21 banned cult group members sentenced
Print Edition
COURTS in two Chinese cities handed jail terms to 21 members of a banned religious cult, in the latest action against a group that saw two of its members condemned to death in October.
China has vowed to levy harsher punishments on anyone spreading superstitions or undermining the law through the use of a religious institution.
Members of the group, Quannengshen, or the Church of Almighty God, which had preached predictions of a global apocalypse in 2012, killed a 37-year-old woman in Shandong Province in May. Two people were handed death sentences for the killing, which sparked a national outcry after it emerged that the woman was beaten to death for refusing to give her telephone number to group members.
Two members, Zhang Shuzhi, 44, and Geng Yuqin, 63, received seven- and four-year prison terms yesterday in northeastern Liaoning Province, Xinhua news agency said, describing the duo as “core” members of the group.
“The court upheld evidence that Zhang and Geng actively recruited new members for the Church of the Almighty God cult, claiming that only the cult could save them,” Xinhua said.
Nineteen members of the group received prison terms ranging between 2-1/2 years and six years in neighboring Jilin Province, where authorities in Yanji City had cracked down on the cult, Xinhua said in a separate report.
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