BEIJING (October 8, 3:16 a.m. PDT) - Citing lack of evidence, an appeals court in central China has overturned death sentences for five leaders of a banned Christian sect and ordered a retrial - an exceptional move in a country that controls religion so tightly, a human rights group said Tuesday.
The supreme court in Hubei province said a lower court's decision last year to impose the death sentences "was not clear and was not based on enough evidence," the Hong Kong-based Information Center for Human Rights and Democracy said.
The Jingmen City Intermediate Court must retry Gong Shengliang, Li Ying, Xiu Fuming, Hu Yong and Gong Bangkun on Wednesday, the high court ordered in its Sept. 22 ruling, according to the center.
The court on Tuesday referred all inquiries to China's national Supreme Court, whose press office said it had no details.
Gong established the South China Church in 1991 as an offshoot of another Christian group, the Total Scope Church. It grew over a decade to encompass some 50,000 members spread through 10 provinces in eastern and central China.
China's Bureau of State Security arrested Gong and the four others in April 2001 after labeling the church a cult, part of an ongoing campaign against the outlawed Falun Gong spiritual sect and other groups seen by the Communist Party's leadership as challenging its political monopoly.
The five were convicted in December 2001 of "using an evil cult to undermine the enforcement of the law," the center said.
The charges against the five are the most serious handed down to the leaders of groups labeled by Beijing as cults since the crackdown began in July 1999. Supporters of Falun Gong, which combines traditional Chinese exercise techniques with some Buddhist principles, have been given prison sentences of up to 18 years.
China allows only government-monitored churches, and has harassed and imprisoned Christians, Buddhists and others who worship outside the official system.
For example, the state-sanctioned Chinese Patriotic Catholic Association, which operates China's only authorized Catholic churches, doesn't recognize papal authority. The communist government forced Chinese Roman Catholics to break ties with the Vatican in 1951, though millions remain loyal to the pope.
A report released in Washington on Monday by the U.S. State Department put China among six countries it said were trying to control religious beliefs or practices. The other five are Myanmar, Cuba, Laos, Vietnam and North Korea.
In China, "unapproved religious and spiritual groups remained under scrutiny and, in some cases, harsh repression," the report said.
The government also continued to control the "growth and scope of the activity of religious groups to prevent the rise of possible sources of authority outside of the control of the government," the report said.
Kazuo Yoshihara, a professor of Asian studies at Keio University in Tokyo who has written about religion in China, said two major events - China's entry into the World Trade Organization and the upcoming 2008 Olympics in Beijing - may have influenced the higher court's decision.
"This change in a court is supposed to be a step in the process of democratization in China," Yoshihara said. "You can call it a victory of U.S. government policy of democratizing China."