Religion: July 2006 Archives

The Associated Press | The Christian Post
12 July 2006

A prominent Chinese minister of an unofficial Protestant church has been jailed for seven and a half years, a U.S.-based Christian group said Sunday, a hefty punishment indicating the continued government crackdown on unsanctioned religious activity.

Zhang Rongliang was sentenced Tuesday in a court in Zhongmou county in Henan province after being held since December 2004 accused of obtaining a passport under false pretenses and illegally crossing the border, the China Aid Association said in an e-mailed news release.

According to the charges against him, Zhang traveled to the United States, Australia, Egypt and Singapore for world mission conferences on a passport obtained through fraudulent means, the group said.

A man who answered the telephone at the court on Sunday said he had no access to records because it was the weekend.

China's communist government allows worship only in state-supervised churches, which claim about 11 million members.

Worshippers and clergy in unofficial churches are regularly harassed and detained.

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By Keith Bradsher | The New York Times
"The Saturday Profile"
July 08, 2006

HONG KONG

MASS had scarcely ended on June 4 when a gaggle of young women flocked to the front of the cathedral. Groups of them took turns having their photos taken with the thin, silver-haired 74-year-old who so captured their fancy: Cardinal Joseph Zen Zi-kiun.

He smiled gently for the photos, then walked across an alley to an indoor basketball court with a concrete floor and rusty fans on the walls that barely stirred the warm, humid air. After a youth group had sung religious songs, and after a slide show depicting the Chinese military crackdown in Tiananmen Square on June 4, 1989, he read a strongly worded message calling for residents of Hong Kong to remember their countrymen elsewhere in China.

"The young people who fought and died for democracy in Tiananmen Square were their brothers and sisters," he said in the speech. "After June 4, we can no longer fight selfishly just to win the most rights for Hong Kong."

With his charisma, erudition and dedication to human rights, Cardinal Zen has become a celebrity here, a man wielding considerable political influence as well as religious power. But his high profile and growing influence have antagonized senior officials in mainland China, particularly those who oversee the state-controlled church.

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