Wednesday, November 04, 2009

More persecution in China.

'Public Security Bureau officials are keeping up the pressure on the Fushan Church in Linfen city – detaining ten more of its members and blacklisting its leaders.Last month, officials offered to release ten leaders of Fushan Church in Shanxi province who were arrested on September 25. The Christians were detained after protesting about their church compound being demolished in a violent raid by police and officials (Prayer Alert, October 20, 2009). Dozens of church members were left seriously injured.
But when the detained Christian leaders learned that officials intended to hold one of their number, Pastor Yang Rongli, 'until further notice', they refused to leave jail without her.
Officials retaliated by detaining Pastor Yang's younger sister Yang Linli for six days, ransacking another pastor's home and arresting ten more leaders. Pastor Yang was then formally accused of 'illegal building and disturbing the social order' – as was another leader, Hua Mei. Five other church leaders were sentenced to criminal detention (a penalty for relatively minor offences, served out in a 'detention house' rather than in jail) – though three of them have since been released on parole. Nineteen members of Fushan Church are believed still to be in custody.'

http://www.releaseinternational.org/pages/posts/china-yet-more-fushan-church-leaders-arrested-in-shanxi-627.php

'New' Caravaggio on Display.

  “Caravaggio can freeze a moment — it’s hypnotic, magnetic and it’s coming home,” said Paola Nicita, an art historian who worked on the loa...