China cracks down on doomsday cult
2012-12-14 16:01
Beijing - China has launched a crackdown on a cult it
says is calling for a "decisive battle" to slay the "Red
Dragon" Communist Party, and which has been spreading doomsday rumours,
state media said on Friday.
In recent weeks, hundreds of members of the
"Almighty God" group have clashed with police, sometimes outside
government buildings, in central Henan, northern Shaanxi and south-western
Gansu provinces, according to photos on popular microblogs.
(The group) has "incited followers to launch a
decisive battle with the 'Big Red Dragon', to make the 'Red Dragon' extinct and
to establish the reign of the kingdom of the 'Almighty God'", the
provincial Shaanxi Daily said on its website.
It added that the sect's followers have been distributing
leaflets saying that the world will end in 2012.
China's Communist Party brooks no challenge to its rule
and is obsessed with social stability.
It has particularly taken aim at cults, which have
multiplied across the country in recent years. Demonstrations have been put
down with force and some sect leaders executed.
"The state bureau of religious affairs has already
documented the group's cult nature, has outlawed it and is presently harshly
cracking down," the Shaanxi Daily said.
It did not say how many followers the sect had.
The state bureau of religious affairs did not answer
repeated calls from Reuters seeking comment.
Former President Jiang Zemin launched a campaign in 1999
to crush the Falun Gong religious group, banning it as an "evil cult"
after thousands of practitioners staged a surprise but peaceful sit-in outside
the leadership compound in Beijing to demand official recognition of their
movement.
