Cultic Studies Review, Vol. 1, No. 1, 2002, Page 79
"Shouters"
"Shouters" in Smuggling Case Say They Are Not A "Cult" /China
Underground Christians in Fujian province yesterday challenged the legal basis of the
mainland's prosecution of a Hong Kong man and two mainlanders for trying to smuggle
Bibles to them. The followers of the "Shouters" claim they are not a cult — as they have
been described by the mainland Government — and insist that the Bibles they were trying
to obtain could not be called "cult material." They also said they should not be called
Shouters as they had stopped their practice of shouting out their devotion to Jesus Christ.
(South China Morning Post. 1/12/02, Internet)
Meanwhile, Li Guangqiang, the Hong Kong businessman sentenced to two years in prison for
bringing the bibles into China, was released on medical grounds, two weeks before
President Bush was set to arrive in China. United States Secretary of State Colin Powell
slammed Li's jailing and said the US had been appalled at his treatment. (South China
Morning Post, 2/6/02, Internet Reuters, 2/10/02, Internet)
South China Church
South China Church Leaders Sentenced /China
The founder of the banned South China Church, Gong Shengliang, and his niece, have been
sentenced to death by a court in Jingmen City following conviction on charges including
"using a cult to undermine the enforcement of law," according to the Information Center for
Human rights and Democracy. The niece's sentence was suspended for two years. Such
sentences are usually commuted to life in prison.
Seventeen other church members received sentences of from two years to life. The 50,000
member fundamentalist, evangelical church — spread over some ten provinces in eastern
and central China — defied the law requiring Protestants to worship only in the state-
controlled nondenominational church. At a secret trial on December 18, Gong was also
convicted of complicity in rape and injuring 14 people during church rituals. Gong's niece
was also charged with being the founder of the "Hunan Special Periodical," an underground
Christian publication, of which a total of 500,000 copies in 48 issues were printed since it
began in 1994. The South China Church is one of 16 "underground" Christian churches
identified by the Chinese government, and the leaders of two of them have already been
executed. (AP, 12/30/01, Internet BBC Monitoring Asia-Pacific-Political, 12/31/01 Internet
Craig S. Smith, New York Times, 12/31/01))
Symbionese Liberation Army/Patty Hearst
Patty Hearst Eagerly Awaits The Trial
Patty Hearst, the newspaper heiress kidnapped by the Symbionese Liberation Army almost
three decades ago, says that she is eager and willing to testify in the coming trial of four
former SLA associates for a fatal bank robbery in 1975. "You know, it's been so long ...
and I feel that now there can be closure to this case," said Hearst, now Patricia Hearst
Shaw, in a wide-ranging interview with Larry King. Prosecutors believe that new evidence,
plus testimony from Hearst, who drove the getaway car, can convict the accused.
Hearst had little good to say about her former captors. She believes that the "small
revolutionary group" had its own jihad. They wanted to overthrow the government of the
United States. They called themselves an army. They planned on forming cells and going on
until they started a full-scale war in this country." She compared the SLA to the men who
bombed the Alfred P. Murrah Federal Building in Oklahoma City, and to the Charles Manson
cult. "Charles Manson wanted to start a war too," she said, recalling how Manson had his
followers scrawl words in blood at one of their crime scenes that he hoped would trigger a
"Shouters"
"Shouters" in Smuggling Case Say They Are Not A "Cult" /China
Underground Christians in Fujian province yesterday challenged the legal basis of the
mainland's prosecution of a Hong Kong man and two mainlanders for trying to smuggle
Bibles to them. The followers of the "Shouters" claim they are not a cult — as they have
been described by the mainland Government — and insist that the Bibles they were trying
to obtain could not be called "cult material." They also said they should not be called
Shouters as they had stopped their practice of shouting out their devotion to Jesus Christ.
(South China Morning Post. 1/12/02, Internet)
Meanwhile, Li Guangqiang, the Hong Kong businessman sentenced to two years in prison for
bringing the bibles into China, was released on medical grounds, two weeks before
President Bush was set to arrive in China. United States Secretary of State Colin Powell
slammed Li's jailing and said the US had been appalled at his treatment. (South China
Morning Post, 2/6/02, Internet Reuters, 2/10/02, Internet)
South China Church
South China Church Leaders Sentenced /China
The founder of the banned South China Church, Gong Shengliang, and his niece, have been
sentenced to death by a court in Jingmen City following conviction on charges including
"using a cult to undermine the enforcement of law," according to the Information Center for
Human rights and Democracy. The niece's sentence was suspended for two years. Such
sentences are usually commuted to life in prison.
Seventeen other church members received sentences of from two years to life. The 50,000
member fundamentalist, evangelical church — spread over some ten provinces in eastern
and central China — defied the law requiring Protestants to worship only in the state-
controlled nondenominational church. At a secret trial on December 18, Gong was also
convicted of complicity in rape and injuring 14 people during church rituals. Gong's niece
was also charged with being the founder of the "Hunan Special Periodical," an underground
Christian publication, of which a total of 500,000 copies in 48 issues were printed since it
began in 1994. The South China Church is one of 16 "underground" Christian churches
identified by the Chinese government, and the leaders of two of them have already been
executed. (AP, 12/30/01, Internet BBC Monitoring Asia-Pacific-Political, 12/31/01 Internet
Craig S. Smith, New York Times, 12/31/01))
Symbionese Liberation Army/Patty Hearst
Patty Hearst Eagerly Awaits The Trial
Patty Hearst, the newspaper heiress kidnapped by the Symbionese Liberation Army almost
three decades ago, says that she is eager and willing to testify in the coming trial of four
former SLA associates for a fatal bank robbery in 1975. "You know, it's been so long ...
and I feel that now there can be closure to this case," said Hearst, now Patricia Hearst
Shaw, in a wide-ranging interview with Larry King. Prosecutors believe that new evidence,
plus testimony from Hearst, who drove the getaway car, can convict the accused.
Hearst had little good to say about her former captors. She believes that the "small
revolutionary group" had its own jihad. They wanted to overthrow the government of the
United States. They called themselves an army. They planned on forming cells and going on
until they started a full-scale war in this country." She compared the SLA to the men who
bombed the Alfred P. Murrah Federal Building in Oklahoma City, and to the Charles Manson
cult. "Charles Manson wanted to start a war too," she said, recalling how Manson had his
followers scrawl words in blood at one of their crime scenes that he hoped would trigger a
