China vice principal demoted over Bible study session

BEIJING, Mar 1 (Reuters) The vice principal of a Chinese Communist Party training school said she has been demoted for organising a Bible study session, the latest case of Christians being punished for worshipping outside party parameters.

Geng Sude, 55, a Protestant, was told on Febuary. 5 that she was being stripped of her party membership and of her title of vice principal of the Party School in Baoding, a city in Hebei province neighbouring Beijing.

''I did not break the law. I did not say anything anti-government or anti-China,'' Geng told Reuters. She vowed to appeal to provincial party authorities.

She retains her professorship in philosophy, but it was unclear whether the school would give her any classes to teach.

About 100 police stormed the 10th-floor auditorium of the Party School in Baoding on January. 1 and broke up the Bible study session that she had organised.

About 50 Christian attendees, including lawyers, professors, authors, journalists and artists, were detained and questioned by police for hours and their belongings searched.

It was not the first Bible study session Geng had organised, but it was her first brush with the authorities.

''It never occurred to me that the authorities would regard it this seriously,'' Geng said, adding that she decided to host the event at the Party School auditorium because it was rarely used.

''Why would I take such a big risk?'' she said when asked if she was deliberately pushing the boundaries of religious freedom.

She said the party was relatively more tolerant towards civil servants who were Buddhists.

The Baoding Party Committee declined to comment.

BANNED China has frowned on unsanctioned religious gatherings since banning the Falun Gong spiritual movement and branding it a cult in 1999.

Li Baiguang, a Beijing-based Christian legal activist and one of the attendees, condemned the first publicly known case of a civil servant being purged for his or her Christian beliefs.

''It's unheard of,'' Li said. ''Depriving a party member of her right to religious belief violates China's constitution.'' Religious freedom is enshrined in China's constitution, but the government expects Christians to worship in ''patriotic'' churches under state control with clergy vetted by the state.

China has about 40 million active Christians, and their numbers are evenly divided between state-run and underground churches, according to expert estimates.

Chinese leaders have warned in internal speeches that religious revival is a force for subversion and potential chaos. Churches and temples were closed down and priests and monks defrocked during the 1966-76 Cultural Revolution.

More recently, it is not uncommon for police to break up underground church services and detain priests and seminarians.

In 2005, a Protestant minister was jailed for three years for publishing the Bible and other religious publications.

Geng said she still had ''feelings'' for the party.

''Under no circumstance will I attack, criticise or fling abuse at it,'' said Geng, a party member since 1970.

''The Bible study session was aimed at helping to build a harmonious society,'' she said, invoking national party chief Hu Jintao's slogan to placate the have-nots of society.

''The party should ease, not create, contradictions,'' said Geng, whose mother and maternal grandmother were also Christians.

''Class struggles are no longer the party culture.

The party should be more forgiving and tolerant.'' REUTERS PB RK0957