A 72-year-old bishop in China's underground Catholic Church was detained when authorities took him from a hospital as he was recovering from surgery, a US-based group said yesterday.
Bishop Jia Zhiguo (
The foundation said Jia might have been detained to prevent him from contacting a Vatican delegation that was in Beijing to discuss possible diplomatic relations between the communist government and the Holy See.
China bars Catholics from having contact with the Vatican and allows worship only in government-monitored churches.
Millions remain loyal to the pope and worship in secret, but priests and members of their congregations are frequently detained and harassed.
Jia, who was ordained in 1980, has been arrested nine times since January 2004, according to the Cardinal Kung Foundation.
It said that Jia also looks after some 100 handicapped orphans.
In its statement, the foundation didn't give details about Jia's surgery, but said he had a catheter in place when he was taken from the hospital.
"To kick a person out of a hospital and send him away for detention with his catheter still in place and without adequate medical care is obviously naked evidence of total violation of human rights in China," foundation president Joseph Kung said in the statement.
SENTENCED TO DEATH
Meanwhile, China sentenced three members of a local Christian sect to death for the murder of followers of a rival group
Three other members of the controversial underground religion are also likely to receive life sentences.
The court in Shuangyashan in northeast China's Heilongjiang Province ordered the execution of Xu Shuangfu, the 60-year-old founder of the "Three Grades of Servants," or Church of Truth, and members Li Maoxing and Wang Jun.
REPRIEVE
Three others were given death sentences with a two-year reprieve, a sentence that usually leads to life in prison.
Eleven other followers received prison sentences ranging from three to 15 years.
Lawyers for the accused said the court judgment was dated June 28, but was sent to them only on Wednesday.
"It is legally inappropriate to sentence them to death, and we will appeal," said Xu's defense lawyer, Li Heping.
RIVALS KILLED
Xu, also known as Xu Wenku, and the other members of the small church were accused of murdering 20 people, mainly members of the rival Oriental Lightning church, between 2002 and 2004.
Xu and others were also accused of defrauding others of 32 million yuan (US$4 million).
Prosecutors accused the Three Servants of brutally murdering former members who left to join Oriental Lightning, a rival Christian-inspired sect that was founded in Henan Province.
Xu and the other two sentenced to death will appeal their sentences, Li said.
He said that he was not sure about the other defendants' appeal status.
A fire caused by a burst gas pipe yesterday spread to several homes and sent a fireball soaring into the sky outside Malaysia’s largest city, injuring more than 100 people. The towering inferno near a gas station in Putra Heights outside Kuala Lumpur was visible for kilometers and lasted for several hours. It happened during a public holiday as Muslims, who are the majority in Malaysia, celebrate the second day of Eid al-Fitr. National oil company Petronas said the fire started at one of its gas pipelines at 8:10am and the affected pipeline was later isolated. Disaster management officials said shutting the
US Vice President J.D. Vance on Friday accused Denmark of not having done enough to protect Greenland, when he visited the strategically placed and resource-rich Danish territory coveted by US President Donald Trump. Vance made his comment during a trip to the Pituffik Space Base in northwestern Greenland, a visit viewed by Copenhagen and Nuuk as a provocation. “Our message to Denmark is very simple: You have not done a good job by the people of Greenland,” Vance told a news conference. “You have under-invested in the people of Greenland, and you have under-invested in the security architecture of this
UNREST: The authorities in Turkey arrested 13 Turkish journalists in five days, deported a BBC correspondent and on Thursday arrested a reporter from Sweden Waving flags and chanting slogans, many hundreds of thousands of anti-government demonstrators on Saturday rallied in Istanbul, Turkey, in defence of democracy after the arrest of Istanbul Mayor Ekrem Imamoglu which sparked Turkey’s worst street unrest in more than a decade. Under a cloudless blue sky, vast crowds gathered in Maltepe on the Asian side of Turkey’s biggest city on the eve of the Eid al-Fitr celebration which started yesterday, marking the end of Ramadan. Ozgur Ozel, chairman of the main opposition Republican People’s Party (CHP), which organized the rally, said there were 2.2 million people in the crowd, but
JOINT EFFORTS: The three countries have been strengthening an alliance and pressing efforts to bolster deterrence against Beijing’s assertiveness in the South China Sea The US, Japan and the Philippines on Friday staged joint naval drills to boost crisis readiness off a disputed South China Sea shoal as a Chinese military ship kept watch from a distance. The Chinese frigate attempted to get closer to the waters, where the warships and aircraft from the three allied countries were undertaking maneuvers off the Scarborough Shoal — also known as Huangyan Island (黃岩島) and claimed by Taiwan and China — in an unsettling moment but it was warned by a Philippine frigate by radio and kept away. “There was a time when they attempted to maneuver
RSS