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."
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