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China Says Executions Of Cult Members Unrelated To Religion
Beijing (AFP) Nov 30, 2006 China said Thursday the executions of up to 15 members of an underground Christian sect on murder charges were unrelated to religion. "This is a criminal case and has been handled according to law," Chinese foreign ministry spokeswoman Jiang Yu told a regular press conference. "It is not related to religion." US-based religious rights group China Aid Association and a Chinese lawyer said Wednesday that three leaders of the Three Grade Servant church, Xu Shuangfu, Li Maoxing and Wang Jun, had been executed over the past week. Another 12 church members had also been executed, with some of them put to death as far back as 2004, the China Aid Association said. Xu and other church leaders were accused of having murdered 20 leaders of the Eastern Lighting cult between 2002 and 2004, according to a court document cited by the China Aid Association. Xu and others were also accused of defrauding people of 32 million yuan (four million dollars), according to the rights body. A Hong Kong-based Christian academic, Chan Kim-kwong, told AFP both Eastern Lightning and the Three Grade Servant church were considered cults which did not follow Christian teaching. There were reports the two sects had been feuding over the past few years and that both had kidnapped, tortured and injured adherents from the rival camp, he said. But human rights groups also say China's communist authorities often arrests Christians on trumped up criminal charges as a way to crackdown on their religious activities. A Protestant pastor, Cai Zhuohua, was jailed for three years in 2005 for illegally printing Bibles and religious materials. China's justice system is believed to put more people to death each year than the rest of the world combined, with academics estimating that the state puts up to 10,000 people to death every year. China has rejected calls by human rights groups for the abolishment of the death penalty although its chief justice recently urged the nation's courts to exercise caution when handing down the sentence.
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Chinese Firms Seek To Replace DVDs With Home-Grown Technology
Beijing (AFP) Nov 29, 2006Leading Chinese makers are to stop making DVD players from 2008 as part of China's plan to replace foreign technology with a new home-grown standard, an industry alliance chief said Wednesday. "Nineteen out of our 21 member manufacturers will be producing EVD players with compatible function only by 2008," Zhang Baoquan, the secretary-general of the EVD (Enhanced Versatile Disc) Industry Alliance told AFP. |
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