E/CN.4/1993/62 page 22 of the believers... Otherwise, these are all illegal meetings and according to the law shall be banned... Appropriate departments will use coercive measures to force compliance.’ In addition, the notice indicates that ’No person is allowed to use religion to oppose the leadership of the party and the socialist system’ and that, ’It is not allowed to coerce anyone, especially young people and children under the age of 18 to accept religion.’ As concerns preaching, ’If "itinerant preachers" from outside remain in our county to meet illegally and carry out their activities, the Public Security Bureau will severely deal with them. Those who receive and give shelter to these preachers or know of their whereabouts without making a report, will also be severely dealt with... Those who organize group listening, recording of and the rebroadcasting of the radio broadcasts of unfriendly overseas religious forces ... upon detection, shall be resolutely dealt with... Those who accept the supervision of outside religious powers’ will be held legally responsible and will be subjected to investigation. In his report to the Commission on Human Rights at its forty-seventh session (E/CN.4/1991/56), the Special Rapporteur reproduced the reply of the Chinese Government concerning 59-year-old Trappist priest Father Pei Ronggui who had been arrested in Beijing on 3 September 1989, which indicated that his case was under examination. It has been reported that on 26 January 1992, Father Pei was sentenced to five years’ imprisonment and was allegedly sent to Prison No. 4 in the city of Shijiazhuang, Hebei province. Father Li Side, whose case was also under investigation at the time, is reported to have been released on 7 June 1991 because of poor health but has remained under house arrest. The Special Rapporteur was also informed of the following specific incidents: A Protestant house church in Nanjing was closed by the local authorities in April 1991 and the pastor expelled under armed guard. Father Joseph Fan Zhongliang, a 73-year-old Jesuit priest residing in Shanghai, was reportedly arrested on 10 June 1991 on the road to Wenzhou and is currently believed to be under house arrest. An Italian Catholic priest, Father Ciro Biondi, was expelled from China on 29 June 1991 on allegations of having assisted Father Fan Zhongliang to establish contacts with the Vatican. It has been alleged that numerous church members were arrested in September 1991 in the provinces of Zhejiang, Anhui, Jiangsu and Henan, as well as in the cities of Shanghai, Canton and Shenzen. Officials from the Public Security Bureau attacked 2,000 Christians who were attending a baptism ceremony in a house church in Wenzhou, in mid-September 1991. They are reported to have come without a warrant, to have fired in the air and beaten the pastors. It has been alleged that numerous persons were subsequently taken to a detention centre.

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