HONG KONG (UCAN) - A Protestant in China detained since early September died Oct. 16 after being beaten in jail, a human rights group here says.
Liu Haitong, 19, began vomiting and developed a fever after being beaten by public security officers in the central province of Henan, according to the Hong Kong-based Information Centre for Human Rights and Democracy (ICHRD).
It said the officers refused to provide medical care and had been keeping Liu in jail with inadequate food and hygiene facilities.
Meanwhile, Catholic Bishop Raymond Wang Chonglin of Zhaoxian and Bishop Jiang Mingyuan, his coadjutor, are being detained in separate hotels in Hebei province to study government instructions, sources told UCA News Oct. 20.
The bishops are being kept apart to prevent them from communicating with each other, the Catholic sources said. Hebei province surrounds Beijing.
Bishop Jiang has been detained since Aug. 26, less than three weeks after he was ordained a bishop secretly by Bishop Wang on Aug. 8.
Bishop Wang, an underground bishop installed in the open Church on Feb. 16, 1998, was later taken away by public security officers as well.
According to ICHRD, Liu, the young Protestant, died on Oct. 16 in jail after public security officials refused to provide medical care.
The ICHRD says Protestant house church leaders in Henan, just south of Hebei, are urging international rights groups to investigate Liu's death and demand that the government stop arrests and police brutality.
Liu was arrested Sept. 4 during a worship service in a private home in Jiaozuo city, Henan province, according to the group.
In China, Protestants are allowed to worship only in venues registered under the Protestants' Three-Self Patriotic Movement Association. Worship at private homes, commonly called house Churches, is illegal.
Henan has been a center of crackdowns on the "underground" Protestant Church recently. In late August, 130 Protestants were arrested in Xihua county, while in September about 85 others were charged under "evil cult" legislation.
Crackdowns are likely to intensify after a key Communist Party meeting in mid-October which came right after an order from the public security minister, Jia Chunwang, to target members of cults, separatists and "religious extremists," a term the ICHRD says refers to people worshiping outside the officially sanctioned religious institutions.
Church sources in China earlier told UCA News that the government has set 2000 as a "year of strict control" with the Catholic Church among its targets.
UCAN
20. oktober 2000