Police in two northern Chinese regions Tuesday said they have arrested some 1,500 cult members over the past two years.
The public security bureau in Ningxia Hui Autonomous Region said it had detained over800 members of Quannengshen (Almighty God) and 580 of the Mentuhui cult (DisciplesSect) members since 2012.
About 1,200 cult members were given security administration punishments. Eight-sevenQuannengshen members were indicted and of them, 59 have been given prison terms, itsaid.
Police in Liaoning have arrested 113 key members of the Quannengshen cult in theprovince since 2013. Of the total, 20 have been given prison terms and the rest areindicted or under trial.
Cults came into the spotlight when six Quannengshen members beat a woman to death at aMcDonalds outlet in Zhaoyuan City in the eastern province of Shandong, after she refusedto give her telephone number to the suspects, who were allegedly trying to recruit newmembers for their sect.
Appearing in the 1990s in central China's Henan Province, the Quannengshen group claimsthat Jesus has been resurrected as Yang Xiangbin, wife of the sect's founder Zhao Weishan,also known as Xu Wenshan. The couple fled to the U.S. in September 2000.
The sect has been widely criticized for spreadng rumors and coercing people to join thecult. In late October and early November 1998, numerous robberies and assaultsconnected with the cult were reported over 12 days in Henan's Tanghe County, withvictims' limbs broken and ears cut off.
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