A priest in China's non-government controlled Catholic church has been abducted and detained by authorities, three months after the head of his diocese was taken away, a US-based monitoring group said yesterday.
Father Zhao Kexun was "forcibly abducted" by Chinese government security agents in Xuanhua, a district in the northern province of Hebei, after a service at a private house on Wednesday, according to the Cardinal Kung Foundation.
Zhao, an administrator for the Xuanhua diocese, was returning to his home 8km away when he was taken, the group said in a statement. A woman with him also was detained but was released shortly after, it added.
It said the whereabouts of Zhao, 75, were unknown.
The priest's detention comes after Bishop Zhao Zhendong, 83, was arrested in December, the foundation said. It did not give any other details.
A man who answered the telephone at the Xuanhua public security bureau said he was "unclear" about the situation. He would give only his surname, Guo.
China cut off ties with the Vatican shortly after the officially atheistic Communist Party took power in 1949, and relations between them remain strained.
Worship is allowed only in government-controlled churches, though millions of Catholics belong to unofficial congregations loyal to Rome. The government's Catholic church claims 4 million believers, but the Cardinal Kung Foundation says the unofficial church has 12 million followers.
Many unofficial congregations hold services openly, but in some regions, particularly the politically sensitive capital of Beijing, they are routinely harassed and their leaders arrested.
According to the foundation's statement, 33 members of seven dioceses have been arrested and imprisoned in Hebei alone, with many others in the same situation in other provinces.
"This is indisputable evidence of the Chinese government's systematic effort in an attempt to crush and eradicate the Roman Catholic Church in China," it said, citing Joseph Kung, the foundation's president. "The Chinese government keeps contradicting itself by stating that its constitution guarantees religious freedom. ... The facts certainly do not speak for the words."
The CIA has a message for Chinese government officials worried about their place in Chinese President Xi Jinping’s (習近平) government: Come work with us. The agency released two Mandarin-language videos on social media on Thursday inviting disgruntled officials to contact the CIA. The recruitment videos posted on YouTube and X racked up more than 5 million views combined in their first day. The outreach comes as CIA Director John Ratcliffe has vowed to boost the agency’s use of intelligence from human sources and its focus on China, which has recently targeted US officials with its own espionage operations. The videos are “aimed at
STEADFAST FRIEND: The bills encourage increased Taiwan-US engagement and address China’s distortion of UN Resolution 2758 to isolate Taiwan internationally The Presidential Office yesterday thanked the US House of Representatives for unanimously passing two Taiwan-related bills highlighting its solid support for Taiwan’s democracy and global participation, and for deepening bilateral relations. One of the bills, the Taiwan Assurance Implementation Act, requires the US Department of State to periodically review its guidelines for engagement with Taiwan, and report to the US Congress on the guidelines and plans to lift self-imposed limitations on US-Taiwan engagement. The other bill is the Taiwan International Solidarity Act, which clarifies that UN Resolution 2758 does not address the issue of the representation of Taiwan or its people in
DEFENDING DEMOCRACY: Taiwan shares the same values as those that fought in WWII, and nations must unite to halt the expansion of a new authoritarian bloc, Lai said The government yesterday held a commemoration ceremony for Victory in Europe (V-E) Day, joining the rest of the world for the first time to mark the anniversary of the end of World War II in Europe. Taiwan honoring V-E Day signifies “our growing connections with the international community,” President William Lai (賴清德) said at a reception in Taipei on the 80th anniversary of V-E Day. One of the major lessons of World War II is that “authoritarianism and aggression lead only to slaughter, tragedy and greater inequality,” Lai said. Even more importantly, the war also taught people that “those who cherish peace cannot
US Indo-Pacific Commander Admiral Samuel Paparo on Friday expressed concern over the rate at which China is diversifying its military exercises, the Financial Times (FT) reported on Saturday. “The rates of change on the depth and breadth of their exercises is the one non-linear effect that I’ve seen in the last year that wakes me up at night or keeps me up at night,” Paparo was quoted by FT as saying while attending the annual Sedona Forum at the McCain Institute in Arizona. Paparo also expressed concern over the speed with which China was expanding its military. While the US