A total of 14 members of a Chinese religious cult have been
jailed for up to three years, state media said Sunday, the latest sentences
after two members were executed this year for killing a woman.
Nine members of the banned Quannengshen group were convicted
of “undermining the implementation of laws by making use of cult
organisations”, the official Xinhua news agency said, citing prosecutors in the
central province of Hubei.
The sentences ranged from 18 months to three years, the
agency quoted local authorities as saying on Sunday.
It added that on Saturday a court in the northeastern
province of Liaoning sentenced five cult members to prison terms of two or
three years.
The agency said the punishments were for “spreading cult
propaganda”.
Followers of Quannengshen, whose name can be translated as
Church of Almighty God, believe that Jesus has been reincarnated as a Chinese
woman — the wife of the cult’s founder.
The organisation appeared in the 1990s and the founder and
his wife fled to the United States in 2000, Xinhua said.
A father and daughter who belonged to Quannengshen were
executed in February after being convicted of beating a woman to death at a
McDonald’s restaurant, reportedly after she rebuffed their attempts to recruit
her.
Three others convicted over the attack — including another
of the executed man’s daughters — were given prison terms ranging from seven
years to life.
Earlier this month Xinhua reported that the spiritual leader
of a Chinese Buddhist sect would be prosecuted for financial and sexual
offences.
China has cracked down harshly on religious groups, mostly
notably on the Falungong movement which was banned in the late 1990s.
It has submitted to its rubber-stamp parliament a new law
which includes harsher punishments for those involved in “cults or superstitious
activities”.
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