The Chinese government yesterday condemned
Fr. Wang Chengli - diocesan administrator of the underground community
in Heze Diocese (Caozhou) in Shandong province – to two years of
"re-education through labour", probably because he refused to join the
Chinese government’s Catholic Patriotic Association.
The sentence was handed down on 25 August. The Heze priest, 48, was
transferred from the detention centre in Dongming, , to the re-education
centre of Jining: more than 150 kilometers away.
The government has not
allowed the family (or anyone else) to visit him during detention, so
the details of his conviction are not clear, however, some Heze Catholic
sources have told AsiaNews that it is connected to his firmness in
refusing to subscribe to the PA.
The same Catholic sources believe that the ruling against Fr. Wang could
be related to the issue of the ordination of the bishop of the official
church of Heze.
"Re-education through labour" is a sentence imposed by
the Public Security offices which aims to reform political and religious
dissidents, and minor offences.
Legal and human rights advocates describe it as a punishment with a
system of detention without trial or means of appeal. Some estimate more
than 300 thousand people in the country are being detained in
re-education centers.
The police detained Fr. Wang and three other
priests late at night on August 3 and took them to the detention centre
of Dongming County.
They were reportedly not allowed to eat in the beginning of their
detention, but were given food afterwards. Except Father Wang, the other
three priests have been released earlier, and are doing pastoral work
quietly in the area. Prayer houses, are closely monitored by officials.
A
relative of Fr Wang says that the priest has high blood pressure and
that the family is afraid for his health. The family, all natives of
Shandong, have been Catholic for generations.
Heze Catholics urgently ask members of the universal Church and the Holy
See to pray for Fr Wang and work for his release. The priest, born in
Yanzhou, has led the underground community in Heze in recent years.
Ordained a priest in 1991, Wang this year celebrated the 20th
anniversary of his ordination.
Meanwhile, the group of 30 Catholics in the underground community in
Tianshui diocese (Gansu) was released yesterday.
The group included
retired Bishop Casmirus Wang Milu, administrator Father Wang Ruohan,
several priests and about 20 lay leaders. A Catholic source told
AsiaNews that they are "happy to see their return."
In the evening
prayer "we thanked the Lord."
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