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China frees five detained Christians, activists

BEIJING: Chinese police have released three Christians and two members of a banned political party after they were detained on Saturday for holding a discussion group about god and faith, one of those detained said on Sunday.

Xu Yonghai, a Christian who practises outside officially sanctioned "patriotic churches", said by telephone following his release that he was taken away by police for questioning and kept in a cell overnight.

Xu said police failed to provide him with food or blankets during the 24-hour period.

Asked to comment on his statement, Beijing police said they were unable to locate anyone familiar with the case.

Xu had been hosting a group of about 10 friends and fellow Christians at his Beijing home when the police arrived.

Four other men, including He Depu, a member of the Beijing cell of the banned China Democracy Party, were also detained and released that afternoon, said Xu, a 39-year-old psychiatrist.

"Police asked me whether I had been holding an illegal meeting and whether I wanted to start a congregation," Xu said.

"There was nothing illegal. It's the crossroads of the millennium and we were holding an objective discussion on god and the soul," he said.

China officially requires Christians to worship inside "patriotic" churches set up under the control of the Communist Party, which has long linked Christianity with imperialism.

He Xintong, the wife of prominent jailed dissident Xu Wenli, said she had planned on attending the meeting but returned home when she saw the police and avoided detention.

The Hong Kong-based Information Centre of Human Rights and Democratic Movement in China, which first reported on the detentions, had said she might also have been detained.

The China Democracy Party was set up by prominent Chinese dissidents in 1998. Beijing moved to crush the group at the end of 1998, sending scores of members, including Xu Wenli, to jail or to labour camps.-Reuters