CHINA: Secret Chinese government documents detailing attempts to crush unauthorised religious groups have been published by a US-based human rights group.
The eight documents outline in great detail moves by the Chinese authorities to crack down on underground Catholic churches, and the use of secret agents to infiltrate illegal Protestant congregations.
The papers, obtained by the New York-based Committee for Investigation on Persecution of Religion in China, also document orders for "forceful measures" to be taken against the banned Falun Gong spiritual movement.
According to the group, the papers were smuggled out of China by Chinese Christians working with sympathetic local police and a former intelligence official. The publication of the papers comes as pressure mounts on President Bush to raise the issue of religious freedom with Chinese leaders when he visits Beijing next week.
An international campaign is already underway on behalf of five leaders of an evangelical Christian group sentenced to death last December under China's anti-cult law.
The five are leaders of the South China Church, an underground group that claims 50,000 followers in several provinces of central China. The five were convicted in secret trials, which included charges of rape, assault and sabotaging national security.
In a move seen as an attempt to avoid a confrontation with Mr Bush, the Chinese authorities released a man who had been convicted of smuggling Bibles to a banned Christian sect.
US officials had made it known that Mr Bush was incensed by the case in which Mr Li Guangqiang, a Hong Kong businessman, was sentenced to two years in prison.
In the case of the South China Church leaders, the founder, Mr Gong Shengliang, was charged with rape, based on allegations of sexual contact with female followers. But several of the women victims have denied the rapes and said they were tortured by police into making the allegations.