A Chinese court has sentenced the leader of a religious sect labeled a cult by authorities to life in prison on several charges, according to an official statement, with three of his followers also jailed.
A court in the southern city of Zhuhai on Friday also fined Wu Zeheng (吳澤恆), head of the Hua Zang Dharma group, more than 7 million yuan (US$1.1 million), it said. The charges included organizing a cult, rape, fraud and selling harmful food products.
Wu seduced dozens of women by telling them sex with him could give them “supernatural power,” state media said. He also operated a restaurant which claimed the food was cooked with “precious” ingredients.
A police investigation showed Wu had amassed an illegal fortune of more than 6.9 million yuan through his activities, according to the official Xinhua news agency.
The court also sentenced three of his followers to jail terms of one to four years, but one of those tried escaped punishment, the statement said.
The group, which operates under multiple names, claims links to Buddhism.
Analysts say China has tightened control over religious worship, among other areas, under the administration of President Xi Jinping (習近平), who took office in 2013.
Authorities have targeted cults after members of one group beat a woman whom they were trying to recruit to death in a McDonald’s restaurant in May last year.
In February, authorities executed a father and daughter, who belonged to the Quannengshen (全能神) group, for the murder. Another 14 members of the sect, whose name can be translated as Church of Almighty God, were jailed for up to three years in July.
In another case, a celebrity Chinese qigong master, Wang Lin (王林), who claimed to conjure snakes from thin air and cure the sick, was held by police on suspicion of kidnapping and murder in July, according to media reports.
A colossal explosion in the sky, unleashing energy hundreds of times greater than the Hiroshima bomb. A blinding flash nearly as bright as the sun. Shockwaves powerful enough to flatten everything for miles. It might sound apocalyptic, but a newly detected asteroid nearly the size of a football field now has a greater than 1 percent chance of colliding with Earth in about eight years. Such an impact has the potential for city-level devastation, depending on where it strikes. Scientists are not panicking yet, but they are watching closely. “At this point, it’s: ‘Let’s pay a lot of attention, let’s
Thousands gathered across New Zealand yesterday to celebrate the signing of the country’s founding document and some called for an end to government policies that critics say erode the rights promised to the indigenous Maori population. As the sun rose on the dawn service at Waitangi where the Treaty of Waitangi was first signed between the British Crown and Maori chiefs in 1840, some community leaders called on the government to honor promises made 185 years ago. The call was repeated at peaceful rallies that drew several hundred people later in the day. “This government is attacking tangata whenua [indigenous people] on all
UNDAUNTED: Panama would not renew an agreement to participate in Beijing’s Belt and Road project, its president said, proposing technical-level talks with the US US Secretary of State Marco Rubio on Sunday threatened action against Panama without immediate changes to reduce Chinese influence on the canal, but the country’s leader insisted he was not afraid of a US invasion and offered talks. On his first trip overseas as the top US diplomat, Rubio took a guided tour of the canal, accompanied by its Panamanian administrator as a South Korean-affiliated oil tanker and Marshall Islands-flagged cargo ship passed through the vital link between the Atlantic and Pacific oceans. However, Rubio was said to have had a firmer message in private, telling Panama that US President Donald Trump
CHEER ON: Students were greeted by citizens who honked their car horns or offered them food and drinks, while taxi drivers said they would give marchers a lift home Hundreds of students protesting graft they blame for 15 deaths in a building collapse on Friday marched through Serbia to the northern city of Novi Sad, where they plan to block three Danube River bridges this weekend. They received a hero’s welcome from fellow students and thousands of local residents in Novi Said after arriving on foot in their two-day, 80km journey from Belgrade. A small red carpet was placed on one of the bridges across the Danube that the students crossed as they entered the city. The bridge blockade planned for yesterday is to mark three months since a huge concrete construction