buddhist
groups that have been labeled cults since 1995, and they include exhortations
to provincial and local officials to increase their efforts to infiltrate
and destroy such organizations.
China formally allows freedom of
worship, but only in regulated churches that join the Communist Party-sponsored
"patriotic" associations. While between 13 million and 15 million Protestants
have joined the legal Protestant body, tens of millions more Chinese have
been attracted to so-called house churches - anything from a group of devout
neighbors to large, fervent sects that meet illegally and refuse to pledge
allegiance to the atheist Communist Party.
Use of cult-related charges has
intensified since the banning of Falun Gong, which frightened authorities
with its rapid growth and ability to mount large demonstrations.
"This is a new tactic of suppression,
under the name of the `rule of law,' " said Mr. Fu, who fled China in 1997
and is a pastor in a Chinese church in Philadelphia and a doctoral student
at Westminster Theological Seminary.
According to the report, the police
have arrested at least 63 members of the South China Church since l been
sent to "re- education through labor" camps, others have received prison
sentences of anywhere from one year to life and others are awaiting trial.
Mr. Gong, the pastor, and two other
leaders, Xu Fuming and Hu Yong, have been sentenced to death, while two
other activists, Li Ying, who is Pastor Gong's niece, and Gong Bangkun,
have received suspended death sentences, which are often later reduced
to life terms.
Among the reasons for designating
his group a cult, according to one of the secret documents released today,
was Mr. Gong's advocacy of "the evangelization of the whole nation and
the Christianization of culture." He referred to the Communist government
as "Satan's kingdom," officials complained.
The document accused him of deceiving
members by collecting some $40,000 from them for a "Bank of Heaven." Church
members say the authorities are misrepresenting the normal, voluntary collection
of offerings at church services.
Illustrating the slippery nature
of "heresy" and "cult" charges as wielded by the Chinese police, another
convicted evangelical leader was accused of having betrayed Christian doctrine
by claiming "Christ is I, and I am Christ."
But the leader was probably quoting
well-known words of Paul in the Bible: "It is no longer I who live but
Christ who lives in me," (Gal. 2:20), according to a statement, also released
on Monday, from the Center for Religious Freedom in Washington. This is
"a text which can be heard in any American church," the center notes.
As it has pursued the destruction
of maverick evangelical groups, the government has provided hints that
it may slightly loosen its grip on the legal churches and work to draw
more unregistered worshipers into the official fold.
"We cannot use administrative force
to eradicate religion," Mr. Jiang said at a conference in December about
regulating religion. He called on officials to work toward "strengthening
the unity of religious and nonreligious masses."
