August 26, 2001: Newsgroups alt.culture.china, alt.fan.countries.china, aol.neighborhood.nation.china, apc.reg.china, aus.culture.china, princeton.china, soc.culture.china, talk.politics.china. Sept. 3, 2001: FreeRepublic.com, Foreign Affairs

BUENOS AIRES, August 16, 2001 (NFC / News From China) - The site of the magazine Cristiandad.org ( www.cristiandad.org ), which recently published a dossier about the persecutions suffered by the Chinese Catholics in their country, was suddenly closed by an Internet "Hosting" Firm that refused to give explanations about this arbitrary measure.

It is symptomatic that the sudden closure happened four days after Cristiandad.org, in collaboration with the newspaper "International Catholic Panorama", included in their web site the mentioned dossier which denounced the enhancement of the persecution to bishops, priests and lay Chinese Catholics.

This dossier was based on information provided by the Vatican Fides Agency and by the cardinal Bernard Law, Director of the Committee of International Issues, of the Conference of Catholic Bishops from the United States. Fides affirms that at least 10 bishops of the Church of Silence are prisoners or missing, and that the communist regime "has thrown a campaign for the elimination of the underground Church," faithful to Rome.

In that concern, Cristiandad.org comments that the 12 million Chinese Catholics pursued are "alive martyrs of the third millennium". They also comment that "1 000 million faithful Catholics in the entire world, firmly claiming in front of Chinese embassies in their respective countries, can be able to create an international environment that won’t allow or sustain the continuance or development of this persecution in China."

The editor of the newspaper "International Catholic Panorama", Marcelo González declared, "Everything indicates that the suddenly closure of the web site, without at least a previous warning, is the result of effective pressures, direct or indirect from the Chinese Communist regime. This may be probably considered a reprisal because this topic is a taboo: persecution to Chinese Catholics, something that was covered by an iron curtain, their silence. They won't succeed in intimidating us. We are already negotiating with other 'hosting' Firms to reopen Cristiandad.org Web Site, in order to continue with the activities."

At the beginning of this week, the NFC agency/ News From China, transmitted from their office in Buenos Aires to the world, a summary of the accusations from Cristiandad.org and International Catholic Panorama, raising an instantaneous and impressive movement of international solidarity in relation to the "Church of the Silence" inChina. The Catholic Agency of Information (ACI) has given a wide coverage to this initiative, which already has the adhesion of Chinese parishes in the whole world, professors, journalists, priests, nuns from convents, etc.

NFC/NewsFromChina