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Tuesday, August 17, 2004 |
Hong Kong Democrat Caught in Sex Scandal in China [VOA]
A member of Hong Kong's leading pro-democracy party has been jailed in Mainland China for allegedly hiring a prostitute. Democratic leaders are rallying to his defense, charging that the man was framed by Beijing.
46-year-old Alex Ho (Wai-to) was arrested Friday during a business trip to Southern China and will reportedly be held for six month's 're-education' in a Chinese prison.
Mr. Ho is a district leader in Hong Kong for the Democratic Party and a candidate for the legislative elections scheduled for September 12.
Democratic Party leaders say the charges are bogus and Beijing is trying to smear their party just weeks before the elections.
The democrats are persistent critics of Beijing, which in April rejected popular calls for an early introduction of universal suffrage in the former British colony. Mr. Ho's wife insists he is innocent.
She says police physically threatened her husband and then forced him to sign a confession after condoms and a woman he did not know were brought into his room. [more]
3:49:45 PM 
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THE “Y” IN CHINA
Christian Youth Organization Runs Hotels and Schools in Communist Country
By Wolfgang Polzer
Special to ASSIST News Service
WETZLAR (ANS) -- Christian tourists in China are sometimes amazed to spot a YMCA sign at a hotel. Most foreigners are not even aware that the “Young Men’s (and Women’s) Christian Association” - with 30 million members in 125 countries – exists in the People’s Republic, and that the Chinese “Y” lives up to the “C” in its name. Like all Chinese churches the “Y” was badly decimated during the Cultural Revolution. Today there are ten local YMCAs. This summer, Albrecht Kaul, deputy General Secretary of the German YMCA, traveled through East and Central China for seven weeks. His route took him from Shanghai to Hong Kong via Nanjing, Nanchang, Wuhan, Chengdu, Xian, Beijing and Guangzhou.
Kaul has spent most of his life under Communist rule in East Germany. Thus he has first hand experience, as he recalls, “of how God’s church flourishes even under a Communist ideology”. No wonder that Kaul was keen to learn how the churches and the YMCA are doing in China.
He visited seven YMCAs and was impressed with their manifold ministries carried out by a very small full-time staff. The income of the hotels helps finance the YMCA’s ministry among children, adolescents and senior citizens. According to Kaul it is in keeping with the Christian youth organization’s commission that it serves the elderly and people with special needs - they are the losers in China’s new competitive society. The break-up of large families and the one-child-policy have made life harder for these groups. Some nurseries are already being converted into pensioners’ homes.
In the mornings and afternoons, however, the YMCAs belong to children and teenagers. There is time and space to do homework and to play. Counseling, dancing lessons, choir practice, calligraphy, English language training, Chinese opera and sports are on offer. Each city-YMCA has projects in rural areas, for example summer vacation camps. Participants and co-workers do not have to be YMCA members. For understandable reasons they tend to keep membership small, says Kaul. There is obvious concern that the Communist party may tighten the reins once again.
Kaul visited several YMCA village schools. In Jin Tang, for example, it is financed by the Y in Hong Kong and run by the Y in Chengdu. Basic school education is, of course, the realm of the state, but other activities like English language training, sports, health education and the maintenance of the building are the Y’s responsibility.
Apparently the state authorities have learnt to trust the YMCA. After the Cultural Revolution confiscated buildings were returned; in some cases the authorities even paid for the renovation. They also turned nurseries, meeting halls, and swimming pools over to the YMCA. The volunteers and full time workers are responsible for giving the social work a Christian touch.
The Chinese YMCA cooperates with the state registered churches. Open mission and evangelism are not possible, but the churches offer worship, youth bible study groups, women’s ministries, and Bible reading afternoons. God himself adds thousands to the flock, says Kaul, in a way unimaginable for contemporary Europeans. Worship services – up to four times a Sunday – are filled to overflowing. Anyone arriving later that half an hour early has to find a space in a yard or on a sidewalk. There are traffic jams when those leaving the first service are met by those arriving for the second.
Baptisms of hundreds of believers are not uncommon. The Chinese Christian Council estimates that on average six local churches are springing up each day in China – and that is not counting the unregistered house churches. They experience even faster growth, says Kaul. One example: In 1980 after the Cultural Revolution a church was returned to a group of four Christians in Chengdu. Money was provided for rebuilding, but they had to carry out the work by themselves. Today the church has more than 5,000 members. Kaul: “To stand in this church, to hear accounts of persecuted and humiliated Christians and to listen to their inspired singing is a memory which follows me even in my dreams”.
Kaul also marvels at house churches, which refuse to be registered because they do not want to be controlled by the government. The Communist authorities see them as a risk. Occasionally there are raids, and some Christians are arrested. The situation differs greatly from one province to another, says Kaul. He visited an unregistered group in Beijing, which meets once a week in an apartment block. They sang hymns with the windows wide open, and when Kaul asked cautiously, if that was not too dangerous, they reassured him: “The neighbors are also Christians; they belong to a different house group”. Kaul is convinced that as China plays an increasingly important role in the economic world, so Christians should be more aware of what God is doing in this country with enormous potentials.
3:38:41 PM
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China's Media Still Under the Heel of the CCP [The Epoch Times]
Last year Mainland China selected eight newspapers as experimental units for reform, and planned on summarizing a report of the reforms around this October. One official from the Newspaper and Periodical Management Section of the China... [more]
10:40:03 AM
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© 2004 Radio Free China
Last Update: 9/1/2004; 12:50:06 PM
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