E/CN.4/1995/91/Add.1
page 6
In Queshan country, Henan province, 80 members of the underground
Protestant Church are reported to have been arrested and detained by
the police in April 1992. A month later, the police allegedly also
interrupted a religious service being held in a private house belonging
to Chai Danghe. Statues and hassocks were reportedly confiscated before
the premises were closed down. On 15 June, members of the Public
Security Bureau armed with electric prods are said to have forced their
way into another house and beaten the 100 so worshippers assembled there,
a dozen of whom were reportedly detained and interrogated before being
released a few weeks later. All the persons involved in this incident
were subsequently placed under house arrest.
In December 1992, some 100 Protestants are reported to have been
thrown into prison in Guoyang, northern Anhui province. Their release
was delayed after they refused to pay heavy fines. The police reportedly
reacted by carrying out searches of the homes of the persons detained and
confiscating their property and livestock.
Individual cases
Zhongxun Pei, aged 75, an evangelist of Korean origin in Shanghai,
was reportedly arrested in August 1983 for having, among other things,
played a leading role in the underground Protestant Church in the region
of Shanghai and for having received a large number of Bibles from abroad
and distributed them to his fellow Protestants of Korean origin in China.
Sentenced to 15 years’ imprisonment, he is thought to be held in Shanghai
prison No. 2. Although he is exempted from working and is housed in a
private cell, his precarious state of health is said to be causing
concern to his family, who fear that he may die in prison before the
end of his term in five years’ time.
Guoxing Xu, aged 38, a leader of an underground Protestant Church
in Shanghai, was allegedly arrested on 14 March 1989, released on 16 June
after numerous interrogations, rearrested on 6 November 1989 by the
Public Security Bureau in Shanghai and sentenced on 18 November 1990 to
three years’ re-education through labour for having disrupted the social
order and encouraged unrest. He is allegedly held at the Da Feng labour
camp, in northern Jiangsu province.
Zhu Mei (or Sha Zhumei), aged 74, a former schoolteacher and
member of an independent Protestant Church, was reportedly arrested on
3 June 1987 at her home in Shanghai and beaten by police. She was tried
in secret on 3 November 1987 and released on parole on 3 April 1992 for
medical reasons, following ill-treatment suffered in prison, as a result
of which she apparently lost the use of one knee. After two months in
hospital, she was reportedly placed under house arrest and her movements
restricted. Her political rights are said to have been suspended until
1995 and both she and her family are reportedly kept under close
surveillance by the authorities. She had reportedly already been
imprisoned for six years during the Cultural Revolution because of her
religious activities.