E/CN.4/1995/91/Add.1 page 8 In June 1992, in the province on Shandong, the Religious Affairs Bureau of the province reportedly destroyed the religious edifice of the Family of Jesus sect in Duoyigou, confiscated its property and imposed severe prison sentences on some 30 of its leaders. Created in the 1920s, this sect apparently disappeared in the 1950s and then emerged again, mainly from 1985 onwards. In 1992, it reportedly had some 3,000 members. The head of this community, Zheng Yunsu, was allegedly arrested in June 1992 for his religious beliefs and sentenced to 12 years’ imprisonment. Three of his sons are also said to have been sentenced to nine, eight and seven years in prison, respectively. Eight Christians, mostly of peasant origin, belonging to a local chapter of the Church of the New Testament a Protestant community banned by the authorities in a number of regions in China, are said to have been arrested on 8 and 9 September 1992 in several villages of Shouguang county, some 200 kilometres to the east of Jinan, the capital of Shandong province. Their names are given as Zhang Lezhi, a tradesman aged 32, Yan Peizhi, a farmer aged 35, and his wife, Zheng Yulian, aged 23, Xu Zhihe, a 50-year-old farmer, and his wife, Guo Ruiping, Zhu Zizheng, aged 30, and Hu Jinting, aged 38, the last two both being farmers. Accused of participating in ’illegal’ religious activities and ’contributing to the resurgence and expansion of the Church of the New Testament’, these persons were allegedly taken to the detention centre of the town of Shouguang, where they are said to have been beaten and otherwise ill-treated. Upon protesting his innocence, Zhang Lezhi was allegedly hit with electric truncheons by two policemen. Then, handcuffed and with his legs in fetters weighing 9 kilos or more, Zhang Lezhi reportedly spent three months doubled up, day and night, his four limbs held together by a short chain, without ever being unshackled even to eat or sleep. Another detainee, Zhu Zizheng, is said to have undergone the torture of the ’security chair’, fitted with spikes at the sides so that every movement is painful. He was allegedly beaten and force fed while attached in this position. Five persons are reported to have been released after one to three months’ detention. As regards Zhang Lezhi, Yan Peizhi and Xu Zhihe, the sources indicated that they were sentenced in December 1992 by the Shouguang court to three years’ re-education through labour, but that the exact nature of the offences with which they were charged is not known. Allegedly taken to the Chang Le camp, some 40 kilometres from Shouguang, they are said to have been ill-treated there by common criminals serving sentences and to have been assigned the hardest tasks. On 8 September 1992, in Henan province, the deliberations of a group of Protestants gathered together for a seminar at a farm in the village of Guofa, Wuyang county, were reportedly interrupted when some 40 members of the Public Security Bureau burst in and arrested 170 of the participants. Some 10 apparently managing to escape. It is said that 12 participants were released after paying the cost of their stay in prison and found when they returned home that everything of value, including animals and farm implements, had disappeared. The family of Ma Shuishan, at whose home the seminar had been held, apparently watched