China jails 21 members of banned religious cult
BEIJING
Wed Dec 10, 2014
5:12am EST
(Reuters) - Courts in two Chinese cities handed jail terms to 21 members of a banned religious cult, state media said on Wednesday, in the latest action against a group that saw two of its members condemned to death in October.
China's Communist Party, obsessed with social stability, brooks no challenge to its rule. It has cracked down on cults, which have multiplied in recent years. Demonstrations have been put down with force and some sect leaders executed.
China has vowed to levy harsher punishments on anyone spreading superstitions or undermining the law through the use of a religious institution.
Members of the group, Quannengshen, or the Church of Almighty God, which had preached predictions of a global apocalypse in 2012, killed a 37-year-old woman in the eastern province of Shandong in May.
http://www.reuters.com/article/2014/12/10/us-china-religion-idUSKBN0JO0WM20141210