- HONG KONG (Reuters) - A court
in China's Fujian province has issued an "evil cult" indictment
to a Hong Kong businessman for transporting Bibles into China and may hand
him a death sentence, a Hong Kong rights group said on Saturday.
-
- The court in the city of Fu Qing said Hong Kong trader
Li Guangqiang had "used an evil cult to damage a law-based
society",
the Information Center for Human Rights and Democracy said in a
statement.
-
- Li Guangqiang in April and May 2000 took 33,000 bibles
in two lots into China's Fujian Province to supply an underground Christian
group called the Shouter's sect, the group said. He was arrested on his
second trip.
-
- Li, 38, is a long term resident of Hong Kong. He was
responding to a request in October 2000 by a leader of the sect, Yu Zhudi,
who travelled to Hong Kong and said the group needed bibles.
-
- On December 30, a Chinese court in Hubei's Jingmen city
gave the founders of the underground South China Church, Gong Shengliang
and Li Ying, a death sentence, calling their group an evil cult.
-
- Because Li's indictment mentioned an "evil
cult"
he may be sentenced to death, the rights group said.
-
- The group said it called on the Hong Kong government
to support Li and demand that China specify the definition of "evil
cult".
-
- It said that although China had never made public how
many such groups there were, the rights group estimated at least 16
Christian
organisations had been listed that way.
-
- Copyright © 2001 Reuters Limited. All rights
reserved.
|
