The Information Center for Human Rights and Democracy,...

The Information Center for Human Rights and Democracy, said that a Hong Kong man Lai Kwon-Keung, 38, faces the death penalty in China for allegedly smuggling thousands of Bibles across the border to an outlawed Christian group.
Lai and two other members of the "Shouters" religious group are to facetrial in the Fuqing intermediate court in Fujian province in the coming week. The "Shouters" group got its name, said the center, because members shout their devotion to Jesus Christ.
Hong Kong's Sunday Morning Post reported the Hong Kong Security Bureau had received requests for assistance from Lai's family and that immigration officials had passed on the family's concerns to Mainland officials.
The rights group said that Lai and his companions were facing charges of "using an evil cult to undermine law enforcement." It said a conviction could carry the death penalty. It said Lai had been a devoted Christian for more than 10 years and a member of a Hong Kong-based Christian group, "The Church in Hong Kong."
The newspaper quoted a spokesman from Lai's church who said he had been a member for only a few months and that his trip to the Mainland had nothing to do with the church and that the church was in no way associated with the Shouters.
The rights group said that the Shouters were one of the fastest growing underground churches in Mainland China with reportedly more than 500,000 members.
It reported last month China sentenced the leader of a banned Christian sect and his niece to death. The center said the founder of the South China Church Gong Shengliang, 46, was convicted of complicity in rape by the Jingmen City Intermediate Court and the charges against Gong included "using a cult to undermine the enforcement of the law."
The rights group said Gong and his niece were among 17 church officials given sentences by the Jingmen court in Hubei province. The 15 others each received jail terms from two years to life in prison.
Gong's church gained popularity over the last decade and its congregation grew to over 50,000 in 10 provinces across the center of the country. Gong was arrested along with his fellow worshippers in April after the authorities decided his church was a cult.
The center said this could be part of the government's fight to stamp out the outlawed Falun Gong spiritual movement, which it sees as a threat to its control.
Churches are only allowed to conduct services if they fall under non-denominational state control.Independent religious groups are not tolerated by authorities in Mainland China.
The Sunday Morning Post said the Public Security Ministry issued a document listing the Shouters as a banned cult in 1996.
The rights group said that Lai was stopped by police and detained in May when he attempted to take more than 16,000 copies of the Bible to Fuqing. It he had been stopped by police the previous month when he attempted to carry 16,800 Bibles from Hong Kong to Fuqing by way of the southern Chinese city of Shenzhen.
The center said last month prosecutors in Fuqing declared the cult charge against Lai and his two companions.